— Why is this approach to development so in demand among various teams?
— What makes it unique?

Let’s break it down further

What is Application Lifecycle Management?

ALM is an approach to the development process that covers all its stages, from initial planning to the final deployment of the application. However, saying that ALM is simply an approach to application development is not enough. It is a whole philosophy embedded in Agile methodologies, which allows teams to create high-quality digital solutions.

It’s common to equate ALM with software development. Yet this simple approach is too limiting; ALM is much more than this. In fact, an application’s lifecycle includes the entire time during which an organization is spending money on this asset, from the initial idea to the end of the application’s life

David Chappell,
the Principal of Chappell & Associates

Note. ALM should not be equated with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). What is the difference? The former focuses solely on the lifecycle of an application, while PLM is a more comprehensive concept that covers not only software development but also other aspects of the product lifecycle, such as hardware, manufacturing, product marketing, etc.

Watch the expert’s video to learn more: What is Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)?

Difference Between ALM VS SDLC

Another common misconception is the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Let’s explore why:

What conclusion can be drawn from this? SDLC is a narrower concept that pertains exclusively to the creation of a digital solution. It can be considered a part of ALM.

Phases of Application Lifecycle Management

— What do you think the entire lifecycle of the application begins with?
— Right, With the idea
— So, Why not create something that helps achieve a specific goal? The phased work on creating a digital solution starts from its inception.

As seen in the table above, in most cases, ALM includes five phases. Let’s talk about them in more detail…

#1: Requirements Specification

At the first stage, it is necessary to economically justify the idea. That is, to answer the question: what do we want to achieve from this application? All stakeholders should participate in the discussion. Their expectations form the basis for the future product requirements.

Next, it is important to clearly formulate these requirements.

Often, the requirements specification has a hierarchical tree structure. That is, each requirement has its own sub-requirements.

However, teams that have implemented application life cycle management tend to prefer another approach. For example, it may be more convenient to:

• categorize the requirements (by specific functionality, module, etc.);
• structure them by priority (what should be implemented first, what can be done later).

This approach is more in line with Agile methodologies.

#2: Development Phase

Once the requirements are gathered, development of the software application can begin. At this stage, a distinctive feature of ALM will be total collaboration – different teams participate in the application development.

For example, ALM Processes participant’s responsibilities:

→ Project Manager handles financial matters, estimating the duration and cost of the project.
→ Development team members formulate key tasks for design and coding.
→ Testing team determines the scope of work for quality verification, preparing test cases.
→ Marketers and Customer Representatives ensure that the product meets the target audience’s requirements.

Also, before development begins, planning for the sequence of releasing new features is carried out.

#3: ALM testing

Testing and development of the software product go hand in hand in ALM. Testers check the quality of the solution after the release of each new feature or update. Any detected errors are immediately sent to the development team for resolution, after which the QA specialist runs the tests again.

To speed up and increase the accuracy of this process, it is advisable to use ALM testing software.

#4: Deployment

This stage involves releasing the digital solution to end users. How this will be implemented depends on the type of software product.

For instance, it could be a SaaS solution. It needs to be deployed on internal servers. Local applications require deployment, installation, and configuration on the client’s server. Mobile and hybrid products are distributed through app stores. There are other deployment methods as well, but we will not go into detail about them in this material.

#5: Maintenance of the Software Product

At this stage, the team faces one main task — ensure that the application meets user expectations after release! This involves performing the following actions:

• Timely detection of errors and their quick resolution.
• Planning future updates to improve the digital solution.
• Implementing new functionality based on user feedback.
• Discontinuing the use of the product (or its current version) and releasing another application/version using new relevant technologies.

The last activity is called the Retirement of the Product. It is a vital part of ALM.

Benefits of ALM

Thus, why implement ALM if you can continue working according to the familiar SDLC? If you’ve had this question, let us quickly present the key benefits of application lifecycle management.

Improved Communication on the Project

Mismatch between the final product and business requirements, missed deadlines, low team morale, etc. Admit it, you’ve probably faced these issues on projects at least once in your life. One of the reasons for each of them could be poor communication within the team and beyond.

Well, ALM helps prevent such difficulties and their consequences. Each application lifecycle management tool serves as a single platform for collaboration between developers, quality assurance engineers, project managers, and relevant stakeholders. Anyone involved with the product can participate in its creation: track progress, monitor project status, make suggestions, and more.

This helps prevent misunderstandings and contributes to achieving project goals.

Effective Project Planning

Proper planning of the software product’s work is the key to successful development. Clear project plans allow:

• proper prioritization
• accurate project time estimates
• effective resource allocation
• avoiding cost overruns
• tracking progress
• timely identification of issues
• promptly addressing emerging problems.

In other words, ALM allows teams to create a clear project roadmap, which they will then follow to maintain the correct development course.

Reliable ALM Software Testing

As you remember, quality assurance is an integral part of application lifecycle management. Moreover, QA processes in this approach are characterized by clarity and structure. This is facilitated by the use of ALM testing tools. These platforms allow test case creation, have features for managing test data and support test automation.

Risk Minimization

Is the development of the application associated with risks? The answer is clear. Yes. These risks can be caused by technical debt, poor requirements gathering, changes in business priorities, and more. All these risks can be effectively managed using an application lifecycle management tool. Typically, such platforms have enough functionality to identify, assess, and mitigate risks.

Continuous Process Improvement

Specialized tools allow the collection and analysis of many metrics. For example, users have access to project documentation, detailed test reports, and development time data. By tracking various indicators, team members can promptly identify issues with source code and other bottlenecks in the project. What’s the result? Increased team efficiency and improved the quality of the final product.

ALM in Software Testing

The role of ALM in testing is hard to overestimate. This approach ensures smooth integration of QA efforts into the broader lifecycle of an application. In other words, it guarantees that tests will be executed at each development stage.

The following components of ALM for testing are highlighted:

• Requirements Management. Application Life Management helps clearly define requirements and ensure their precise alignment with test plans. Common practice is linking requirements in Jira with the ALM test management tool to track their traceability.
• Test Planning. This activity involves developing a clear testing strategy and its objectives. The teams will need to determine which types of testing to use and create test plans. These plans are easy to document and track in an ALM tool for testing.
• Test Design. It’s time to write test cases and test scripts. Ready? Now you can check whether the application works properly.

• Test Execution. Managing test runs, monitoring their execution, and analyzing results — all of this is available in the ALM test management tool.

• Defect Management. Did you find a defect during testing? ALM implies documenting it, determining its priority, and providing recommendations for resolution.

• Test Automation. ALM supports the use of automated testing tools. This speeds up the process and improves the accuracy of quality assurance results.

• Continuous Testing. ALM perfectly aligns with Agile development principles. This approach fosters continuous testing throughout the development process.

• Reporting and Metrics. Detailed reports help teams identify areas for improvement by studying various metrics. These include test coverage, test execution status, defect trends, and more.

• Release Management. ALM QA testing ensures that all tests (including acceptance tests) have been conducted and that the digital product is ready for market release. Post-release testing is also possible. This allows tracking potential issues.

What is ALM Testing Tool?

An ALM testing tool is a platform that allows optimizing QA processes on a project. These tools help plan, track, and execute tests, as well as provide advanced test Reports and Analytics

In other words, it is a unified platform that combines all the functions necessary for testing teams: requirements management, test case creation, defect tracking, and reporting.

The Role of ALM Test Management Tool in Development

The tools used in application lifecycle management offer users comprehensive functionality. They help optimize all activities on the project.

Key aspects of development in which ALM platforms are indispensable:

• Requirements management. As you can see, this process is important not only for creating relevant test cases. It is crucial for the entire development process.

• Planning and scheduling. Detailed project planning is half the success. ALM tools allow you to create project plans, develop a schedule for implementing tasks, and allocate resources effectively.

• Version control. These tools easily integrate with version control systems. This is very convenient because you can revert to the desired version of the source code at any development stage.

• Test management. We’ve already discussed the role of ALM in testing. So, we will just remind you — the AML test management tool helps optimize test planning and execution. This guarantees high-quality final products.

• CI\CD practices. Tools allow you to automate the process of building, testing, and deploying code. This leads to faster development, early detection of defects, and reduced risk of errors during software delivery to end-users.

What else to expect from ALM tools? They help manage the release of digital products, ensure regulatory compliance, and are used for monitoring after deployment.

ALM Tools: What to Consider When Choosing?

If you need to choose an AML test management tool, ask yourself the following questions

• What is the size of my team? Larger or remote teams may require tools focused on collaboration, detailed reporting, and good scalability.

• What kind of project are we working on? Choose a tool based on your development methodology. For Scrum or Kanban workflows, you will need a more flexible platform. For a waterfall project, traditional planning and reporting will be more suitable.

• What infrastructure does the ALM tool need to integrate with? Assess whether the tool can be integrated with the CI\CD pipeline, version tracking system, and other services already used in the project.

• How much time will training and adaptation take? An AML test management tool with a steep learning curve is not the best choice, as it may slow down development.

• What features does the tool offer? Remember that ALM is a comprehensive approach covering all aspects of the application life cycle. Make sure the tool has sufficient capabilities, especially in areas such as test automation.

• Does the tool provide built-in reporting and analytics? Detailed test reports and data analytics are essential for informed decision-making. If they are not available, you may have to rely on third-party services, which is inconvenient.

• What if problems arise? Prioritize tools with a well-developed community and comprehensive documentation.

Next, we present a list of the best ALM tools that best meet the criteria mentioned above.

Top 5 ALM Testing Tools

We have selected five tools whose capabilities allow teams to effectively implement application lifecycle management in their projects.

Testomatio

The testomat.io test management system helps teams optimize their testing efforts throughout the entire lifecycle of an application. The platform bridges the gap between manual and automated testing, allowing users to run various types of tests in one place. It offers the following key features:

 Testomatio ALM test management tool key features:

• Test Case Management. The tool supports both manual and automated test cases, enabling users to create, organize, and manage them efficiently.

• Test Automation Integration. With just one click, manual tests can be converted into automated ones. Additionally, the TMS allows importing test cases from other testing tools.

• Defect Management. The system enables defect tracking from detection to resolution. Users can filter, cluster, and monitor defect severity for individual test runs or the entire project.

• Reporting and Analytics. Need to track testing progress? Use real time reports. Looking for insights after test execution? Comprehensive reporting is available. Users can also leverage live documentation and an analytics dashboard to monitor key metrics.

• CI\CD Support. Testomat.io seamlessly integrates with popular CI\CD tools like GitLab or GitHub, CircleCI, Jenkins and AzureDevOps enabling continuous test execution, real-time monitoring, and defect notifications.

• Collaboration. Human-readable reports, BDD support, data visualization, and integrations with tools like Slack enhance team collaboration on projects.

Jira

Jira is a highly demanded project management and bug tracking system among IT teams. It is most commonly used by development teams for working with requirements, defect management, and task execution control. And although the system does not offer a test automation function, this issue can be easily resolved by integrating it with a test management tool — for example, with Testomat.io.

Jira key features, as alm tool in testing:

• Test Case Management. Thanks to seamless integration with Testomat.io, users can easily manage test cases using a familiar tool. All they need to do is link them to user stories and Jira issues.

• Test Execution. Jira supports the management and tracking of manual tests. Automation is only available through third-party integrations.

  And many ALM test management tool providers give this opportunity.

• Defect Tracking. The platform allows users to track defects and integrate them with test cases. This enables control over the development process throughout the application life cycle.

• Agile Integration. As one of the most popular project management tools, Jira supports Agile development methodologies (Scrum, Kanban). Teams can link testing with sprints or user stories.

• Reporting and Traceability. The tool provides users with built-in reports that help track test coverage, test execution, and defect status.

Microsoft Azure DevOps

Microsoft Azure DevOps, formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services, is a set of tools for development teams that have implemented DevOps practices in their project. It allows managing source code, supports continuous integration, QA, and is used for release management.

Azure DevOps key features:

• Agile Project Management. Supports Scrum and Kanban for planning and tracking workflows.

• Test Management. The platform holds a top position as an ALM test management tool within the QA community worldwide. It allows managing manual tests, with the possibility of integration with testing tools for test automation.

• CI\CD Support. Automates pipelines for building, testing, and releasing software.

• Version Control. Enables code repository management through integration with version control systems.

• Defect Tracking and Reporting. The tool provides users with access to monitoring dashboards. With their help, you can track key project metrics and identify defects.

IBM Rational Team Concert

IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC) is a solution for collaborative management of an application’s lifecycle. The functionality of the tool meets the needs of teams at all stages, from planning to post-release support.

Key features RTC AML testing software:

• Collaboration. The platform offers users discussion boards and team rooms for collaboration. Notifications about changes or new comments also play an important role.

• Version Control. You can use the built-in version control system or integrate with an external service.

• Source Code Management. Users have access to the Code Reviews feature and integration with other IBM tools for source code analysis.

• Quality Management. Interested in comprehensive test management? Consider RTC as a tool for your project. However, it goes beyond a traditional namely ALM test management tool. With it, you can plan and execute tests, as well as track the progress and results of testing.

Tricentis

The Tricentis platform is a comprehensive solution for continuous automated testing. It is often used by teams due to its versatility. Here, different types of tests can be run, test cases can be managed, and results can be analyzed.

• Continuous Testing. The tool supports agile methodologies and DevOps. What does this mean in the context of QA? You can test individual functions or the entire application throughout the entire development cycle.

• Test Automation. To accelerate QA, you can automate your tests with Tricentis. Importantly, these can be any type of tests, such as functional, regression, and performance testing.

• Test Management. With the right AML test management tool, you will have complete control over QA processes. What can not say about Qtest from Tricentis. Plan and executing tests, identifying defects, tracking compliance with requirements, and generating detailed reports are quite curly with the Tricentis testing tools, admit their customers.

• Collaboration. Tricentis easily integrates with third-party services (such as Jira or Jenkins). As a result, testers gain access to real-time analytics, dashboards, and other collaborative features.

• Risk-based Testing. This approach to testing is fully justified. It allows you to prioritize test cases and focus on the most critical areas of the application.

You’ll find this valuable:

Comprehensive comparison of Qtest & Testomat.io test management system

Conclusion

ALM is an approach to creating digital products that covers far more aspects than the classic SDLC. Use it for clear planning, automation, and tracking of the entire lifecycle of an application, including testing.

Investing in a more advanced ALM test management tool is sensible if the company is on the way to a large-scale enterprise project and plans its long-term development with ALM as a single source of truth for the entire team, following the best practices of Quality Assurance.

The post What is ALM Test Management Tool, its Benefits | Top 5 of the Best appeared first on testomat.io.

In addition, with CI\CD in place, teams can automate code changes, run tests, and deploy software applications faster. Smaller releases allow them to get continuous feedback, identify bugs early and implement improvements faster. Moreover, dividing large projects into more manageable tasks speeds up productivity among the teams and reduces complexity.

Let’s discover how Bitbucket designed by Atlassian platform supports this approach

 What is Bitbucket?

Bitbucket is a cloud-based service that allows developers to host and manage their repositories – from tracking to controlling code changes.

Bitbucket’s intuitive interface makes Git version repositories accessible even to novice coders and enables whole teams to collaborate and create projects, test and deploy the code. Both private or public Bitbucket repos you can choose. Anyway, it offers flexible permissions for the teams to work securely. Security vulnerabilities are excluded from the Bitbucket side, ensuring your app code stays protected. Also, Bitbucket integrates with CI\CD pipelines to enable automated testing and deployment directly from the repository.

Bitbucket Key Features: What are they?

Below we have outlined some specific Bitbucket app features to see how each feature may benefit your team:

• Unlimited Private Repositories. Bitbucket offers free unlimited private repositories for individuals or small teams with a maximum of five members.
• Jira and Trello Integration. Being an Atlassian product, it integrates seamlessly with other Atlassian tools, such as the issue-tracking Jira service management and project organization tool Trello to help your teams work more effectively.
• Collaborative Coding. A Bitbucket instance offers a range of features, including pull requests, inline comments, and code reviews and allows software engineers to collaborate on code changes in Bitbucket repositories.
• Bitbucket Pipelines. You can speed up your development process with built-in CI/CD to automatically build, test, and deploy your projects. It helps you reduce human error and concentrate on core tasks.
• Deployment History and Visibility. In the deployment summary, you can easily see what version of your project is deployed, along with other important details.
• Configuration as Code. You can store and manage your build configuration in one .yml file and make the configuration process simpler.
• Git Large File Storage Support. Bitbucket offers the Git Large File Storage (LFS) extension to replace large files with pointers and help you get shorter clone times.
• Security features. With Bitbucket’s IP whitelisting and 2-step verification requirements, your code is protected from unauthorized access and modifications.
• Bitbucket Server. It offers all the essential features of Bitbucket Cloud, plus additional capabilities for managing the code repositories on-premises.

 Note our team is working on the Jira Plugin.

Plugin is a powerful bidirectional tool for linking and tracking all test-related activities with requirements issues, stories, and epics for clear traceability. Its Agile & CI\CD workflows’ properties allow even non-tech team members like Manual QA or Business Analytics to launch pre-configured Bitbucket CI\CD pipelines directly from Jira. Rich widgets on the Analytics Dashboard visualize Test Results.

Bitbucket CI\CD Pipeline: How It Works

The image shows a high-level CI\CD flow using Bitbucket Pipelines. Let’s take a closer look at each part below:

1. Bitbucket (Code Repository). Firstly, a software developer pushes code or makes changes to a Bitbucket repository hosted on Bitbucket where code is stored and managed.
2. YAML Configuration File (bitbucket-pipelines.yml). Secondly, in the .yaml file, you can find the configuration for your CI\CD pipeline. When changes are pushed to Bitbucket, the pipeline is triggered based on the rules defined in this file (e.g., building the code, running tests, or deploying to a staging environment).
3. CI\CD Pipelines Execution. Thirdly, the CI\CD pipeline begins running based on the instructions in the bitbucket-pipelines.yml file, including the following:
   → Building the code
   → Running automated tests
   → Deploying to different environments (like staging or production)

To sum up, Bitbucket CI\CD pipelines speed up development and improve quality. By automating build, test, and deployment processes, teams can deliver software faster and with fewer bugs. Also, you can explore the Bitbucket documentation to discover the full range of capabilities available.

Why development teams choose Bitbucket Integration?

Bitbucket integration works best when it easily aligns with the company’s existing workflow and technology stack. Here is why teams opt for Bitbucket:

• Teams can secure their code in free private repositories. Even small teams can collaborate without extra costs.
• Teams can better collaborate using pull requests, inline code reviews, and commenting to get faster feedback and produce code of high quality.
• By using pull requests, teams can efficiently deploy code changes to the remote repository and manage the entire project within Bitbucket.
• With branch permission controls, teams can manage repository settings in Bitbucket to regulate workflows and protect critical branches to maintain stable releases.
• Teams can scale easily, whether working on personal projects or large enterprise applications.
• Teams can link commits with Jira issues automatically to improve visibility and project management across the development lifecycle.
• Teams can extend Bitbucket’s capabilities by integrating apps for time tracking, notifications, or testing tools.
• Teams can choose between Bitbucket cloud or on-premises solutions and align the platform with their infrastructure and compliance needs.
• Teams can monitor repository activity and performance using built-in analytics and reporting tools.
• Teams can share reusable code and documentation through snippets and wikis to foster knowledge sharing and boost productivity.
• Teams can deploy changes in the code directly through pull requests and thus carry out all work in the project with just one tool.

Benefits of CI\CD workflow with Bitbucket

Here we are going to overview the benefits the CI\CD with Bitbucket provides:

• Improved Code Quality. With Bitbucket integration, you can automatically run tests on every code change to catch bugs early and let everyone use the same style when producing code and make it easier to read and understand.
• Reliable Deployments with Minimized Risks. With Bitbucket, you can automate deployments that speed up the release of new features and reduce the risk of mistakes.
• Test Automation and Real-Time Collaboration. Thanks to Bitbucket, you can automate testing to present changes to code in real time and make it easier for everyone in the team to work together.
• Real-Time Monitoring and Better Analysis. With Bitbucket, you can get quick information about the status of builds, tests, and deployments, and create reports to track performance and detect bottlenecks.
• Automated Security Testing. Thanks to Bitbucket, you can run automated tests to find problems in the code early and make sure deployments are secure.

Reasons to Integrate Bitbucket with an External Test Case Management System

When integrating Bitbucket with an external TCMS, you can improve your software development and testing processes. Here are some key reasons why this integration is beneficial:

• Efficient Test Case Management. You can store test cases in a centralized repository, track changes with version control, and facilitate collaboration through a shared platform for creation, review, and execution.
• Effective Test Execution and Reporting. You can trigger test cases directly from the platform, generate comprehensive reports for in-depth analysis ( pass/fail rates, coverage, execution time, etc.) and link test cases to specific code changes or requirements.
• Streamlined Test Coverage and Better Quality. You can test the most important parts to minimize critical bugs and reduce the risk of serious problems. Also, you can save time and effort by creating reusable test cases to execute across different releases or projects.
• Boosted Team Productivity and Cooperation. You can keep everyone on the same page about the status of test cases, test execution results, and any issues that arise. Also, you can increase transparency in the testing process by allowing stakeholders to better understand the progress and potential challenges.
• Streamlined Testing Workflow. You can speed up the testing process and reduce the time it takes to execute tests and analyze results by automating repetitive tasks – test case execution and reporting to focus on more important activities.

To sum up, Bitbucket and TCMS integration can improve your team’s testing process. It helps not only manage test cases efficiently and automate testing, but also provides clear reports that lead to quicker time-to-market and increased productivity.

Integrate Bitbucket With Test Management: Guide

#1: Start A Project And Create Test Cases

Before linking the CI server with the test management system, a project must first be created.

Once the project is set up, the next step is to locate the automated tests and import them into the project. Only copy and paste suggested comands.

#2: Link Testomatio IDs To Automated Tests

When assigning testomat.io Ids for imported tests, it’s important to take into account what frameworks are used. Here are the commands:

• check-tests command for importing tests with --update-ids for JS-based frameworks.
• check-cucumber command with --update-ids the command for Cucumber framework.

Maintaining consistent test case IDs during export and import is crucial. So don’t forget to verify the accuracy of test case IDs to avoid errors.

TESTOMATIO={apiKey} npx check-tests <framework> <pattern> --update-ids

While testomat.io automates the creation of unique IDs for your test cases, eliminating the need for manual effort, it’s still important to ensure proper ID mapping when importing tests. Only by double-checking all IDs can you guarantee a smooth transition and avoid potential issues. More detail in the official Documentation.

#3: Configuration of Continuous Integration Settings

Next, you’ll need to integrate your test project with your CI\CD pipeline. To do this, you should access the Project Dashboard and locate the Continuous Integration tab. After then Select Bitbucket from the available options.

Refer to the Bitbucket account Atlassian platform to generate a Bitbucket API Key. API token will be added on the current user Bitbucket Repository Settings page. By default, the Key is in SSH format if to save it in file.

Then create a new Bitbucket project by selecting the button Create on the top and Project.

Now make this build parametrized, we try to describe all needed Bitbucket settings in detail.

#4: Job Bitbucket Parameter settings In CI To Build & Test

You need to ensure your workflow is used exclusively within the testomat.io test management system. Thus, include the necessary parameters in your code as a string and save your changes.

- export TESTOMATIO="${Testomat.io}"
- export TESTOMATIO_URL="${Testomat.io_url}"
- export TESTOMATIO_RUN="${run}"

Additionally, the job should include a step where the test runner is executed with the —grep option option and TESTOMATIO environment variables passed in.

For instance: - npx codeceptjs run-workers 2 --grep "${grep}"

If you use on-premise Testomatio setup you will also need to add a URL parameter Testomat.io_url

If the connection is successful, a success message will appear after clicking the test connection button.

 #5: Execute Tests And View Results

Once you’ve successfully set up Bitbucket, executing automated tests goes without effort. You need to simply open a test, select Run in CI, and click the Launch button.

As a result of test execution, you can receive real-time reports even after a single test run. Additionally, test results displayed in the test management tool can be easily shared with your team through a secure public link.

With visual test results, teams can not only draw conclusions quickly and easily but also customize the graphs to gain insights into slow, failing, or flaky test cases presented in numbers and many more…

This transparency let QAs, BAs, PMs, and stakeholders discover facts and figures, detect failures promptly, and make necessary improvements to accelerate product development and time-to-market.

You may also explore these integration functionalities:

• Jenkins Automated Testing
• CircleCI integration with test management
• Python Playwright Tutorial for Web Automation Testing
• Bamboo Test Case Management and Test Automation integration
• GitLab Test Management and Testing Automation integration

Bottom Line:

Ready To Improve Your Testing Process With Bitbucket Integration?

In the modern software development world, software and testing teams look for agility and efficiency. When choosing Bitbucket, you can take into account the team’s specific needs, existing workflows, and the level of integration required with other tools. Only by assessing the unique features, ease of use, scalability, and costs associated with the tool can you make a choice and integrate Bitbucket into your project management and development workflow.

By applying Bitbucket’s CI\CD integration, they can not only automate repetitive tasks and speed up development cycles but also increase visibility with real-time insights and reduce the risk of human errors.

Overall, Bitbucket integration can be a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes. When using Bitbucket effectively, teams can improve their development processes and increase productivity while businesses can achieve their software development goals more effectively.

If you have any questions about Bitbucket integration, do not hesitate to contact us to explore how it can benefit your team.

The post Bitbucket Test Management Integration & Test Reporting appeared first on testomat.io.

CI\CD tools not only ensure that new code integrations are tested thoroughly but also allow development and QA teams to keep source code maintained and catch bugs early.

That’s why if your organization is striving for faster, more reliable, and automated workflows, choosing the right CI\CD tool becomes a critical decision Explore how you can launch tests directly from your suite

What’s more, you should combine continuous integration and delivery (CI\CD) with your goals to be on the way to improving software delivery timelines and bottom line.Learn more about test automation in CI\CD pipelines.

Keep on reading to learn more information about GitHub Actions and Jenkins CI\CD platforms:

CI\CD Tools: Why do teams use them?

With CI\CD tools, your development and QA teams can speed up code development and delivery through the process of automation. CI tools allow software developers to automate the process of integrating code changes from multiple team members into a shared repository. This helps them maintain code quality, prevent bugs and errors as well as make sure that the integrated code remains as functional and compatible as expected.

On the other hand, CD tools allow teams to automate the process of deploying changes to source code in different environments, such as staging and production once they have passed through the continuous integration (CI) phase. What’s more, they provide a smooth and well-managed process of deployment, thereby minimizing the chances of introducing bugs or breaking changes into the live environment. That’s why using CI\CD tools makes sense.Check how CI\CD execution of automated tests works.
Here’s the CI\CD list of the benefits you can derive:

• Providing first-rate code quality delivery
• Shortening the time of the code release
• Catching and isolating issues with ease
• Keeping teams in sync to increase and improve productivity
• Reducing the backlog bugs
• Pushing code into production and rolling it back if there are issues
• Transparent CI\CD pipeline

Fortunately, you can find an extensive range of software products to support the CI and CD processes. Discover the top 10 DevOps testing tools. GitHub Actions and Jenkins are popular choices for adopting CI\CD workflow. Below we are going to delve into the depths of GitHub Actions vs Jenkins and overview their key features to help you make an informed choice for your CI\CD needs.

Introduction to CI\CD tools: Jenkins vs GitHub Actions

With the help of CI\CD platforms, various tasks in the development process can be automated. This will contribute to higher efficiency, accuracy and productivity. GitHub Actions and Jenkins are two of the most critical CI\CD platforms an organization can opt for and deploy. Explore how automated tests contribute to CI workflows. But with so much information flying around, it can be challenging to know which solution is right for your organization.

Let’s go ahead to know more about GitHub Actions vs Jenkins

Key Features of Jenkins

Below we are going to overview key features of Jenkins CI\CD tool:

• By automating building and testing code changes integrated into a shared repository, Jenkins platform is helpful for catching errors early.
• Jenkins accommodates a diverse array of testing frameworks and provides the automation of unit tests, integration, and regression tests.
• With distributed builds, Jenkins allows teams to test tasks across multiple machines, improving efficiency and reducing build times as well as schedule builds at specific times or intervals to provide regular testing and deployment cycles.
• With Jenkins’ scripting language, teams can define custom build and deployment pipelines.
• Jenkins server provides authentication and authorization options when integrating with security platforms to make the CI\CD workflow as secure and safe as possible.
• Jenkins offers seamless integration with version control systems like GitHub platform to work in harmony with the code repository, facilitating automated build, test, and deployment triggered by changes to the version-controlled codebase.
• Jenkins provides insights into build statuses, test results, and performance metrics through its dashboard and reporting features.

What is GitHub Actions?

GitHub Actions is a GitHub’s integrated automation platform that allows teams to automate workflows, like building, testing, and deploying code directly from GitHub’s private or public repositories.

It can not only connect all the tools to automate each step of the software development workflow but also use pre-built actions or create custom actions to automate common tasks to improve code consistency and reliability.

What’s more, it has a huge community support and GitHub marketplace that foster collaboration, knowledge, best practices, and solutions sharing to common or serious challenges.

Key Features of GitHub Actions

Here we are going to cover some crucial features of GitHub Actions:

• With GitHub Actions, teams can set up automated workflows to build, test, and deploy code when specific events occur in their GitHub repository (public repositories and self hosted runners) as well as define custom environments for different GitHub Actions workflows.
• Teams benefit from its seamless integration with GitHub public or private repositories and take advantage of its security, access controls, and code-scanning features.
• Using YAML files for any GitHub event in the repository helps teams define workflows (for example, a push to master or pull request, trigger the pipeline to start, etc.) and specify the automation steps, conditions, triggers, and other configurations for their workflows.
• With GitHub Action offer, teams can access detailed logs and visual representations of workflows to diagnose issues quickly.
• GitHub Actions allows teams to publish artifacts and create releases as part of their workflow to provide clear versioning and ensure that team members can access and download the right files at the right time.
• Thanks to GitHub Actions, teams can trigger workflows based on various events (code pushes, pull requests, issue creation, etc.) that occur within their GitHub private or public repositories and initiate the automation process to perform specific tasks in response.
• With GitHub Actions, teams can run tasks on multiple platforms using parallel jobs and matrix builds.
• Being a fully managed service, GitHub Actions operates in the cloud and has a superior option of running it on a local server.

Let’s take a quick look at the summary table showing the differences between Jenkins and GitHub Actions. We hope this helps you know more about GitHub Actions vs Jenkins and determine which CI\CD platform is a good fit for your project needs.

How to choose the right CI\CD tool?

When it comes to choosing the best CI\CD tool for your team, it is worth considering several factors:

• Open Source: You should determine if the CI\CD tool supports open-source projects and aligns with your project’s goals.
  Build Environment Compatibility: You should reveal whether the tool is compatible with your project’s environment and programming languages to speed up integration.
• Hosted and Cloud-Based Options: You should consider whether the tool offers both cloud-based options and hosted solutions and choose what fits your project needs.
• Version Control System Compatibility: You should check if the CI\CD tool can be integrated with your chosen version control system or source control platform to manage the source code as seamlessly and hassle-free as possible.
• Testing Integration: You should evaluate how the tool integrates with testing frameworks or test management systems like testomat.io and discover what types of testing (unit, integration, etc.) it supports.
• Ease of Configuration/Setup: You should opt for a CI\CD tool with a user-friendly interface and easy-to-understand configuration, reducing setup complexities.
• Learning Curve: You should take into account the learning curve for developers to make it easy for them to set up and configure their build and deployment workflows.
• Paid Plan Features: You should review existing and new features available in paid plans, such as allotted minutes, users, and private repositories, to accommodate growth.

Only by taking these factors into account can you make an informed decision that maximizes the benefits of CI\CD adoption. Furthermore, it ultimately contributes to more efficient development, better code quality, and successful software releases.

Bottom Line: Embrace the reality and invest in the right CI\CD tool

When you have a CI\CD tool that seamlessly meets your project requirements, you’re sure to see improvements to your development workflow. In the battle of the GitHub Actions vs Jenkins, there is no loser or winner.

Both Jenkins and GitHub Actions can add a lot of advantages to your projects using meaningfully different ways. Deciding between them comes down to evaluating the complexity of your project, checking if your team members are familiar with the software solutions and defining the scope of integration requirements.

When there is a need to focus on complicated pipelines and customization requirements, Jenkins tool is an optimal choice for your team. If your team adopts GitHub-centric workflows, GitHub Actions will offer you a seamless experience. The decision hinges on matching a lot of factors to your project’s unique requirements.

Drop us a line if you have any questions about GitHub Actions or Jenkins. We can help you select the most suitable one to achieve agility, efficiency, and reliability in the development lifecycle as well as give recommendations on the practical implementation.

The post Jenkins vs GitHub actions: <br>Which CI\CD Tool Is Right? appeared first on testomat.io.

Thanks to test automation with Jenkins, your teams can improve the quality, efficiency, and reliability of software products while reducing costs, time to market and simplifying collaboration. What’s more, it allows development and QA teams to provide high-quality software faster, meet customer expectations and produce great results.

Keep on reading to discover why to use Jenkins tool and learn more about integrating automated testing with it!

What exactly is Jenkins software?

Built in Java, Jenkins is utilized as an open-source CI platform in the development process to help software engineers build, deploy, and automate projects.

Jenkins also provides native support for container technologies like Docker and Kubernetes and helps teams leverage them for testing, packaging, and deployment processes. Additionally, Jenkins can be seamlessly integrated with popular build tools like Maven and Gradle.

What are Jenkins Core Concepts?

Jenkins incorporates various terminologies aligned with the principles and practices of DevOps. This helps teams implement robust and efficient continuous delivery pipelines and organize smooth test automation process. Let’s overview them below:

• Jenkins Controller (Formerly Master): acts as the central hub for the entire Jenkins infrastructure and makes sure the CI and CD pipeline functions as smoothly as possible. In addition to that, it simplifies users and administrators’ interactions with the Jenkins system by the ability to orchestrate job execution, coordinate project flow and manage resources in a user-friendly interface.
• Jenkins Agent (Formerly Slave): working in tandem with Controller, it is used to run build jobs and balance build loads. Thus, it handles build and deployment processes as well as supports the scalability and efficiency of the Jenkins pipeline.
• Jenkins Node: refers to a virtual or physical machine where the projects and pipelines are being built. If multiple nodes are used, parallel builds or tasks can be executed. This helps teams reduce the overall build time and increase the efficiency of the CI\CD processes.
• Jenkins Project (Formerly Job): refers to a specific task or job created by a Jenkins user to be performed automatically. With a set of instructions and configurations, it enables to build, test, deploy and automate a particular software project or CI\CD workflow.
• Jenkins Plugin: Installed on a Jenkins server, these community-developed modules add specific features that Jenkins automation server doesn’t have by default.
• Jenkins Pipelines: they provide a variety of plugins and shared libraries to help teams define CI\CD processes as code and customize them according to the specific requirements.

What are key features of Jenkins?

Teams that focus on tools for test automation will see greater benefits. Understanding key Jenkins features makes it clear why this tool plays a crucial role in creating CI\CD pipeline. Let’s take a closer look at them below

• Easy Installation: it offers easy installation and is portable to all the major platforms, including Windows, Mac OS, and Unix-like operating systems.
• Straightforward to configure: with a user-friendly web interface, it provides easy configuration and makes continuous integration and continuous delivery processes as smooth as possible.
• Numerous Plugins: with hundreds of plugins to select from, teams are able to integrate them with development and testing tools to tailor the architecture and meet the requirements.
• Automated Testing: with this feature, teams can automate the process of execution of the unit tests, jenkins integration testing, and so on as well as generate test reports, track test results, etc.
• Distributed Builds: thanks to distributed builds, teams can distribute workloads across multiple machines (called nodes) to boost build and test processes.
• Security: armed with various security features, including user authentication, and authorization, it helps organizations keep their data and systems safe.

How Does Jenkins Work?

Applied along the entire software development lifecycle, Jenkins provides teams with the ability to integrate and automate different processes, including building, testing, and deployment.

1. With created ‘pipelines’, the Jenkins automation server starts performing the required tasks.
2. Developers commit their code to a version control repo. When Jenkins detects a new commit, it automatically triggers a build process and creates an executable file.
3. If the build fails, Jenkins will promptly inform developers about the encountered errors that should be addressed efficiently.
4. If the build is successful and it passes all the tests, Jenkins facilitates the code movement to a “release-ready” environment – a staging or pre-production one where the code is further validated and prepared for deployment.

Jenkins Best Practices: Get the Most out of Automated Testing

These best practices make sure your team squeezes every ounce of efficiency and productivity out of the Jenkins tool. They will help your team maintain the highest quality of the process and maximize the potential of the test automation tool. Let’s begin!

• Choose plugins attentively. With multiple plugins available, you may be tempting to try a lot of them. This will contribute to slowing down the development and testing processes and lessening the chance of speedy delivery.
• Avoid complex Groovy code in pipelines. Pipelines are designed to help teams build faster. That’s why complicated Groovy code makes them harder to understand, debug, and modify. By keeping pipelines as concise as possible, teams can improve code quality as well as build and deliver software products faster.
• Keep it secure. It’s critical to keep your Jenkins server secure by using robust user authentication processes. In addition to that, you should back up Jenkins Home directory to prevent losing all the configurations and logs information.
• Cleaning up old Jenkins builds. Without removing old or unwanted builds, you have fewer resources for more current and relevant ones. This will lead to inefficient Jenkins controller running.

What are the benefits of Jenkins tool?

A properly organized CI\CD tool is an immensely useful solution. It automates the testing process and fosters all interactions and communication your teams have in the development process. What’s more, it helps detect issues that require attention and immediate reaction. When you choose the Jenkins automation tool, it’s simple to reap the many benefits from this software. Below we are going to overview some of them:

• Jenkins tool speeds up collaboration and helps team members to manage their codebase, configurations and build pipelines in a centralized location.
• Jenkins offers the possibility to drive a fast development cycle and release features quickly.
• Jenkins supports a transparent development process among dev teams by reducing the time required to review a code.
• Jenkins provides task automation and boosts the process.
• Jenkins helps teams increase code coverage and guarantees a transparent process for the development teams.

What is automation testing in Jenkins?

When it comes to automated testing, teams can automatically execute software tests as part of the continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline using Jenkins. It involves integrating testing frameworks and tools into Jenkins jobs to automatically run tests, validate code changes, and provide feedback on the quality and functionality of the software being developed.

Why do multiple developers choose Jenkins?

When looking for new software for automated testing, you may be struggling to know where to begin. With that in mind, we’ve put together some reasons why developers use such old and universal solution as Jenkins. More details:

• Jenkins provides an automated pipeline workflow and each commit integrates into the pipeline directly.
• When using Jenkins, developers need less time to integrate code – after each commit assures that the program functionality is always available and operational.
• With Jenkins, developers have more options for creating and accessing additional services through the cloud.
• With Jenkins, software engineers can minimize bugs as builds and tests on every commit create a fast-paced environment.
• Thanks to the feedback system, the development team quickly addresses the issues instead of debugging numerous commits and can get advice from strong community support.

What are the reasons to integrate Jenkins with outside test case management system (TCMS)?

Development and testing teams can integrate Jenkins with a test case management system to greatly enhance their testing and development processes. Here are some key reasons:

• By integrating Jenkins with a test case management system, all the test cases, test plans, test executions, and test results can all be managed within a single platform to deliver a unified view of their testing efforts.
• Developers can directly execute test suites as part of the Jenkins pipeline and view the results in the test management system. This will help teams reduce manual efforts and perform testing activities consistently as part of the development process.
• As test results from Jenkins are automatically linked to the test suites in the test management system, teams can discover correlations between test cases and their automation execution status.
• Jenkins’ test execution results can be aggregated and visualized within the test management system to help teams gain valuable insights into the test coverage, pass/fail rates, trends, and other metrics and make data-driven decisions.
• When integrated, teams can view and share test results as well as stay updated with the latest build and code changes in Jenkins. This significantly improves collaboration and communication between all the parties involved in the process.

Integrating testomat.io test management system with Jenkins brings a lot of advantages and leads to streamlined workflows, improved collaboration, increased automation, enhanced data accuracy, insightful analytics, and advanced reporting capabilities. If properly integrated, it will help in optimizing testing processes, boosting productivity, and achieving superior test results.

Thus, by combining the power of  testomat.io and Jenkins, organizations can significantly enhance their testing practices, deliver high-quality software, and drive overall efficiency in their software development lifecycle.

How To Integrate Jenkins With our Test Management tool

When you’re ready to integrate automated testing with Jenkins and the test management system, there are a few steps you should follow. However, first and foremost, you should make sure that you already have a Jenkins instance running.

#1: Start A Project And Create Test Cases

To set up the integration between your CI server and test management system while incorporating automated tests, you should create a project in your test management system.

Then you should identify test cases and import them into the project you created in the test management system.

#2: Link Testomatio IDs To Automated Tests

When exporting or importing test cases, having unique test IDs is crucial for proper synchronization and tracking. The test management tool can streamline this process by automatically generating unique IDs for each test case. However, when syncing IDs for imported tests, it’s essential to consider the frameworks used and the commands applied when updating your source code.

• check-tests command for importing tests with --update-ids for JS-based frameworks.
• check-cucumber command with --update-ids the command for Cucumber framework.

TESTOMATIO={apiKey} npx check-tests <framework> <pattern> --update-ids

Indeed, before pushing a commit to the repository, verifying that the test IDs are written as correctly and clearly as expected is mandatory. Correct test IDs provide smooth integration with your test management system and CI server as well as enable seamless execution and reporting of test results.

#3: Configure Continuous Integration Settings

You should navigate to the Project Dashboard and locate the Continuous Integration tab (CI tab) to integrate the test project with your CI\CD pipeline. There you can choose Azure DevOps from the available list of tools, make any necessary adjustments, and save your changes.

By navigating to Project Dashboard which is usually the central hub for managing your test projects, you can find the Continuous Integration tab (CI tab). From the list of available tools for integration, you need to select Jenkins as your preferred CI\CD tool.

Once you have selected Jenkins, review the settings and configurations displayed, and make any necessary adjustments based on your specific requirements and preferences.

• Additionally, it’s critical to select all the checkboxes:
• Send Run ID as ‘run’ input (required for scheduled jobs)
• Send Testomatio API key as ‘Testomat.io’ input
• Send Testomatio Server URL as ‘Testomat.io_url’ input

After selecting the appropriate checkboxes, save your changes to finalize the integration between your test project and Jenkins by clicking the “Test Connection” button. A success message will be displayed if there are no errors. This message indicates that the connection has been established successfully.

#4: Create A New Job In CI To Build And Test

When integrating Jenkins with testomat.io , it is crucial to establish a distinct workflow within the testomat.io platform. This workflow configuration should be specific to testomat.io and include the necessary parameters, as outlined below:

- export TESTOMATIO="${Testomat.io}"
- export TESTOMATIO_URL="${Testomat.io_url}"
- export TESTOMATIO_RUN="${run}"

Additionally, you should execute the test runner with the -grep option. This allows for proper integration and utilization of testomat.io environment variables during the test execution.

- npx codeceptjs run-workers 2 --grep "${grep}"

#5: Run Automated Tests And View Results

Once you have successfully configured the Jenkins tool, running your automated tests becomes a straightforward process. Simply follow these steps:

• Open the test you want to run within your test management system.
• Choose “Run in CI” option that is specifically designed for running tests within the CI\CD environment.
• Click the “Launch” button to initiate the test execution in the Jenkins CI\CD pipeline.

With these steps, you can kick off the automated test suite execution with just a single click. Once the tests are executed, TMS captures the results, including details about slow, failing, or flaky test cases.

These results are typically presented in a comprehensive format and showcase metrics and statistics. This helps both technical and non-technical specialists to analyze the data.

What’s more, stakeholders can gain insights into the overall test execution process and identify areas of concern. This facilitates collaboration and decision-making, empowering teams to improve the quality of their software products and dive better test results.

Bottom Line: Ready to experience the Jenkins test automation?

Delivering robust software products of high quality in a short time is imperative to stay competitive in business. However, you need first to understand the relevance of adopting test automation.

With Jenkins test automation, your teams get the chance to automate tasks that normally take a considerable amount of time to complete as well as simplify internal and external communications, making Jenkins integration testing a key strategy in enhancing. That’s why it is up to you to find ways to incorporate test automation with Jenkins and overcome your rivals. Only then can you truly call your business successful and move ahead.

If you have any questions about integrating Jenkins automation testing, drop us a line at contact@testomat.io to get a free consultation.

The post Jenkins Automated Testing appeared first on testomat.io.

Azure DevOps test case management system integration provides seamless test automation, execution, and Real-time Reporting throughout the DevOps flow, streamlining the entire testing activities. By leveraging the power of this integration can organizations deliver software solutions of great quality, speed up time-to-market and drive overall success.

What is exactly Azure DevOps platform?

Known as a collection of services for multiple teams, Microsoft’s Azure DevOps platform enables teams to create high-quality software products. With a fully integrated set of tools, software engineers can maintain a backlog, host source code repositories, implement scheduled workflow and leverage CI\CD pipelines. Additionally, it bolsters DevOps models across different environments (cloud and on-premise) and helps in managing software products before shipping them to end users.

Being an extensive platform, it also provides a plethora of tools for the teams to better orchestrate the end-to-end software development lifecycle, including test automation. While Azure DevOps does not specifically focus on automated testing, it offers various features and integrations applied for this purpose as part of a DevOps scheduled workflow

What are Azure DevOps Services and Tools?

Here we will take a quick overview of Azure DevOps services that help development teams create and manage a complete DevOps process more efficiently.

• Azure Boards: with easy-to-configure agile-driven capabilities, teams can better track, manage, and better collaborate when working on projects.
• Azure Repos: this tool is used as a version control toolkit that provides development teams with an unlimited cloud-based Git repository and helps them manage their test code more effectively.
• Azure Artifacts: this tool allows teams to manage, create, host, and share packages with CI\CD pipelines.
• Azure Pipelines: this tool enables teams to set up automatic builds for different types of applications, thanks to its CI\CD capabilities.
• Azure Test Plans: with this tool, teams can plan and carry out manual and automated tests (UI tests, Selenium tests) as well as collect feedback from all the parties involved, including stakeholders.

Why do Devs and QAs opt for Azure DevOps?

When choosing the right toolset for the work, developers consider various factors to ensure they meet their development needs and align with their project requirements. What’s more, their choice may attain limitless productivity, efficiency, performance, and the success of their projects. Keep on reading to discover what Azure platform allows developers:

• To automate repetitive and error-prone tasks and deliver high-quality software faster and with fewer errors.
• To streamline their build or release workflows by consolidating a sequence of tasks that have been defined in a pipeline into a single one to reduce tracking and accountability challenges.
• To configure a CI\CD pipeline as code, see every change made, compare it, and make an appropriate decision thanks to the YAML interface.
• To work with and deploy software products from the same source code to make management of the projects easier.
• To automate the test suite, track test results, including azure testing, and make sure that test code changes do not negatively impact existing functionality.
• To monitor and improve code quality with great reporting and analytics capabilities.
• To keep control over the entire development process, including continuous testing and deployment.
• To apply a wide range of features specifically tailored to the needs of the development process and projects of all sizes.

How to create a CI\CD Pipeline with Azure DevOps?

Here we will overview a scenario for creating a CI\CD pipeline. The example below demonstrates a two-tiered web application and CI\CD pipeline deployed with Azure DevOps.

Let’s find out how it works:

1. A software engineer modifies the source code of the App.
2. The updated test code, along with the web configuration file, is committed to the Azure Repos source code repository.
3. With Azure Test Plans, the continuous integration (CI) system initiates the application build process and executes unit tests.
4. The continuous deployment (CD) component in Azure Pipelines automatically deploys the application artifacts with environment-specific configuration values.
5. Then the pipeline deploys the artifacts to the App Service for deployment.
6. With Application Insights, all the data related to the application’s usage is gathered and analyzed.
7. The development team oversees and manages the application’s information.
8. With backlog information, the team can prioritize bug fixes and new features on Azure Boards.

Azure DevOps Best Practices

Here are some Azure DevOps best practices that can help improve the effectiveness of software development teams:

#1: Embrace the right DevOps culture

Creating the DevOps culture promotes collaboration and communication between teams and other stakeholders. This encourages a transparency-based approach and drives innovation among team members to take risks, share ideas, speed up decision-making, and faster issue resolution.

That’s why it’s imperative to provide proper training to your teams on how to effectively use Azure pipelines, including azure testing. Only by making sure every team member is on the same page can you deliver high-quality products quickly and efficiently.

#2: Create a project team

Setting up project teams in Azure Boards is crucial when organizing and managing work within a project. Azure Boards provides tools to help teams plan and track their progress more effectively. By default, it defines teams for each project and also supports creating feature-specific teams. Only by defining teams can each project team operate independently and be more productive.

#3: Focus on Agile

Adopting agile-driven methodologies promotes collaboration, transparency, and flexibility among team members. They not only help in improving team communication but provide fast responses to changing requirements. Moreover, teams should use sprint boards and other tools to plan and prioritize work items, track progress, identify issues, and make informed decisions about work priorities and resource allocation.

#4: Analyse DevOps workflows and automate them

Analyzing your DevOps workflows helps you identify what will work best for your different tasks. Once a workflow that aligns with your team’s development process has been established, you can define the stages of work and set up corresponding work item types and states in Azure Boards. This not only provides clarity and consistency in the workflow but also simplifies the pipeline management process. By implementing CI\CD pipelines, you can automate repetitive tasks, minimize errors, and facilitate the development process flow.

#5: Review the Features Board

The Features board in Azure DevOps provides a fast and visual approach for DevOps teams and managers to review and monitor the project status, ensuring a continuous workflow. For instance, you can customize the Features board by adding “In progress” columns. This helps you represent states during the design, development, and deployment cycles. What’s more, this provides easy tracking and displays the progress of features throughout the development process.

When configuring project delivery plans in Azure DevOps, multiple teams can review features for shared projects through an interactive board. Organizations can also customize their Features board to support team-specific processes, tailoring it to their unique wants and needs.

The filter feature in the Features board allows viewers to focus on specific items based on features, specific sprints, or other criteria. This helps in streamlining the visual monitoring process. Additionally, adding rollup columns to the Feature backlog provides a high-level view of the overall project status and enables quick and easy assessment of the project’s status.

#6: Monitor and optimize performance

Monitoring allows you to detect performance issues, such as slow response times, and error rates in the development or deployment process. With Azure Application Insights, you can collect and analyze data to address any issue or eliminate critical problems. In addition to that, don’t forget about security. Implementing access controls ensures the security and privacy of sensitive data and prevents attacks.

Benefits of Azure DevOps platform: what are they?

Selecting the right tools enables businesses and development teams to streamline their workflows, improve collaboration and quality, and ultimately achieve their goals more effectively.

Here are some of the Azure DevOps key benefits:

• Azure DevOps tool enables teams to automate the build, test, and deployment processes. This reduces manual effort and potential errors as well as catches and fixes bugs with ease. What’s more, this contributes to more efficient development processes.
• Azure DevOps CI\CD pipelines provide rapid and frequent deployment of application updates that leads to faster time to market. In addition to that, teams can quickly deliver new features and improvements to end-users as well as fix issues.
• With Azure pipelines, you can create standardized build and deployment configurations, ensuring consistent results across different environments. This helps developers maintain the quality and reliability of the application artifacts that are being deployed.
• Azure DevOps provides a centralized platform for multiple teams to better collaborate and communicate when working on test plans. This not only facilitates the seamless integration of different tools that simplifies and speeds up communication and collaboration among team members, but also helps them identify and fix bugs, vulnerabilities, and other test infrastructure issues early and react quickly.
• Azure DevOps tool offers scalability and flexibility when creating a build or release pipeline. It can be customized to the specific requirements of different software products. What’s more, the support of a wide range of programming languages, frameworks, etc. makes the tool a good fit for a great number of development needs.

Reasons to Integrate Azure DevOps with outside TCMS

When integrating Azure DevOps with a test management system, you can significantly improve the testing activities across multiple teams. While Azure DevOps provides a feature-rich toolkit for managing the end-to-end development workflow, test case management systems offer a centralized testing platform for the teams. QAs can not only create and manage test cases but also run tests. If synced, they both can streamline and automate the test process.

Let’s discover, Why you should integrate Azure DevOps with a test case management? system below:

1. When your team requires a complete solution for test case management, with a rich feature set, including test case traceability, test execution tracking, and advanced reporting, a dedicated test management system can be a significant enhancement to the automated test process.
2. When your teams tend to gravitate towards great performance in the testing process, integrating Azure DevOps with a test management system can help them carry out well-organized testing activities, including automated tests, test execution cycles, test plans, test artifacts, test suites, etc. They can create and manage test cases in the test management system, run automated tests in Azure pipelines, and track the test results in the test automation management system. This provides a well-organized approach to the process and gives a complete view of the “big picture” of test automation.
3. When you want to improve collaboration and communication across multiple teams working on different projects or features, a test management solution integrated with the Azure DevOps platform is a way out. This makes cross-team collaboration easier and provides visibility across projects through the ability to share and review test plans, test cases, test results, and other testing-related information.
4. When your team uses the Azure DevOps tool for development and delivery, you can seamlessly connect test suite in the test management system with the existing workflow in Azure DevOps and enhance the end-to-end development and testing process.
5. When your team needs advanced reporting and analytics, integrating a test management system with Azure DevOps can provide valuable insights into your efforts, help discover test results, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions.

Thus, you can integrate testomat.io test management system with Azure DevOps and derive numerous benefits, including streamlined workflows, enhanced collaboration, increased automation, improved data accuracy, enhanced insights, and advanced reporting. It is worth considering in various contexts to optimize testing processes, improve productivity, and achieve better test results.

How To Integrate Azure DevOps With Test Management

When you’re ready to go ahead with the integration of Azure DevOps and test management system, there are a few steps you should follow:

#1: Start A Project And Create Test Cases

The initial step is to create a project before connecting the CI server to the test management system. Afterward, find the automated tests in a repository and import them into the newly created project.

Then, it’s imperative to find automated tests in a repository and import them into the project.

#2: Link Testomatio IDs To Automated Tests

Having unique test IDs is crucial when exporting or importing test cases. With testomat.io tool, you can streamline this process by automatically generating unique IDs for each test case. However, when syncing IDs for imported tests, it’s important to consider the frameworks used and the various commands applied when updating your source code:

• check-tests command for importing tests with --update-ids for JS-based frameworks.
• check-cucumber command with --update-ids the command for Cucumber framework.

TESTOMATIO={apiKey} npx check-tests <framework> <pattern> --update-ids

What’s more, before pushing a commit to the repository, it’s imperative to check if IDs are written correctly and clearly.

#3: Configure Continuous Integration Settings

You should navigate to the Project Dashboard and locate the Continuous Integration tab (CI tab) to integrate the test project with your CI\CD pipeline. There you can choose Azure DevOps from the available list of tools, make any necessary adjustments, and save your changes.

Bear in mind that it’s important to select all the checkboxes:

• Send Run ID as ‘run’ input (required for scheduled jobs)
• Send Testomatio API key as ‘Testomat.io’ input
• Send Testomatio Server URL as ‘Testomat.io_url’ input

Once the test connection button is clicked, a success message will appear if there are no errors.

#4: Create A New Job In CI To Build And Test

Azure DevOps uses the azure-pipelines.yml file to define configuration in the workflow. When using testomat.io, it’s crucial to set up a unique workflow in testomat.io only. Make sure to include the necessary parameters, such as those outlined below:

- export TESTOMATIO="${Testomat.io}"
- export TESTOMATIO_URL="${Testomat.io_url}"
- export TESTOMATIO_RUN="${run}"

In addition to that, it’s necessary to execute the test runner with the -grep option to ensure that testomat.io environment variables are successfully passed.

- npx codeceptjs run-workers 2 --grep "${grep}"

#5: Execute Tests And View Results

Once you have successfully set up Azure DevOps tool, you can run your automated tests. Simply open a test, choose the ‘Run in CI’ option, and click the ‘Launch’ button. It can be done in one click.

What’s more, you can easily track, view, and share your test results, including slow, failing, or flaky test cases. These results are presented in numbers to let technical and non-technical specialists analyze the data and optimize testing activities for a more efficient test automation process.

Ready to power your workflow with Azure DevOps automated testing?

Integration between the test case management system and Azure DevOps is crucial to provide high-quality automated testing activities. This not only helps reduce manual efforts and human errors but also streamlines the testing process. What’s more, teams can create, manage, and execute automated tests in Azure DevOps, and seamlessly integrate them with their preferred test management system to track and monitor the test performance, detect areas of improvement, and make data-driven decisions.

That’s why businesses that invest in robust testing practices are likely to have reliable and successful software products, satisfied customers, and improved business outcomes. Drop us a line at contact@testomat.io if you have any questions about Azure DevOps automated test management and testing automation integration.

The post Azure DevOps automated Test Management and Testing Automation integration appeared first on testomat.io.

Learn more:

• Test automation as a service QA tricks set up a comprehensive testing process
• Testing and Quality Assurance in Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
• Requirements Specification on Agile project using BDD

With that in mind, incorporating CI\CD pipeline into your development process is necessary. This helps development teams apply new software changes to a production environment quickly and safely as well as generate business value.

While there are many tools for implementing CI\CD practice, you need to find one that can be seamlessly integrated into your infrastructure. Keep on reading to learn more about Bamboo integration with the test case management system to run automated tests with ease!

What’s Bamboo CI exactly?

Bamboo CI tool — is a continuous integration or CI server that can be used to automate the build, test code, integrate and release management for a software application, creating a continuous delivery pipeline.

It is offered by the Atlassian environment. It has a user-friendly graphical user interface, which enables teams to better plan their workflow. Armed with built-in JIRA service management integration, deployment project, Bitbucket server integration, and Git branch workflows, it aims to simplify and speed up the development process reducing the time needed for creating and running time-intensive and redundant scripts and test suites. Generally, Bamboo uses the concepts of agents to perform all CI\CD tasks

Thus, Bamboo concepts are the following:

• Local agents: they run on a Bamboo server as the part of CI\CD process.
• Remote agents: they usually run on any other servers or computers.

Bamboo CI workflow: How is it organized?

Bamboo uses the concept of Projects, Plans, Stages, Jobs and Tasks presented in a hierarchical structure. Basically, a Project is a namespace that contains a different number of plans. Each plan may include multiple stages executed sequentially. Each stage in turn consists of several jobs running in parallel. Finally, a series of tasks compose a job. They are executed sequentially in the scheduled worker node. The picture below shows the structure of Bamboo workflow:

And below we are going to overview Bamboo’s concept in detail:

Key features of Bamboo CI

If you want to gain a better understanding of Bamboo CI server, we would recommend diving deep into the variety of its key features.

• It provides built-in JIRA software integration, Bitbucket server integration, and Git branch workflows.
• It supports REST API.
• It supports Mysql, Postgres, SQL Server, and Oracle databases.
• It works on operating systems like Windows, Linux, Solaris, and MacOS / OSX.
• Bamboo supports Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Edge.

What benefits Bamboo CI server brings

Here we will take a look at some benefits of Bamboo continuous integration tool that may help companies address the testing needs of their teams.

• It includes a lot of built-in functionality that eliminates the need for additional plugins.
• It helps teams orchestrate the development workflow and boost productivity through great integration capabilities.
• It enables teams to create flexible CI and CD pipelines as well as get first-class support for deployments.
• It allows teams to keep release management and build status with end-to-end quality consistent.
• It provides great navigation thanks to its intuitive user interface.

Why developers choose Bamboo CI server

With the ever-increasing competition in the digital world, selecting the right CI\CD tool becomes a crucial point. Teams not only simplify and speed up the deployment and test process but also increase deployment awareness. The importance of continuous integration and continuous delivery tools in the development process determines the goal of better team collaboration and high-quality delivery of software products.

Let’s overview why development teams opt for Bamboo server when working on the projects!

Thus, Bamboo server is used:

• Development and QA teams can detect, build, test, and merge branches to deploy source code continuously to production or staging servers.
• Development and testing teams can automatically merge between Git branches.
• Teams can send a flow of builds to test environments and automatically release builds to users.
• With build agent management, teams can maintain the desired build capacity by connecting servers on the network to AWS Cloud.

When choosing continuous integration tools for your professional teams, it’s imperative to mention that you should consider the cost, features and functionality, support, integration capabilities, etc.

In addition to that, you should identify your company’s needs and expansion plans as well. With the right tool in place, development and testing teams can improve code quality, increase deployments and build high-quality software products quickly and with great test results.

How To Integrate Bamboo CI With Test Management

When it comes to improving productivity and performing daily tasks with great results, software engineers can work on projects on external CI systems thanks to RestFul API (token) directly in testomat.io test management system.

With Bamboo CI integrated your team can get reports about the testing process sent out through the testomat.io reporter option once it is completed.

This will help teams organize a transparency-based workflow, better manage all the test cases and make data-driven decisions. Below we are going to show how to integrate Bamboo CI with our test management system:

#1: Start A Project And Create Test Cases

Before connecting the CI server to the test management system, it’s mandatory to create a project. The next step is to find automated tests and import them into the project.

#2: Link Testomatio IDs To Automated Tests

When exporting or importing test cases, linking unique test IDs is important!

With testomat.io test management system, you can avoid the daunting and error-prone process of the manual creation of test case IDs – this is done automatically. But it’s essential to draw your attention that syncing IDs for imported tests should be done correctly. All the IDs should be checked twice.

#3: Configure Continuous Integration Settings

Now you are ready to connect the test project to your CI\CD pipeline. On the Project Dashboard, find the Continuous Integration tab (CI tab) and select Bamboo CI from the list provided. For more detail on how to fill the fields below, follow to Documentation

Then you can modify the appropriate settings and save them. In addition to that, we would like to pay your attention to the following checkboxes. They all should be selected:

• Send Run ID as ‘run’ input (required for scheduled jobs)
• Send Testomatio API key as ‘Testomat.io’ input
• Send Testomatio Server URL as ‘Testomat.io_url’ input

If there isn’t any mistake, you will see a success message once you click the test connection button.

#4: Create A New Job In CI To Build And Test

When creating a CI workflow, it’s important to mention that you need to use this workflow in testomat.io test management system only. Additionally, your code should include the next parameters:

- export TESTOMATIO="${Testomat.io}"
- export TESTOMATIO_URL="${Testomat.io_url}"
- export TESTOMATIO_RUN="${run}"

Also, test runner should be executed with --grep option so that testomat.io environment variables can be passed in. Example with CodeceptJS tests:

TESTOMATIO_RUN=${bamboo.run} npx codeceptjs run --grep "${bamboo.grep}"

#5: Execute Tests And View Results

Once you set up Bamboo CI successfully, you can execute your automated tests in a jiffy. All you need is to Open a test, select Run in CI and click the Launch button. With visual test results, your team can draw conclusions quickly and easily.

The graphs can be customized to offer insights into – slow, failing, or flaky test cases presented in numbers. That’s why all parties involved – QAs, BAs, PMs as well as stakeholders can discover the facts and figures, detect failures quickly and make appropriate improvements in the testing flow to take the product to market faster.

Bottom Line: Want to stay ahead of the game with Bamboo CI tool?

Today’s users expect error-free software products that work without problems. Delivering high-quality products increases their satisfaction and trust. Therefore, releasing software powered with robust features and consequent updates fast is crucial as well. However, accomplishing this without CI\CD practice will increase quality risks. That’s why Bamboo CI from the Atlassian environment coupled with a test management system provides a faster, more productive, and cost-saving approach for shipping new product features and eliminates the risk for the production environment.

Considering test management benefits, it’s no secret that Bamboo integration is vital for every company to meet with success in today’s competitive environment. Also, our test management solution support running wdio, Cypress, CodeceptJS, Jest and other automation tests on CircleCI, AzureDevOps, Jenkins, GitHub, Gitlab, etc.

Find out more:

• Test Automation with CircleCI & Reporting
• GitLab Test Management and Testing Automation integration
• GitHub Test Case Management and Testing Automation integration

Drop us a line if you want to learn more details about Bamboo testing paired with the test management system to reap all the benefits from your investment.

The post Bamboo Test Case Management and Test Automation integration appeared first on testomat.io.

With CI\CD practices in place, companies can automate and streamline the development process and make it as seamless as possible. That’s where GitLab tool comes into play. It not only ensures faster build, delivery, and deployment cycles but helps automate tasks and launch fully-fledged products quickly.

Read our article to learn more details about GitLab tool, its benefits and test automation capabilities as well as find step-by-step instructions on GitLab integration with test case management system.

What’s GitLab?

Initially designed to manage code repositories, Gitlab is used as an open-source cloud-based CI\CD tool that allows development and testing teams to collaborate and work on the projects. It is built in Ruby, but the tech stack includes Ruby on Rails, Go and Vue.js technologies. One of the key applications of GitLab in modern development practices is GitLab CI testing, which enables seamless integration and automation of testing processes in the CI/CD pipeline.
GitLab works on a freemium basis and offers both free and paid plans. They are the following:

• Free-based: it is a perfect solution for users working individually.
• Premium: it is helpful for small teams aiming to boost their productivity.
• Ultimate: it provides security, compliance, and planning functionality for big companies in addition to many other features.

When applied during the development process, it allows teams to perform the next tasks:

• Organizing project planning
• Managing code repository
• Hosting and monitoring their code changes
• Monitoring progress, etc.

Additionally, it provides great integration possibilities for the teams to produce better software products and reduce product lifecycle.

What are key features of GitLab?

When using GitLab, you should have an in-depth understanding of the core features it provides:

• User Role Management: this feature enables permissions based on the users’ role in a project, provides user statistics and helps make the development process more streamlined and secure.
• CI\CD pipeline: with this feature set, teams can overview test cases version history as well as keep under control all changes made in the codebase with ease.
• Merge Management: with this feature, teams can manage a merge request workflow and bring changes due to implemented code merge request.
• Issues Tracking: this feature helps teams in following the progress of every issue through task lists, thread discussions, milestones, labels, due dates, assignees until it is successfully resolved.
• Security options: thanks to this feature, teams are equipped with automated security scans for vulnerabilities and compliance violations with each commit.

What are the benefits of GitLab?

Here we are going to highlight the benefits you can derive from using GitLab tool:

• It provides Docker integration.
• It allows teams to create new jobs and handle conflicts with ease.
• It offers parallel job execution.
• It includes easy-to-scale runners.
• It allows teams to create new jobs and handle conflicts with ease.
• It delivers sophisticated security options.
• It helps teams create testing scenarios.

Why development teams choose GitLab

Ultimately, your CI\CD tool should meet your wants and needs. Let’s discover why software engineers and QA team select GitLab:

• Teams prefer GitLab tool in terms of its easy configuration and installation – in the cloud, on premises or on a container.
• Eliminating manual setup of CI\CD pipeline, implementation and testing teams take advantage of the Auto DevOps feature that offers test automation.
• With the help of Gitlab integration tool, development and testing teams keep control under Git repositories, better manage and minimize threats in their codebase.
• Development and QA teams significantly increase project efficiency by tracking the GitLab issues and performing code reviews.
• In terms of a cloud-based environment, GitLab provides great analytics options. This helps development and QA teams to be in the know about what is going on at any stage of the software development process.

How GitLab CI\CD works

You can use CI\CD pipelines in any software development process. Before diving into how it works, let’s discuss its basis:
Commit: a change made in the code.

• Job: means instruction that should be executed by a runner.
• Pipeline: a set of jobs broken into different stages.
• Runner: an agent or server that executes each job individually.
• Stages: a keyword that defines certain stages of a job, such as test, build, image and deploy.

Once you have discussed code changes, you can push your commits to a feature branch in a remote repository. This repository is hosted in GitLab. When a push to the branch occurs, the CI\CD pipeline is triggered.

Then, GitLab CI\CD executes automated scripts (one by one or in parallel). This helps in:

• Building and testing your software product
• Previewing the changes locally

When a process succeeds, you merge the feature branch into the default one, once your code is reviewed and approved. It is also important to note that CI\CD deploys your changes automatically to a production environment. However, you can roll back your changes, if something goes wrong.

How To Integrate GitLab CI With Test Management

Our test management system tool allows software developers to work on projects and perform their daily tasks on external CI systems, including GitLab CI testing system, thanks to RestFul API. If the testing process finishes, the team gets a report in testomat.io test management system sent out through the reporter option.

This helps establish transparency to the QA team and make improvements. When integrating GitLab, teams avoid using external test planning tools. Instead, they can better manage all the test cases, track GitLab issues and better plan testing scenarios across the development workflow. Let’s discover how to integrate GitLab project with mentioned test tool in detail.

#1: Start A Project And Create Test Cases

The first step is to create a project. It should be done before connecting the CI server to the test management system.

Then, you need to find automated tests in a repository and import them into the project.

#2: Link Testomatio IDs To Automated Tests

Unique test IDs are important when exporting or importing test cases. Testomat.io eliminates time-consuming and error-prone manual creation of unique test case IDs. All is done automatically. However, when syncing IDs for imported tests, it’s critical to check frameworks have are used. Take into account the different commands applied when updating your source code:

• check-tests command for importing tests with --update-ids for JS-based frameworks.
• check-cucumber command with --update-ids the command for Cucumber framework.

It’s important to note that you must check if IDs are written correctly before pushing a commit to the repository.

#3: Configure Continuous Integration Settings

In order to connect the test project to your CI\CD pipeline, you should find the Continuous Integration tab (CI tab) on the Project Dashboard. Just select Gitlab tool from the list, modify appropriate settings and save them.

Take into account that all the checkboxes should be selected:

• Send Run ID as ‘run’ input (required for scheduled jobs)
• Send Testomatio API key as ‘Testomat.io’ input
• Send Testomatio Server URL as ‘Testomat.io_url’ input

If there are no errors, you will see a success message once the test connection button has been clicked.

#4: Create A New Job In CI To Build And Test

GitLab uses .gitlab-ci.yml file to define configuration in the workflow. It’s important to mention that you need to create a workflow used in testomat.io only. Your code should have the following parameters:

    - export TESTOMATIO="${Testomat.io}"
    - export TESTOMATIO_URL="${Testomat.io_url}"
    - export TESTOMATIO_RUN="${run}"

Additionally, for the testomat.io environment variables to be passed in, the test runner should be executed with –grep option.

 - npx codeceptjs run-workers 2 --grep "${grep}"

#5: Execute Tests And View Results

You can start executing your automated tests in one click – Open a test, select Run in CI and click the Launch button once GitLab CI tool has been set up successfully.

Furthermore, you can track, view, and share test results displayed in the test management tool. All kinds of test cases, including slow, failing, or flaky test cases will be defined and presented in numbers.

This helps all parties involved – QAs, BAs, PMs look into the facts and figures and plan the testing activities to make the test automation process more efficient.

Bottom Line:

Let testomat.io help you start your CI\CD journey with GitLab integration

Launching innovative software products can be challenging for many companies. Now it’s clear that setting up a CI\CD pipeline is a way out for them to accelerate software delivery and improve quality.

With GitLab integration into the test case management system, you can better track issues, catch and fix the bugs promptly, accelerate release cycles, get detailed test case reports and have one-click deployments.

With testomat.io & GitLab, you don’t need to worry about this. Drop us a line if you need a consultation about GitLab integration. Our specialists will give you a hand and answer all the questions about GitLab test case management and test automation integration.

The post GitLab Test Management and Testing Automation integration appeared first on testomat.io.

Your development teams not only can visualize where they are at in their software product’s quality lifecycle but also identify the quality of test cases, testing efforts, test runs, test coverage and release readiness.

Additionally, setting up integration between CI\CD tools and test management software provides a modern and powerful Automated testing workflow

Keep on reading to discover more details about GitHub test case management and test automation integration. However, before starting to detail GitHub test management integration process, first, you need to understand what GitHub system is, What features it entails and what benefits GitHub provides?

What’s GitHub?

Used as a web-based hosting service, GitHub allows software developers to host, review, and manage software projects collaboratively. This significantly simplifies the process of working on the projects. Additionally, with a robust API, development teams can easily integrate GitHub into their own processes (you might to check GitHub API repositories). Thus, to get a better understanding of how GitHub works, let’s break it into particular repositories:

• Git-part represents a freely accessible version control system with the idea of keeping control of code revisions and the ability to store code and code modifications in one central repository.
• Hub-part provides the actual place to collaborate more effectively on the projects and store information about them.

The two parts go together to speed up the development life cycle, provide faster collaboration among the development team and external parties, keep all code changes under control and automate CI\CD pipelines. Moreover, the integration of GitHub testing tools enhances software testing processes, making them more efficient and reliable.

Generally, GitHub tool provides the following options:

• Paid: this option allows software engineers to create private repositories that are visible to authorized users.
• Free subscription: this option allows dev teams to create public repositories that are visible to anyone and can be cloned with ease.

In addition to that, we would like to mention 5 GitHub fundamentals. They are the following:

1. Repository: a location for storing files for a particular project that can be accessed through a unique URL.
2. Forking: copying of the original repository that allows you to make necessary code changes while not affecting its source code.
3. Pull request: it allows you to notify the initiator of the project/repository about changes you have pushed to a branch in the GitHub’s repo.
4. Merging: it’s the process of integrating code changes once a pull has been made to your repository.
5. Changelogs: they help external parties involved in the project and development teams to keep track of all changes that happen to the repository and make appropriate decisions.

What are key features of GitHub?

Understanding key GitHub features helps clarify why this tool may be essential for every software developer at every level in their projects. Here are some of them to consider if you want to benefit from using this tool.

• Unlimited private and public repositories: teams can find unlimited repositories for their work.
• Codespaces: this feature provides a cloud-based environment for development teams to start coding and the possibility to make appropriate customization in their projects.
• Automation: thanks to this feature, you can establish test automation in your projects. CI\CD pipelines, approval processes, and even onboarding can be automated in one click.
• Pull requests and code review: this feature allows software engineers to be in the know of what is going on in the project as well as see who made any code changes before finally merging the modifications.
• Encryption options: with this feature, all the sensitive data kept in the repository or in the repository environment is highly protected.
• Workflow visualization: this feature allows you to visually display the projects’ progress through a real-time graph as well as collaborate with all of your teammates eliminating bottlenecks and making improvements in test automation.

Why development teams choose GitHub system?

Here we are going to overview why development teams opt for GitHub service:

• Teams can manage projects in real-time by reviewing each other’s projects and exchanging code with ease.
• When hosting Git repositories, this platform allows development and testing teams to create a history of code changes and keep track of all the changes that have been pushed to the repository. Additionally, it makes team collaboration more seamless as well as speeds up the review process before the code is merged.
• In terms of remote workforce trends, teams can simply share the code when having access to multiple devices. They can not only clone GitHub repositories and browse the history but also create branches and keep track of the projects on the go.
• When selecting a private code, there is no need for your software engineers to stock code on the hard drive – it is always secured and backed up.
• Development teams can set up a CI\CD pipeline to pull any changes from the GitHub repo and apply them to their own deployment. This helps automate development workflows, collaborate effectively and drive better test results.

What is a CI\CD Pipeline?

The diagram below depicts a typical feature delivery cycle with or without the CI\CD pipeline. Without the CI\CD Pipeline, each step in the diagram belove will be performed manually by the developer. In essence, to build the source code, someone on your team has to manually run the command to initiate the build process.

What helps to set up CI\CD pipeline in GitHub?

Releasing new software updates by automating deployment activities can be done faster when implementing a CI\CD pipeline. With GitHub Actions feature, you can create a CI\CD pipeline for your GitHub project to help development and testing teams automate the software development workflows directly in a project’s repository and work together on pull requests and issues. This process is enhanced by integrating GitHub testing tools, which streamline testing within the CI\CD workflow.

In the CI\CD Pipeline, GitHub Actions is the entity that automates the boring stuff. Think of it as some like plugin that comes bundled with every GitHub repository you create.

Generally, GitHub Actions include 5 components:

• Workflows: mean automated processes that your teams set up in the repository for building, testing, releasing, or deploying any GitHub’s project.
• Events: mean a specific activity in a repository that triggers a workflow run. Check the full list of events on the GitHub Docs.
• Jobs: involve a set of workflow steps executed on the same runner.
• Actions: represent individual tasks combined to create jobs and customize workflow.
• Runners: mean servers that execute the workflows when they’re triggered.

So, how GitHub Actions work

To automatically run the software testing scripts and test cases, you should make sure that you are permitted to configure GitHub repositories, create workflows as well as clone the provided source code in Git. If done, the process looks like the following:

1. An event automatically triggers the workflow that contains jobs.
2. When the workflow is triggered, the runner executes the jobs one by one. By default, multiple jobs will run in parallel.
3. The job consists of a set of steps arranged in the right order (with an action).
4. Each job executes on a specific runner (virtual machine).

To sum up, GitHub Actions allow development teams to create CI\CD pipeline and execute powerful automation directly in their repositories. Additionally, they can integrate preferred tools directly into their GitHub repository. Also, you are free to write your own actions or use actions from the GitHub Marketplace.

What are the benefits of GitHub for Testing Automation integration?

These are real benefits why development and testing teams should implement a test case management GitHub for test cases automation to streamline the development process and deliver high-quality software products quickly. They include:

• Helping development and testing teams get access to the real-time testing environment and scale up if there is a need.
• Making the testing process more effective and importing test case results from the test runner with GitHub’s modern features.
• Allowing dev teams to track test runs results, get test insights and make data-driven decisions.
• Streamlining collaboration between development teams by simplifying their coordination and communication while enabling them to create and run test plans.
• Providing the Quality Assurance teams with the ability to track the coverage of requirements, the test results and linked GitHub issues.

GitHub tickets management

It’s important to mention that testomat.io test management system provides GitHub integration testing that helps you create a CI\CD pipeline and set up an effective testing process. Moreover, you can:

• Create GitHub issues straight from testomat.io.
• Link bugs to GitHub tickets directly from testomat.io.
• Update and track test status after re-run.

Armed with an understanding of the benefits of GitHub test management and testing automation integration, you can take the necessary steps that will bring you closer to effective implementation.

How To Integrate GitHub With Test Management

Our test management system allows software testers to perform tasks on external CI systems with REST API. Test runner automatically assigns IDs to all tests and executes them as a subset of tests. Once the testing process comes to the end (even if one test has been finished), you can get a report in the test management system through the reporter option. Below we are going to overview how to integrate GitHub test case management with testomat.io test management tool step by step.

#1: Start A Project And Create Test Cases

First and foremost, you should create a project before connecting the CI server to the test management system.

Then, it’s imperative to find automated tests in a repository and import them into the project.

#2: Link Testomatio IDs To Automated Test Cases

When assigning testomat.io Ids for imported tests, it’s important to take into account what frameworks are used. Here are the commands:

• check-tests command for importing tests with --update-ids for JS-based frameworks.
• check-cucumber command with --update-ids the command for Cucumber framework.

Those commands are used to update your source code. Additionally, we would like to mention that you must eliminate mistakes when changing IDs. Don’t forget to check them before pushing a commit to the repository.

TESTOMATIO={apiKey} npx check-tests <framework> <pattern> --update-ids

#3: Configure Continuous Integration Settings

On the Project Dashboard, you can find the Continuous integration tab to connect the test project to your CI\CD pipeline.

Once pressed, choose GitHub tool, modify appropriate settings and save them.

Additionally, focus your attention to the checkbox configuration. All the checkboxes in the list should be selected:

• Send Run ID as ‘run’ input (required for scheduled jobs).
• Send Testomatio API key as ‘Testomat.io’ input.
• Send Testomatio Server URL as ‘Testomat.io_url’ input.

Click the Test connection button to check your connection. You will see a success message on the page if there are no errors.

#4: Create A New Job In CI To Build And Test

GitHub uses path/file .github/config.yml to define configuration in the workflow. With that in mind, you should create a workflow utilized in testomat.io only. Your code should have the following parameters and start on workflow_dispatch event:

name: Testomatio Tests

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      grep:
        description: 'tests to grep '
        required: false
        default: ''
      run:
        required: false
      Testomat.io:
        required: false

Additionally, for the testomat.io environment variables to be passed in, the test runner should be executed with --grep option.

#5: Execute Tests And View Results

Once GitHub pipeline has been set up successfully, you can execute your automated tests in one click – Open a test, select Run in CI and click the Launch button.

What’s more, you can find and view reports on test results in the test management tool. Slow, failing, or flaky tests will be defined and presented in numbers.

Not only development teams but also non-technical specialists like BAs, PMs can track the results in the test management system and be on the same page about the testing progress. This will give them an excellent overview of what changes to make for the testing process to become more efficient and improve test management.

Wrapping up: Bolster Test Coverage With the Right Test Management Software

It’s increasingly complicated to remain competitive and deliver high-quality products without a test case management system in place. If you find your teams struggling to set up an effective testing process and get the most out of test insights, GitHub test management powered with test automation might be a good idea for your development and testing teams. Moreover, incorporating GitHub integration testing into your workflow can streamline and optimize the testing process, ensuring more accurate and efficient results. The better equipped they are to consistently manage test cases and testing efforts, the more likely your software products will be released faster.

If you’re contemplating how to integrate GitHub test case management and test automation contact us now and schedule a free consultation with our experts at testomat.io We will be happy to give you more details about the test management system integration with GitHub.

The post GitHub Test Case Management and Testing Automation integration appeared first on testomat.io.

Currently, the testing process has become a significant bottleneck for development and QA teams to perform tasks effectively. Avoiding these bottlenecks is a business imperative. If your team is not already empowered to react to this problem, you may be leaving your business vulnerable. Given that, the importance of integrating automated testing directly into CI\CD pipeline has never been more apparent.

Whether you’re working on an old one or launching a new one, improving the quality of your software releases with the right CI\CD tools is a must. This will help you significantly strengthen feature quality and streamline development possess. Read our article to learn more details!

What’s CI\CD pipeline?

Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) are two essential practices used in Agile and DevOps that help development teams integrate their code early into a shared repository and make sure that new features reach customers as quickly as possible. Being a crucial component for modern software development and agile teams, it helps boost team productivity, reduce failures and shorten the release cycles.

What’s CircleCI?

Built in Clojure, the CircleCI platform provides continuous integration and delivery processes for development teams and helps them efficiently release code as well as automate development, testing and deployment hosted on a GitHub repository. It offers the following types of setups:

• Hosted service: users can log on to that hosted platform and run tests, all their builds, and pipelines there.
• On-premise installation: users are able to install and maintain it on their own infrastructure.

What are key features of CircleCI?

Here we are going to overview some key features that make CircleCI tool great for the broad software development community and testing teams.

• ‍Insights Dashboard: this feature allows monitoring all continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery pipelines and finding all the essential information about workflow status, duration, etc. Additionally, teams can track the status of the jobs and pipeline, identify opportunities to cache, insert parallelize and optimize consumption in the testing process.
• Orbs: this feature provides reusable, simplified commands and helps development teams work with commonly-used services such as Google Cloud, AWS and Azure.
• Parallelism: this feature helps teams reduce the time needed for tests to finish – you can change the number and types of containers as well as determine the number of resources that will be used to finish the job.
• Jobs: this feature allows teams to run jobs simultaneously – you can execute tests async without the need to run them independently.
• Workflows: this feature allows development teams to define, design and keep under control job executions.
• Automated Deployment: this feature provides a quick time-to-market strategy by deploying pipelines to multi cloud environments.

What are the benefits of CircleCI integration?

Integrating the CircleCI tool into the software development process provides multiple benefits to the whole process. Let’s discover the benefits you can reap from CircleCI integration:

• CircleCI is powered with a clean and simple UI that makes it quicker and more responsive for users.
• CircleCI integration is highly secure – all variables are encrypted.
• CircleCI offers a great number of infrastructure options across operating systems and provides a quick move with an easy setup.
• CircleCI allows teams to integrate it easily with software repositories such as Bitbucket/itHub/GitHub, etc. with ease.
• CircleCI provides automated parallelism to speed up the deploying code of multiple executions.
• CircleCI runs on an online server and avoids the need to have internal dedicated server support to start working.

How does CircleCI work?

A software repository on a supported version control system needs to be authorized and added as a project on circleci.com. CircleCI integrates with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise, and Bitbucket. Every time a code commit is made, CircleCI creates a pipeline. Every code change then triggers automated tests in a clean container or virtual machine. CircleCI runs each job in a separate container or virtual machine.

CircleCI then sends an email notification of success or failure after the tests are complete. CircleCI also includes integrated slack and IRC notifications. Following the completion of tests, CircleCI provides detailed CircleCI test results that help in assessing the success or failure of the tests.

Why development teams opt for CircleCI?

Choosing the right CI\CD tool is crucial for your DevOps pipeline. It not only speeds up your product delivery but also makes continuous integration smoother and easier. According to a recent official CircleCI State of the delivery report, 50% of development teams that select CircleCI tool for release build and deliver elite-level products. Being a completely automated CI\CD tool, CircleCI provides easy setup and maintenance without any difficulties.

If you need a quick move in your software project, this CI\CD tool is a go-to choice and a great example of quality:

• CircleCI serves around 30000 clients and is capable of running a million tasks per day.
• CircleCI offers performance-based scaling options.
• Incorporates SSH into the build and test runs to debug.
• CircleCI runs every task as a new container which prevents stale build data from causing issues.
• CircleCI announces the end of task execution via Email Notification.
• Another important thing is that you don’t need additional infrastructure to maintain your CI (continuous integration) environment.
• Moreover, the parallel execution of builds makes CircleCI software a good option for your development and testing teams. If integrated with the test management system, your development teams can focus more on code accuracy and better coordination as well as keep a close eye on the overall performance of the testing process.

How to integrate CircleCI with test management

In testomat.io testing tool you can trigger jobs on external CI systems using REST API. If only a specific test or suite is executed, tests IDs or suites move to the job. With test runner, all tests are stored by their IDs and executed as a subset of tests. During the ongoing process, a report is sent to test management through the reporter option in real-time even if just one test was finished. Here we show step-by-step the CircleCI integration with our test management system.

#1: Start a Project and create Test cases

When connecting the CI server to the test management system, firstly you should create a project in and find automated tests in a repository and import your automated tests into the project.

#2: Assign Testomatio IDs to automated tests

Here you can discover how to assign testomat.io Ids for imported tests according to the frameworks used: use the check-tests command for importing tests with --update-ids for JavaScript frameworks.

TESTOMATIO={apiKey} npx check-tests <framework> <pattern> --update-ids

use check-cucumber command with --update-ids command for Cucumber framework.

TESTOMATIO={apiKey} npx check-cucumber <pattern> --update-ids 

With those commands, you can update your source code. Take into account that all ID changes mustn’t include mistakes. You need to check them before pushing a commit to the repository.

#3: Configure Continuous integration settings

Connect the test project to your CI\CD pipeline by choosing the Continuous integration tab on Project Dashboard.

After then, choose CircleCI and fill in the needed settings. After then Save them.

Pay attention to the following checkbox configuration in the Input variables tab have to be checked:

• Send Run ID as ‘run’ input (required for scheduled jobs)
• Send Testomatio API key as ‘Testomat.io’ input
• Send Testomatio Server URL as ‘Testomat.io_url’ input

Check your connection by clicking on the Test connection button. The successful message should appear.

#4: Create a new job in CI to build and test

CircleCI uses path/file .circleci/config.yml for configuration. That’s why you need to create a workflow used solely by testomat.io The workflow should start on workflow_dispatch event with the following input parameters of your code:

parameters:
  Testomat.io: 
    type: string
    default: ""

  run: 
    type: string
    default: ""

  Testomat.io_url: 
    type: string
    default: ""

  grep:
    type: string
    default: ""

The job should include a step where the test runner is executed with –grep option for the Testomatio environment variables to be passed in.

      - run:
          name: Run tests
          command: 
            cd $CIRCLE_WORKING_DIRECTORY
            npx codeceptjs run --grep "<< pipeline.parameters.grep >>"
          working_directory: ~/codeceptJS
          environment:
            TESTOMATIO: << pipeline.parameters.Testomat.io >>
            TESTOMATIO_RUN: << pipeline.parameters.run >>
            TESTOMATIO_URL: << pipeline.parameters.Testomat.io_url >>
          

#5: Execute tests and view results

Once you successfully set up our Circle CI pipeline, you can execute your automated tests by opening a test, selecting Run in CI and clicking the Launch button.

Moreover, you can now report your test results to the test management tool. This will help you track and view all test results with ease, and make them accessible to the entire team – stakeholders, BAs, PMs, development and testing teams.

Additionally, you can define what tests are slow, failing, or flaky and make changes. This will help them make data-driven decisions and appropriate improvements. To sum up, Circle CI integration is a good example of taking a positive effect on the quality and performance of the product being tested at any stage.

Bottom line: Want to let your CI\CD flow with CircleCI integrated?

Implementing a CI\CD pipeline has become a requirement in our agile-driven world. If properly incorporated, development and testing teams can discover bottlenecks in their early stages and identify issues more quickly.

Additionally, it helps execute tests faster, avoid similar test failures, detect potentially affected tests and get a crystal picture of test results. With the right tools in place — which is facilitated both by a well-aligned development team and a well-defined testing strategy, companies can take significant advantage of the process. They not only can identify and resolve bottlenecks today but also during future periods of business growth.

Having that in mind, you will need the CircleCI integration with testomat.io test management system to reflect the new messaging of the IT world.

Configure the next integration and run your automated tests on CI\CD:

• Playwright Testing Tutorial on How to Organize an Advanced (Scaled) (e2e/unit) Testing Framework
• The Ultimate Cypress Tutorial: How to Organize your Advanced Testing Framework
• Codeceptjs testing tutorial on how to organize an advanced e2e testing framework
• Cucumber Testing Tutorial on How to Organize an E2E or Unit Framework

If you have any questions, contact our CI\CD experts who will help you in building CI\CD process that meets your DevOps needs.

The post CircleCI integration with test management appeared first on testomat.io.

Wherever you are on your CI\CD journey, there are test failures you need to address. Test failures can be tricky things in your CI\CD pipeline. Improperly addressed failures mean delays in product or feature delivery as well as potentially impact the company’s overall performance in the market

Why are your tests failing?

Unfortunately, even with well-defined testing procedures, test failures can still occur. Only by uncovering the mystery of test failures as early as possible can you save your Dev, QA, DevOps and Operations management teams time and money. So, let’s try to discover the common reasons for test failures below:

• Low visibility into test performance
• Poor communication and collaboration between teams across the pipeline
• Inaccurate test reporting
• Inability to handle a large number of tests
• Selecting the wrong tools

Why should we take failing tests seriously?

Failing tests are often symptomatic of a greater issue that needs to be addressed. Once the development team understands why tests fail, they should start fixing them. Without bug fixes, tests will continue to fail whenever the CI\CD pipeline runs. If the test results are ignored and forgotten in the backlog, carrying out such a test process is ineffective.

Moreover, ignoring failing tests may block the delivery of new features and leads to a loss of revenue and reputation in the future.

That’s where CI\CD comes into play to help development teams deal with failing tests. But, what’s exactly CI\CD?

CI\CD: Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery Explained

Continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI\CD) pipeline entails a series of step-by-step actions performed by a development team in a structured way to deliver a new version of the software product.

Generally, CI\CD pipelines are used to help development teams improve software delivery throughout the software development life cycle with automation. This enables organizations to produce software products of high quality and eliminate the need to manually execute each step of testing.

Tips to avoid mistakes on the way of efficient CI\CD pipeline

Ultimately, the purpose of building CI\CD is to ship software in a timely and effective manner. Therefore, when creating a pipeline, you should keep the following steps in mind:

• Define how long it takes to complete an activity with manual testing.
• Decide whether this activity is worth being automated.
• Examine the entire CI\CD and incorporate the required stages only.
• Monitor and analyze performance data to identify if the pipeline needs improvements.
• Understand the technologies your teams use, their limitations, and how they can be improved to speed up the automated testing process.
• Drive clear communication and collaboration between different teams involved in the pipeline flow.
• Engage highly-skilled specialists across the pipeline.
• Plan ahead and make sure your tools are ready for scaling up.

What is Continuous Integration pipeline?

Continuous integration pipeline has a focus on producing code and undergoing initial testing. When multiple developers continuously merge changes to a shared repository, each pull request contains an isolated change. This eliminates waiting and merging several disparate changes at once, provides low-risk experimentation and helps to avoid undesirable outcomes. Generally, CI pipeline entails the following tasks:

• Identifying changes in the source code repository once new commits appear
• Examining source code quality
• Creating builds
• Executing all unit tests and integration tests
• Generating deployable artifacts
• Providing test automation report

Eventually, it’s essential to choose a highly affordable and optimal CI\CD tool suite for your project as well as the right people to ensure smooth scaling up and ongoing maintenance.

What is Continuous Delivery pipeline?

Continuous delivery has a focus on deploying a successfully tested and validated build.

When using a continuous delivery practice, you always keep code in a deployable state and push code changes consistently and reliably to multiple environments. Before pushing a build into a test environment and production environment, it should be thoroughly tested and validated through automation – to selected infrastructure environments, including a development environment for a related feature or test environments to verify feature functionality and proper integration with other parts of the software product.

With that in mind, CI\CD requires robust automation powered with sophisticated reporting and analytics to have all information about builds at fingertips. Furthermore, this allows development teams to start fixing bugs in real time even if the test report hasn’t been generated to the end and keep test results on track.

Key stages of a CI\CD pipeline

While every company has different requirements and processes to deliver a new version of a software product, most software releases go through typical stages in every CI\CD pipeline. They are the following:

Source

With a version control system, development teams can store code in a centralized repository, keep changes on track and better collaborate. CI assumes repository changes and triggering events to provide better control over the source code. Automating the source allows teams to be in the know about any changes, spot issues and act quickly.

Build

The build process gets source code from a version control repository, provides links to relevant dependencies, and combines all these components to build an instance of the software potentially ready for end-users. Automated tools used in this stage not only notify developers that the build is completed but generate logs and pinpoint bugs to be fixed.

Test

The completed build undergoes an enormous array of tests, such as performance tests, integration tests, unit tests, regression tests, system tests, UI tests, functional tests, parallel tests, etc. as well as test cases to validate the source code correctness and the behavior of the software product being developed. This helps development teams address issues and fix bugs as early as possible and make debugging less costly.

Deploy

Once a completed build has passed all predefined tests, it is ready to be deployed. The development team creates a deployment environment to move the build to a server. Typically, these activities are automated with scripts or through workflows in test automation tools. This helps teams speed up the process and find unexpected errors faster.

Wrap-up: the attributes of effective CI\CD pipeline

CI\CD has a focus on enhancing the quality of releases and ensuring faster turnaround times. That’s why when creating an effective CI\CD pipeline, it is essential to be aware of its key characteristics or attributes:

• Consistent workflow
• Speed and scalability
• Automation
• Reliability
• Fault-tolerant
• Reusability

Challenges Agile teams typically face while working on CI\CD pipeline

Here are some of the major challenges that Dev, QAs, DevOps and Operations part of teams may face:

• Flawed tests: Tests are created to ensure high-quality builds and quick code deployment. If they are outdated or poorly written, this contributes to deploying faulty codes and disrupting product performance.
• Poor team communication: Lack of transparency and cooperation in your teams sets every project for failure. Once something fails, it’s mandatory to communicate with your teammates and find a solution as quickly as possible. If an automated build test finds errors and doesn’t notify, it presents room of problems as well.
• Security threats: Insecure code imported from third-party sources, dev or test environment breaches, and unauthorized access to source code repositories are common security issues that may result in security vulnerabilities within your product production.
• Version control: Being centralized codebase storage, version control systems allow teams to keep track of changes in the codebase. However, The biggest problem you can face is But, an automated system update is known as the biggest problem. When a new version is updated, there is high probability that tests, deployment, and production start to crash.
• Scalability bottlenecks: With the huge influx of data volume, devices, and testing infrastructure growth, the development and operations teams may face difficulties when managing data capacity and maintaining stability.
• Performance anomalies: If your CI\CD pipeline is not properly implemented, the team may face performance issues, including long server response time, memory leaks, poor load distribution, etc. This will lead to negative customer feedback, revenue loss and reputational damage.

What are the benefits of CI\CD pipeline?

A well-functioning CI\CD can be a game changer in QAs and DevOps Agile collaboration. Here you can discover what benefits you can derive from it:

• Improved developer productivity
• Reduced deployment failure rate
• More frequent release of a new feature
• Reduced time to deployment

With CI\CD, companies can deliver better software faster by shortening the feedback loop between development and operations. This leads to improved customer satisfaction, accelerated time-to-market, lower delivery costs, and incredible product innovation.

To derive benefits of CI\CD, it’s essential to commit changes at least daily. When doing these repetitive and time-consuming tasks manually, there are some errors from development teams – missing details or inconsistent test results. Thanks to automated testing for CI\CD, you can eliminate human mistakes and speed up the process.

Automated testing for CI\CD pipeline

The CI\CD pipeline requires an automation tool to store the environment-specific parameters that must be packaged with each delivery. With CI\CD automation, it is easy to restart web servers, databases, and other services as well as execute other procedures following deployment.

Additionally, automating the CI\CD allows development and operations teams to provide faster builds and deployment as well as continuously generate feedback based on test results. What’s more, teams can execute automated tests as many times as possible to deliver quality code and software products as well. QA teams may encounter automated test failures in CI\CD. The common reasons are the following:

• Lack of relevant experience and inability to incorporate improvements
• Selecting inaccurate test reporting tools or not using them at all.
• Discovering and resolving test failures late in the process
• Incorrect prioritization of the test case execution.
• Ignoring error types and quarantining the test immediately.

But what should you do when automated tests in CI\CD fail?

How to reduce test failures in CI\CD pipelines?

Below, we are going to overview 5 tips that will help you to deal with this problem, So

Tips for reducing test failures in CI\CD pipeline

Fixing a failed test is a tedious process that requires a series of steps. Keep on reading to reveal how to handle test failures in the CI\CD pipeline and keep it flowing.

#1: Minimizing upfront work and prioritizing urgent tasks in test automation

With an incoming lengthy list of tasks to complete, software development teams are unable to keep things balanced throughout the day. When a commit fails, development and operations teams should be notified quickly as well as provided with all the required information to fix an issue. If your software engineers are unable to address issues as quickly as possible, it will slow down the release of new features and increase the deployment failure rate. Prioritizing the most important or urgent tasks will give your developers a sense of direction and helps them produce work of great quality.

#2: Debugging where the error in automated tests exists

Debugging issues right inside the CI environment is critical for development teams. This helps them make the best use of their time on fixing bugs and get rid of unnecessary work. With the right toolset, software engineers can discover what happened on the server. Additionally, they should try to answer these questions to deduce where a problem is coming from. They are the following:

• What input can we provide? Is this input the same as the function you expect?
• What output can we get? How has the input changed?
• Are there any other entities interacting with this piece of code?
• What changes have caused issues with the code?

#3:Diving into the metrics

Relying heavily on metrics helps you monitor the efficiency of your continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline and reduce failures. The problem with monitoring is that it’s hard to know what metrics to choose. When poorly chosen, they create an illusion of control. That’s why you should opt for the metrics that will help you deliver green dashboards. Here are some basic ones:

• Uptime, error rate, and infrastructure costs: these basic metrics enable you to discover whether the system is financially viable and stable.
• Cycle time: this metric allows you to see an objective picture of how quickly your engineering team can deliver working software.
• Change volume: this metric provides information on how many stories/features and lines of code your engineering team pushes to production per deploy.
• Deployment frequency: this metric helps you measure the number of successful deployments or releases to production and showcase how much value end-users receive and how quickly they get it.
• Test duration: this metric measures the time it takes an engineering team to conduct tests.
• Test failure rate: this metric allows you to track the number of failures during the automated testing stage.
• Test coverage: this metric allows you to measure and understand what portion of the tests has been executed.
• Flaky tests: this metric helps teams detect flaky tests, display information about them, prioritize and quickly filter the right options for your needs.
• Slow tests: this metric provides information on the duration of test execution and helps identify technical problems in the project.
• Rollback speed: this metric provides information on how much time you need to restore an older version in case of a significant error.

The metric data should help you investigate what caused the issues and transform them into learning opportunities – prevent or significantly minimize failures in the CI\CD pipeline in the future.

#4: Opting for the right tools

Choosing the right tools helps the entire development teams flag frequent pain points and save time and energy down the line – tools for handling the integration (CI) side, managing the development and continuous deployment (CD) as well as carrying out continuous testing. That’s why ensuring your engineers have the right tools to do their job well is a must to speed up productivity and handle errors.
Additionally, it’s mandatory to incorporate observability practices into your CI\CD pipeline to achieve visibility. This will help you provide insights into traces, logs, and metrics before deployment and make a data-driven decision.

#5: Securing your CI\CD pipeline

While CI\CD pipeline improves software development and delivery through automation, they involve integrating numerous tools and services that may introduce security gaps – the code in your most recent commit could be vulnerable, or a dependency could be at risk. Leaving security to the end of the CI\CD pipeline increases the risk of vulnerabilities reaching the production environment. What’s more, it impacts the software product’s security when hundreds of code changes happened. With a secure CI\CD pipeline, development teams can find and fix issues without disrupting the overall CI\CD flow.

Bottom line: Want to take your CI\CD to the next level?

A high-quality product and great customer feedback are essential to remaining competitive in today’s digital world.

With the right tools ingrained in your CI\CD pipeline, you can significantly reduce test automation failures, roll out quality products and maintain a competitive edge. Moreover, setting up an automated CI\CD pipeline is critical to keep the process on track and get real-time actionable information about software product health and test automation performance. If implemented properly, it helps development teams speed up deployments while reducing test failures in the long run.

Wondering how to approach the implementation of an error-free continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline? — Our expert team is ready to give you a helping hand! Be free to contact Us

The post How to reduce test failures<br> in CI\CD pipelines? appeared first on testomat.io.