Test Management Featured Article

Software requires regular testing to ensure that it’s working at full capacity at all times. And while there are plenty of test management solutions out there, not all are created equal. Zephyr, a rapidly expanding provider of real-time test management software, is striving to give companies the best and most effective testing experience possible. Its solutions are used by more than 2,700 customers around the world to test business- and mission-critical software, so that clients can cut costs while gaining real-time visibility to produce higher quality software.

This week, the company has announced the latest update to Zephyr Enterprise Edition, version 4.6. The update addresses a number of requests made by Zephyr customers, while also offering new innovations to the way agile testing teams plan and kick off release cycles. While there are many exciting changes, the update focuses in on three main objectives:

1. Time Tracking

In terms of planning, the latest Zephyr Enterprise update will allow project teams to track how long specific test cycles will take, as well as estimate execution times and actual execution times on a per-test-case basis. Using the actual execution time totals, teams can glean quantifiable data regarding how long an execution cycle took, and export that information in custom reports that can be shared with members of the team and others around the world.

2. Release Cloning

Releasing software is a very involved process, with all of its requirements, test cases, mappings, execution cycles, assignments, defect mappings, attachments and more. For companies looking to produce many solutions, starting from square one for each new software can be a huge time commitment, and use up resources unnecessarily. Zephyr Enterprise Edition 4.6 allows for the release/sprint of any project to be cloned into any other project. This saves project teams’ time and energy across all stages of a release/sprint, while also improving consistency in organization, planning and assignments from one release to another.

3. Advanced Search and ZQL

The new Zephyr Query Language (ZQL) offers enhanced search results to make advanced searching more powerful and flexible. Detailed and complex searches and exporting can be done with greater flexibility using the auto-completion feature in query creation.

“Listening to our customer needs and reacting to them is our number one priority,” said Sanjay Zalavadia, vice president of client services at Zephyr. “As project teams make the transition to a more agile way of testing, Zephyr’s solutions are engineered to help them in that transformational journey.”