Exploring Software Testing Tools: A Test Analyst's Professional Journey

I am a professional software test analyst with over 7 years of experience in the software development lifecycle and extensive progressive experience in functional, integration, and UAT testing, including data analysis.

I started my role as a test analyst with nFocus in 2021 with one of our clients who was decommissioning their legacy system and implementing a new Health Roster system. I then moved on to join another role on a Microsoft Dynamics 365 project.

My latest project involved implementing the ServiceNow platform to manage queries and issues across all departments in the client's business. This was quite a challenging role for me, as it was the first time I had tested this software.

Over the course of my professional career, even before joining nFocus, I have had experience using many software testing tools to plan, execute, and report on testing activities.

Having used testing tools like Azure Devop, Jira, etc., ServiceNow seems to be quick and easy to use in bringing all the company data together to limit the inaccuracy of data and manage service-level projects and production instances within a department.

In this discussion, I will focus on my experiences using Azure DevOps, Jira, and ServiceNow toolsI will be using this opportunity to focus on my experiences using Azure DevOps, Jira, and ServiceNow tools.

Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps is a great Agile application for getting the best out of project management as a tester. As an end-to-end software development platform, it offers an assortment of capabilities intended to organise and accelerate development efforts across the entire application lifecycle:

• Azure DevOps is particularly beneficial for reporting on many things, such as test results, and development metrics like backlogs and release velocity.
• Testing and release management were quite uncomplicated.
• Requirements management with other team members.
• With a plain sailing of testing and release management.

Working with the developers on Azure Boards made communication simple as they were able to track work throughout the entire lifecycle, from requirements through deployment, and do the following:

• Follow user stories, bugs, and features.
• Access interactive backlogs, boards, lists, and calendar views.
• Create item worklists and charts.
• Develop delivery plans that consider dependencies.

I faced some issues on Azure DevOps when I first joined the project, whereby access was not granted to the Test Plan within the tool even though the correct license had been assigned to my profile.

In instances like this, if the DevOps administrator is a single person rather than a team and if they are not available to assign access, this can cause major setbacks for users waiting to use the tool to progress their tasks on the project. This has affected me on a few projects and we lost some days trying to access the tool while the admin was away. Personally, I would say this was one setback, as time is costly on every project.

Another setback is that even though Azure DevOps has a lot of options to help users navigate around easily, these often create difficulty in navigation through the dashboard, so I would say it needs an improvement in that area.

When creating a user story, there are times where tasks are created by the business owner, project manager, and the test team regarding the US; however, there are no notifications to the assigned owner of the tasks when the due date is approaching, meaning this can be easily missed.

In my experience, Azure DevOps is not the most user-friendly or easy to navigate for non-technical teams, particularly for business or leadership personnel, in comparison with Jira or ServiceNow.

Regardless of the above concerns, as a software test analyst, I still enjoy using Azure DevOps as a test tool because I can create test scripts easily as well as control acceptance tests with advanced reports that allow me to track all tests done over time. The test managers and other project stakeholders can use Azure DevOps to monitor their team's performance and progress made so far at any given time, which will enable them to make informed decisions quickly and accurately.

Jira

Jira is a tool that is often seen as a competitor to Azure DevOps. Jira offers support for many of the features and functions found in Azure DevOps for Scrum and Kanban boards, roadmaps for project management, dashboards and reporting, customisable workflows, repository management, and extensibility.

I like that Jira essentially enables the user to do bug tracking, issue tracking, planning, and project management to track and report on the progress of their work. As you'd expect from a project management platform, users can also allocate tasks, identify inefficiencies, and resolve challenges, with administrators being able to create, edit, and/or delete project roles according to the organisation's needs.

When I first used Jira, I found it a bit more complicated, with an extensive feature set that can be overwhelming for new users.

One of the complaints I had as a user was the slow loading times of the application, which can affect the overall efficiency and performance of a project. This might be a more significant issue for larger teams with large amounts of data.

Some have argued that Azure DevOps is better than Jira because Azure DevOps is geared more towards a complete DevOps lifecycle, integrating project management with a suite of development tools.

Jira, on the other hand, focuses primarily on project management, with a strong emphasis on issue tracking and Agile methodology.

The choice between Azure DevOps and Jira depends on your specific project needs. If you prioritise a comprehensive set of DevOps tools for software development and delivery, Azure DevOps might be the right choice. However, if your focus is on project management and agile methodologies, Jira can be a better fit.

Personally, I cannot pick one over the other as they both offer performance, functionality, ease-of-use, integration, and support on the projects I have used them for so far.

For instance, Jira offers visibility over ongoing projects at any stage by allowing users to track all activities, including issues and their updates, people assigned, team comments, and so on.

In the same way, Azure DevOps brings together developers, project managers, and contributors to develop software. It allows organisations to create and improve products at a faster pace than they can with traditional software development approaches.

ServiceNow

My experience using ServiceNow in a project was to bring all the company data together to limit the inaccuracy of data and manage service-level projects and production instances within a department.

It makes the ticket creation interface really simple to create tickets quickly, and with sufficient training, resources, proper knowledge, and guidance, this can be one of the best applications to use.

Clients particularly use this application as it is a cloud-based workflow automation platform that enables enterprise organisations to improve operational efficiencies by streamlining and automating routine work tasks.

As a tester, I like this application as it is very simple and allows you to raise and track tickets, as well as process and eliminate the traditional challenges around data integration.

One of my personal favourites is Improved Incident Management. With ServiceNow, businesses can enhance their incident management processes, ensuring prompt resolution of issues.

There is information I have learned about ServiceNow, and I would like to have another opportunity to use this tool to experience it in a way that offers connectivity to digital workflows that makes work function better for people and business operations.

ServiceNow has been able to deliver a comprehensive suite of tools designed to improve service delivery, increase productivity, and drive business growth.

ServiceNow offers solutions for IT service and operations management, as well as employee and customer experiences with IT service management tasks.

ServiceNow has the ability to automate tasks and workflows. This automation eliminates manual work and frees up employees to focus on more strategic and high-value tasks, with the ability to fuel strategic business growth across an organisation.

One of the unique things about ServiceNow, in my experience, is that it uses only a single data source and makes it possible to access and leverage company-wide metrics, tasks, services, assets, people, locations, and information from a single user portal. It eliminates the traditional challenges around data integration.

In a nutshell, I believe ServiceNow delivers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to improve service delivery, increase productivity, and drive business growth. The benefits of ServiceNow make it a worthwhile investment for any business looking to optimise operations and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Conclusion

All things considered, Azure DevOps, Jira, and ServiceNow are all great software tools, depending on what the user is looking for and the type of project or organisation setup.

In my opinion, Azure DevOps provides an integrated set of services and tools to manage software projects, from planning and development through testing and reporting. This gives organisations the ability to create and improve products at a faster pace than they can with traditional software development approaches.

I enjoy Jira for its ability to integrate with a variety of quality assurance apps and for allowing for customisable fields, workflows, and screens that enable teams to manage manual and automated tests in their software development cycle seamlessly and effectively.

I see ServiceNow as a tool that allows you to raise and track tickets as well as process and catalogue regular IT service requests to define, manage, automate, and structure IT services for companies, making it a highly efficient tool to help desk support companies. As it automates most repetitive tasks and simplifies complex operations, it saves your IT agents time when handling repetitive queries.

When managing the software development lifecycle, the integration of project management with quality assurance is crucial to delivering a robust software product. Development teams need to ensure that the web application they are building not only meets technical requirements but also offers an optimal user experience. 

To achieve this, team members must employ a variety of testing methods, such as manual testing, unit testing, integration testing, and regression testing. Automated testing tools are indispensable for enhancing efficiency and accuracy in the testing process. By performing tests like API testing and leveraging cloud-based solutions, teams can ensure cost-effectiveness while maintaining high standards. Effective use of these practices ensures that the software solution is reliable and meets user expectations, ultimately supporting the overall success of the project.

If you're interested in comparing Azure DevOps, Jira, and ServiceNow for your projects, it's crucial to evaluate not only their features but also how well they suit your team's specific requirements and objectives. Each tool has unique advantages that can greatly influence the success of your testing project.