Test Case Management: The Foundation for an Exceptional QA Organization

Test case management is the backbone of a QA organization. Whether the goal is to validate feature functionality or ensure regressions don’t slip through to end users, you need robust and trusted test cases to release software efficiently and confidently.

It’s painful for many companies to build, maintain and execute a robust library of high-quality test case suites. Those teams often suffer from poor quality, gaps in coverage, bottlenecks in releases and missed opportunities to add value through testing.

That’s why as the leader in digital quality, Applause offers a test case management solution, a key cog of the Product Excellence Platform. With this enterprise-grade solution that we’ve provided for clients for a decade plus, we build, manage, execute, and maintain test cases at scale for our clients. This is proven to improve quality, accelerate release velocity, and maximize the value of test cases.

Let’s dig into why managing test cases is so hard, and how Applause can help.

Managing test cases: Hard to start, harder to maintain

These are three core areas where companies struggle with test case management:

• A shortage of talented test case writers places major burdens on QA managers to write and maintain libraries of test cases, leading to outdated, biased and useless test cases.

• Relying on spreadsheets to manage test cases creates project management headaches and a lack of visibility into valuable insights, such as why test cases are failing and how to optimize test case suites.

• Depending on the complexity and size of a test case suite and QA team, it can take days to complete testing, creating a bottleneck that prevents rapid and continuous releases. Lack of formal test management also limits teams’ ability to develop in parallel, further slowing releases.

Managing test cases on your behalf

Applause has managed test cases on behalf of clients for years, from writing and maintenance to management and execution.

“We came to Applause with our existing test case suite and transitioned it over to the Applause platform, which has helped us scale up our test case writing capabilities and improve the quality of our digital assets,” said Adam Blumberg, QA Manager at AllTrails. “Now our test cases cover more scenarios and we know they’re updated regularly to maintain that high quality. Resources for test case writing are in short supply, so having Applause and its global community on our side takes the stress out of the entire test case management process.”

Here are core benefits of Applause’s Test Case Management:

• High-quality test cases

You’ll receive a dedicated and proficient professional test case writer, with experience writing and managing test cases at scale. The test case writer brings knowledge of your product and testing needs alongside a third-party perspective that ensures unbiased test cases written from an end-user perspective.

We’ve seen clients leverage test cases that were written years ago, before literally hundreds of product updates — it’s no wonder the test cases were ineffective. Applause’s test case writer proactively maintains test cases on an ongoing basis, ensuring that test cases remain relevant and accurate as the product changes and advances. A clear testing strategy will bring confidence and speed to your releases.

• High-speed test case execution

Testing a full regression suite with only internal resources is a great way to slow down your release schedule. If you have a regression test suite that takes 20 hours to execute, and only one available tester, it will take several days to complete the testing. Applause can execute that test suite in a fraction of the time.

We build custom and vetted testing teams sourced from our global community to match your specific testing needs. These teams take a ‘divide-and-conquer’ approach to execute all portions of the test case suites, and test simultaneously around the globe, enabling test case suites to be fully completed overnight.

• Higher level of insights

If you manage test cases in spreadsheets, it’s near impossible to gain valuable insights into your test cases. With Applause’s test case management solution, you’ll receive additional metrics and analytics that can shape your development and testing strategies.

Applause conducts trend analysis of test cases and provides details that go beyond pass/fail, to create traceability, or the ability to trace requirements to test cases. For example, when a test case fails, Applause ties the bugs to a specific step, enabling the team to view trends over time and uncover if there is a larger issue with the product or even the test itself.

In addition, the Applause Quality Test Score™ now incorporates structured test results, providing a quantitative view into quality based solely on test cases and helping you make informed, data-driven release decisions.

What’s next?

As the Product Excellence Platform evolves and expands, we’ll continue to provide new test case management capabilities — further advancing your testing practices and digital quality. Today, you can leverage our uTest community of digital experts for test case management. Over time, you’ll be able to use our SaaS-based test case management product to manage your own internal resources and QA teams. Either way, we’ll help you stay on top of all test results, issues and fixes, all from in a single location.

Learn more about test case management in our in our ebook "Three Best Practices for Test Case Management."