Using Jira for QA Testing: Tools, Strategies, and Best Practices

Using Jira for QA testing seems like it should be a simple solution – DevOps uses Jira, and since Quality Assurance (QA) works closely with DevOps, QA should use Jira too.

However, integrating QA into your Jira project management system and processes isn’t always straightforward.

It takes careful planning to ensure Jira fits seamlessly into your QA process. Furthermore, QA teams often need to communicate bug fixes, delays, and updates to teams like customer success or even the C-suite. Jira alone doesn’t always work for these use cases, requiring Jira add-ons.

If you’re not sure how to help your QA team make the leap to Jira, this guide will walk you through the best practices, tools, and strategies to ensure that your QA team can maximize the platform’s capabilities. In this post, we’ll cover:

• Use cases for QA testing in Jira
• Tools you can use with Jira to optimize your workflows
• How to set up Jira for QA testing
• Best practices for QA Testing in Jira

One best practice? Combining Jira and Visor. Visor lets you get Jira data in the hands of people who may not be Jira users. Share your data in easy-to-understand, easy-to customize formats that ensure all your stakeholders are kept in the loop. Try it for free!

Why Use Jira for QA Testing

Yes, Jira is primarily known for managing software development projects, but it’s also a powerful tool for QA testing. Here are a few of the major reasons why QA teams often use Jira:

1. Centralized Bug Tracking: With Jira, QA teams can easily log, track, and manage bugs. This lets you make sure that no issues slip through the cracks, and that all bugs are documented properly so that you have all the necessary details, including steps to reproduce, severity, and priority.
   
2. Custom Workflows for QA: Jira’s customizable workflows let you design QA-specific processes that align with your development methodologies, whether that’s Agile, Scrum, or Waterfall. That allows you to create clear processes for bug reporting, test case execution, and bug resolution.
   
3. Collaboration Across Teams: As we mentioned up top, Jira fosters better communication between QA and development teams. Using comments, attachments, and mentions, teams can discuss issues directly within the Jira tickets, letting you resolve issues faster and avoid miscommunication. 

You can extend your ability to collaborate even further using Visor. As you may know there is no real way to provide guest user access to Jira. Visor lets you share Jira data with users that don’t use Jira. So if you need to share QA info with stakeholders who don’t have Jira seats, you can post data to an unlimited number of viewers.

Visor lets you create unlimited filtered Views so that you can only present the data you need to your chosen audience. Try it for free to see how Visor can help you share QA data with everyone who needs insight into testing.

How to Set Up Jira for QA Testing

Setting up Jira for QA testing is more than just creating tickets and assigning bugs. Here’s a detailed guide on how to optimize Jira for your QA process:

1: Create Custom Issue Types for QA

Jira’s default issue types include “Bug,” “Task,” and “Story,” but QA teams often need more specific types to manage their work efficiently. Luckily, Jira lets you create custom issue types as well. A few you might consider include: 

• Test Case
• Test Plan
• Test Execution
• Regression Test

These additional issue types allow you to track different aspects of QA separately and ensure that everything is properly documented. 

Note: If you’re sharing your Jira data in Visor, you can also share those custom issue types as well so that users viewing your Visor board get all the information they need.

2: Build Custom Workflows

Custom workflows are at the heart of what makes Jira so flexible. For QA testing, consider creating workflows that track test case creation, test execution, and bug resolution in detail. Define transitions between statuses like “In Progress,” “Ready for Testing,” “Bug Found,” “Retest,” and “Closed.” This ensures that you have a visual representation of each task’s status and prevents confusion between team members.

3: Get Integrations

Jira itself isn’t a test management tool, but it integrates with several industry-leading options like Zephyr, Xray, and Jenkins. Once integrated, these tools allow you to manage test cases, track test execution, and report test results directly within Jira. Other tools, like Visor, allow you to share your information with teams outside of Jira in customizable spreadsheets, Gantt charts, Board Views, and Dashboards.

An overview of Jira bugs and other issues, in Visor, used by Jira QA teams:

4: Use Jira’s Automation Features

Jira offers powerful automation capabilities that can significantly cut down on manual work. For example, you can automate transitions between issue statuses based on certain conditions. When a bug is marked as “Resolved,” you can automatically notify the QA team to begin retesting. If all test cases associated with a user story pass, you can automatically transition the story to “Done.”

5: Create Filters and Dashboards for QA

Filters are a powerful tool in Jira. QA teams can create filters to quickly view all bugs in a certain status (e.g., “Open” or “In Progress”), or to track all test cases linked to a specific feature or user story. Once you have created useful filters, add them to custom dashboards for a bird’s-eye view of testing progress. Dashboards can include charts, lists, and graphs, providing valuable insights into the state of QA at a glance.

You can expand the number of team members who can see your QA Team’s progress using Visor. Visor lets you create an unlimited number of views, letting you filter based on status, assignee, and any other customizations you like. The advantage is, you don’t have to be a Jira user to view data in Visor, and there’s no additional per user cost for viewing boards in Visor.

A Visor dashboard:

Advanced Use Cases for QA Testing in Jira

Not sure what Jira can do for your QA Team? Here are some advanced use cases to consider:

1: Automating Test Case Execution with CI/CD Integration

If you want to automate the deployment and testing process, you need continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. By integrating Jira with CI/CD tools like Jenkins, you can automatically trigger test case executions whenever new code is deployed.

This automation not only saves time but also ensures that all necessary tests are executed without anything being missed. The test results are automatically logged in Jira, allowing teams to easily track test progress and quickly identify any failed tests.

2: Defining Acceptance Criteria for QA

You can configure Jira to include acceptance criteria as part of your development and testing workflow. If you define acceptance criteria within Jira tasks or stories, you can ensure that QA teams understand what the expected outcomes are before they start their tests. This lets you make sure that developers and testers are aligned on what “done” looks like and cuts the risk of the QA team getting incomplete or misunderstood requirements.

3: Managing Regression Testing

New releases mean new opportunities for perfectly good features to get broken by new code. Regression tests help avoid problems, and Jira makes it easy to manage regression test suites by linking them to specific versions or sprints. QA teams can even prioritize test cases based on risk, so that you know critical functionality will always be tested first.

By adding tools like Xray or Zephyr to the mix, QA teams can also track the history of test case execution, making it easier to identify flaky tests that pass or fail inconsistently.

4: Bug Bashing

Another powerful use case: Jira lets you log bugs that need to be addressed by DevOps. 

Though bugs can be logged directly in Jira, you can also manage a large-scale bug bash that includes teams of QA. For instance, you could create a board for users in Visor that shows where they should focus their bug-bashing efforts. Then once the team has tested out your new feature, review their responses in Visor for accuracy before syncing with Jira. You get an overview of issues without additional Jira seats and without allowing your larger team to inadvertently make changes in Jira.

Is Jira a Test Management Tool?

Jira is not a purpose built test management tool, but it can be used for many basic testing and test management processes.

Jira has these test management capabilities:

• Issue linking and testing traceability: In Jira you can link test cases to requirements, bugs, user stories, features, and other issues, which enables you to connect tests to relevant issues and give a holistic picture of the purpose, context, and outcomes of your testing activities.
  
• Testing workflows: You can create custom workflows to support testing processes in Jira, to ensure an iron-clad testing process (with followup activities), and reduce manual input.
  
• Issues and fields for testing: You can create custom issue types specifically for testing purposes, and custom fields within those issues or standard issues to track testing details.

Jira lacks these test management capabilities:

• Test planning: Jira lacks specialized features to plan, organize, and run tests, meaning that test planning is a largely manual and unstructured process, which can lead to errors, or important steps being overlooked and not added to the testing flow.
  
• Test templating: There is no easy way to reuse tests cases across different test cycles and projects, you can manually replicate tests but that is inefficient.
  
• Purpose built test reports: Jira does not have the ready-to-go testing reports you would expect to find in a testing/QA tool.
  
• Performance and scalability: Running large numbers of tests and test cases can cause Jira to slow down and impact your ability to complete tests as fast as you would be able to with a purpose built testing tool.
  
• Automated test execution: Jira does not have native functionality to start automated tests or automatically manage test execution. You can automate some basic testing workflow with Jira but more will not find pre-built, easy to schedule activities that you would expect from a purpose built testing too.
• Version control: Jira does not offer robust versioning for test cases, meaning you will have to create and maintain a system for version control yourself.

To address these shortcomings, many Jira users opt to use Jira integrated test management tools or other apps, plugins to enhance Jira’s test management capabilities. See below.

Best Jira Test Management Tools

While Jira is great on its own, there are several powerful tools and add-ons that can be integrated with Jira to enhance your QA testing processes. These tools provide capabilities like test case management, test automation, bug tracking, and data sharing. Here are some key tools that complement Jira for QA testing:

Visor

• Purpose: Sharing data and visualizations with external and internal stakeholders
• Overview: Visor is a spreadsheet-inspired workspace that lets you share data with users that aren’t heavy Jira users. It gives you the ability to share with other teams or teammates in your org that may not use Jira (or who you don’t want messing with your Jira setup). Whether you’re hosting bug bashes or giving updates to Customer Success, Visor sets your QA team up for success and allows them to communicate more effectively.
• Atlassian Marketplace Review Score: 3.8 out of 4
• Features:
  • Seamless bi-directional connection to Jira
  • Customizable Dashboard views, Kanban boards, Gantt chart views, and Timelines 
  • Milestone capabilities not currently available in Jira
  • Unlimited free viewers let you share Jira data without paying for extra Jira seats
• Use case: Connecting with contractors; allowing your organization to host effective bug bashes; communicating status updates to other teams
• Where to find it: Visor homepage

Xray for Jira

• Purpose: Test management and execution
• Overview: Xray is a comprehensive test management tool that integrates with Jira. It supports both manual and automated testing, which lets your team define tests as Jira issues. Xray allows you to create test plans, test sets, and test executions while offering in-depth reporting to track test results and coverage.
• Atlassian Marketplace Review Score: 3.5 out of 4
• Features:
  • Test case management (manual and automated)
  • Integration with CI/CD tools like Jenkins
  • Traceability between requirements, tests, and defects
  • Built-in reporting on test coverage and execution
• Use case: Managing end-to-end test processes, including automated test executions.
• Where to find it: Atlassian Marketplace

TestRail

• Purpose: Test case management
• Overview: TestRail is a standalone test management tool that integrates with Jira to provide test planning and tracking functionalities. It offers an intuitive interface for creating test cases, managing test suites, and organizing testing efforts. TestRail lets you link test results to Jira issues, giving your QA team visibility into testing progress.
• Features:
  • Test case organization and execution tracking
  • Integration with Jira for bug tracking
  • Advanced reporting on test runs and results
  • Customizable dashboards
• Use case: Streamlining test case management and tracking test progress in larger teams.
• Where to find it: TestRail Homepage

Selenium

• Purpose: Test automation
• Overview: Need to automate web-based application tests? Selenium is an open-source test automation framework that integrates with Jira and lets you do just that. While Selenium doesn’t natively integrate with Jira, using tools like Xray lets you link test results to Jira issues. This helps your QA team track and report on automated test executions.
• Features:
  • Browser-based automation for functional testing
  • Integration with Jira through test management tools (e.g., Xray, Zephyr)
  • Support for multiple languages (Java, Python, etc.)
• Use case: Automating functional and regression testing for web applications.
• Where to find it: Selenium Homepage

Jenkins

• Purpose: Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
• Overview: Jenkins is a leading open-source CI/CD tool that can be integrated with Jira to automate testing and deployments. Jenkins automates the build, test, and deploy processes so that your QA team can execute tests automatically when new code is pushed. Jira can be updated with the test results, providing visibility into the quality of the build.
• Features:
  • Automates test execution in CI/CD pipelines
  • Integration with Jira for reporting test results
  • Supports various testing frameworks and automation tools
• Use case: Automating the testing and deployment pipeline to maintain high-quality software in Agile and DevOps environments.
• Where to find it: Jenkins Homepage

If that’s piqued your interest you can learn more about the best plugins for Jira, to improve not only its testing capabilities, but you ability to do advanced workflow automation, improved visualizations, and much more.

Best Practices for QA Testing in Jira

Have QA set testing estimates

Letting QA set testing estimates can help ensure testing is planned out properly in your project timeline. After all, who’s going to know how long it will take to test features better than a QA team? They can provide better estimates based on the complexity and the number of test cases needed. By having QA provide time estimates, you can avoid unrealistic deadlines and make sure enough time is set aside for testing. 

Let QA set bug priorities

Once again, getting the QA team involved early saves you stress. In this case, you should let  QA to set bug priorities to ensure that the most important bugs are fixed first. Since QA testers understand the impact of each bug, they can decide which ones are critical to address before a release. By letting QA set priorities, teams can focus on fixing the most urgent issues and avoid shipping software with major problems.

Tag QA in relevant comments for features

It’s a running theme, we know, but keeping QA in the loop just makes things run more smoothly. In this case, you should have DevOps tag QA in comments about new features to keep them informed and involved. When QA is included in conversations during development, they can understand the feature better and create more thorough test cases. This also helps catch any potential issues early and reduces confusion during the testing process, making the overall workflow smoother and quicker.

Use Labels and Components

Jira’s labeling system can be used to categorize test cases and bugs by type, severity, or affected area of the application. This is especially useful for larger teams or projects with many moving parts. That information can also be shared outside of Jira with team members that can’t or don’t like to access Jira by using a data-sharing tool, like Visor.

Set Up Notifications for Critical Bugs

Jira gives you the option to set up notifications. So set up notifications for specific issue types or priorities to make sure no high-priority bugs go unnoticed. 

Visor Enhances Jira for QA Testing

Jira is a great tool for managing your QA testing workflows. It puts QA and DevOps in the same space, simplifying and strengthening communication between the two teams – which can only lead to more effective testing.

And integrating Jira with Visor can elevate your QA process even further. Visor lets you share critical Jira data with team members who don’t regularly use Jira, giving you seamless collaboration and communication across departments. With Visor’s intuitive views and dashboards, you can keep everyone in the loop on testing progress without paying for additional Jira seats.

Try Visor for free to see how it can enhance your Jira workflows and simplify data sharing for QA testing.

If this article was helpful, consider reading these related articles:

1. The Ultimate JQL Cheat Sheet: How To Get Started, from an Expert
2. How Can You Maximize Product Backlog Refinement?
3. Agile Board Swimlanes: What They Are and How to Use Them

Moira West

Moira West

Moira West is a former journalist and educator who has spent the last nine years writing about technology, data management, and more. She is excited to now bring her expertise to Visor. When she's not working, she spends time with her family, paints, bakes, and writes more -- just for fun.