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I'm working at a small organization which is hosting a third-party application (business software) for our users. The software is quite comprehensive; we are using only a subset of the functionality. On the other side, the software vendor has created some customizations for us. We have the possibility to file tickets with bug reports and feature requests to the software vendor.

When a new software version is released, we want to ensure that

  • there are no bugs/regressions in the functionality for our needs
  • new features are bug-free
  • new features are useful for our needs

Our tests consist mainly of "click field A, click field B, enter asdf, see what happens in field C".

At the moment, we maintain a huge spreadsheet which contains our tests, the expected/actual results, version information, ticket information and comments. As this spreadsheet is growing, it becomes more and more unusable.

What is the recommended solution to keep track of our tests, test results, ticket information etc? Please note that we are a small organization (2-3 technicians).

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    how often do you get updates ? what percentage of the new features is relevant to you ? what I am trying to ask is, is it really worth the time investing in some tool or solution ?
    – Rsf
    Feb 8, 2018 at 12:25
  • @Rsf Updates usually are released 2-3 times per year.
    – abaumg
    Feb 12, 2018 at 9:01

1 Answer 1

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For team of that size only way to use your time and still have some basic safety that tool is working properly is to recognize and separate that tool into several modules if possible.

  • Divide it into as much modules as possible
  • Read the patch/release notes (if you can rely on it) and run the tests that concerns only that area
  • Beside that module, perform general (sanity) test to make sure that core functions are working

Additional task for longer run
- Try to make schedule when you can perform regression test on entire tool (this will depend on quantity and size of the updates and time that your team can allocate per month).

Try to gather any additional info that you can find about that tool and releases or upcoming builds, some inside information about known issues from forums, sites and/or technical support that will help you to make proper judgment about when and how to perform those test.

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