Azure DevOps vs. SpiraTest

Azure DevOps works well when you’ve got larger delivery efforts with multiple teams and a lot of moving parts, and you need one place to plan work, track it properly, and see how everything links together. It’s especially useful when delivery and development are closely tied and you want backlog items, code and releases connected rather than spread across tools. Where it’s less of a fit is for small teams or simple pieces of work, as it can feel like more setup and process than you really need, and non-technical users often struggle with the interface. It also isn’t great if you want instant, easy programme-level views or a very visual planning experience without putting time into configuration.

Incentivized

I think SpiraTest is well suited as a test suite, but in situations where the team is already using multiple products from one particular provider, it may be better to go with that provider's test solution. This is because integrations are very important nowadays, and should be considered when picking your project management software. It should be noted that management selected SpiraTest primarily due to the low cost of the test software. I'm less familiar with other test software in the field, but if cost is an issue, you should take a look at SpiraTest.

Incentivized

• Utilize Git as a repository to share work between multiple users
• Ability to configure Pipelines to build containers to run virtual deployments and testing scripts.
• Split individual tasks and relate to master documents for quick navigation and ability to see overall picture of project.
• Track status of each task
• Integrate with Git to utilize branches, merging, approvals, history, etc.

Incentivized

• A clean view of test case steps, expected results and the ability to record a result for each step quickly on one page per test set. This really helps testers work through executing manual test cases.
• Hierarchical structure of releases and builds, requirements, and test cases.
• Can quickly build test sets and/or test runs per build/release.
• Simple identification of each test case, requirement, test run, build, release, etc.

• I did mention it has good visibility in terms of linking, but sometimes items do get lost, so if there was a better way to manage that, that would be great.
• The wiki is not the prettiest thing to look at, so it could have refinements there.
• It could improve the search slightly better.

• Training can be difficult to find at times.
• Basic reporting can become very verbose unless you set lots of filters and parameters.
• The ability to customize some of the verbiage in the application would help bridge the gap between translating what SpiraTest's testing terminology is and the company culture uses for testing terminology.

Incentivized

I don't think our organization will stray from using VSTS/TFS as we are now looking to upgrade to the 2012 version. Since our business is software development and we want to meet the requirements of CMMI to deliver consistent and high quality software, this SDLC management tool is here to stay. In addition, our company uses a lot of Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Asp.net, etc, and since VSTS/TFS has proved itself invaluable to our own processes and is within the Microsoft family of products, we will continue to use VSTS/TFS for a long, long time.

Incentivized

It's a great help to get more information about new feature release and stay updated on what the dev team is working on. I like how easy it is to just login and read through the work items. Each work item has basic details: Title, Description, Assigned to, State, Area (what it belongs to), and iteration (when it’s worked on). See image above.They move through different states (New → Discovery → Ready for Prod → etc.).

Incentivized

When we've had issues, both Microsoft support and the user community have been very responsive. DevOps has an active developer community and frankly, you can find most of your questions already asked and answered there. Microsoft also does a better job than most software vendors I've worked with creating detailed and frequently updated documentation.

Incentivized

As promised during product selection, SpiraPlan support has always been quick and helpful. Replies almost always come back in hours (and often in an hour or two). And SpiraPlan's online tech support maintains all support conversations online so no need to look through emails to try to recall repllies.

Incentivized

Was not part of the process.

Incentivized

Microsoft Planner is used by project managers and IT service managers across our organization for task tracking and running their team meetings. Azure DevOps works better than Planner for software development teams but might possibly be too complex for non-software teams or more business-focused projects. We also use ServiceNow for IT service management and this tool provides better analysis and tracking of IT incidents, as Azure DevOps is more suited to development and project work for dev teams.

Incentivized

Incentivized

• We have saved a ton of time not calculating metrics by hand.
• We no longer spend time writing out cards during planning, it goes straight to the board.
• We no longer track separate documents to track overall department goals. We were able to create customized icons at the department level that lets us track each team's progress against our dept goals.

Incentivized

• SpiraTest can be improved in terms of its dashboard and reporting. This will be really helpful for the management as well.

Incentivized