Tool support for testing discusses different types of testing tools including test management tools, requirements management tools, incident management tools, and configuration management tools. Test management tools help manage the testing process and tests. Requirements management tools help manage requirements and traceability. Incident management tools track issues. Configuration management tools help manage software and testware versions and configurations.

1. Tool support for testing
By : Arif Rakhmatullah.m
Program Studi (S1) Sistem Informasi
Fakultas Sains dan Teknologi
Universitas Islam Negeri sultan Syarif kasim Riau

2. TYPES OF TEST TOOL
• Test tool classification
The tools are grouped by the testing activities or areas that are supported by
a set of tools, for example, tools that support management activities, tools to
support static testing, etc.
There is not necessarily a one-to-one relationship between a type of tool
described here and a tool offered by a commercial tool vendor or an open-source
tool. Some tools perform a very specific and limited function (sometimes called a
'point solution'), but many of the commercial tools provide support for a number
of different functions (tool suites or families of tools).

3. Cont..
For example a 'test management' tool may provide support
for managing testing (progress monitoring), configuration
management of testware, incident management, and
requirements management and traceability; another tool may
provide both coverage measurement and test design support.

4. Tool support for management
of testing and tests
What does 'test management' mean? It could be 'the management of tests' or
it could be 'managing the testing process'. The tools in this broad category
provide support for either or both of these. The management of testing applies
over the whole of the software development life cycle, so a test management tool
could be among the first to be used in a project. A test management tool may
also manage the tests, which would begin early in the project and would then
continue to be used throughout the project and also after the system had been
released. In practice, test management tools are typically used by special- ist
testers or test managers at system or acceptance test level.

5. Cont..
Test management tools
Features or characteristics of test management tools include support
for:
• management of tests (e.g. keeping track of the associated data for
a given set of tests, knowing which tests need to run in a common
environment, number of tests planned, written, run, passed or
failed);
• scheduling of tests to be executed (manually or by a test execution
tool);

6. Cont..
• management of testing activities (time spent in test design, test
execution, whether we are on schedule or on budget);
• interfaces to other tools, such as:
 test execution tools (test running tools);
 incident management tools;
 requirement management tools;
 configuration management tools;

7. Cont..
• traceability of tests, test results and defects to requirements or
other sources;
• logging test results (note that the test management tool does not
run tests, but could summarize results from test execution tools
that the test manage- ment tool interfaces with);
• preparing progress reports based on metrics (quantitative
analysis), such as:
 tests run and tests passed;
 incidents raised, defects fixed and outstanding.

8. Cont..
Requirements management tools
Features or characteristics of requirements management tools
include support for:
• storing requirement statements;
• storing information about requirement attributes;
• checking consistency of requirements;
• identifying undefined, missing or 'to be defined later' requirements;
• prioritizing requirements for testing purposes;

9. Cont..
• traceability of requirements to tests and tests to requirements,
functions or features;
• traceability through levels of requirements;
• interfacing to test management tools;
• coverage of requirements by a set of tests (sometimes).

10. Cont..
Incident management tools
Features or characteristics of incident management tools include
support for:
• storing information about the attributes of incidents (e.g. severity);
• storing attachments (e.g. a screen shot);
• prioritizing incidents;
• assigning actions to people (fix, confirmation test, etc.);

11. Cont..
• status (e.g. open, rejected, duplicate, deferred, ready for
confirmation test, closed);
• reporting of statistics/metrics about incidents (e.g. average time
open, number of incidents with each status, total number raised,
open or closed).
Incident management tool functionality may be included in
commercial test management tools.

12. Cont..
Configuration management tools
Features or characteristics of configuration management tools include
support for:
• storing information about versions and builds of the software and
testware;
• traceability between software and testware and different versions
or variants;
• keeping track of which versions belong with which configurations
(e.g. operating systems, libraries, browsers);

13. Cont..
• build and release management;
• baselining (e.g. all the configuration items that make up a specific
release);
• access control (checking in and out).

14. Reference
Graham, d., et al. 2006. Foundation of
Software Testing: ISTQB certification London,
UK: International Thomson Business Press