Hoping to narrow down a search for a TCM that allows for the following. Your expert help would be much appreciated.
For automation I think the TCM will depend on what you automated tests you are referring to. Each TCM will support different ones. For our team, we went through a similar exercise and we were seeking one that would allow us to run Gherkin/Cucumber tests and specifically for Behat or Specflow.
I can’t say that I can give you expert advice but I think if you comment about what automation you are doing, that will narrow down the choices for 1 and 2. For 3, what do you mean by clear reporting and analytics? Every company will have their own criteria for that so you need to also clarify this. Do you need to know test execution time per tester? Estimated time vs actual spent time? What metrics are you measuring?
Thank you Philip for your reply.
I will be happy to expand on it. 
We are currently using Jest for our automation framework for the majority of our test as well as Cypress. Our desire is to be able to utilize TCM for creation of testcases , execution and reporting of the status of the each Testrun to include both the manual and automated cases. -
Reporting is for lead and management desiring to know what encompasses the TestRun, coverage percentages (executed, failed, blocked, duration of run, etc). This is particularly necessary for project work that involves new features that require more extensive testing including our regression and integration testruns.
In addition it’s worth noting that use Jira and would want this tool to integrate with it for bug reporting.
Happy to answer anything else if more clarity can help.
I see, it’s good to clarify that for yourself and I think costing is also another important thing. It’s worth you putting those down in a spreadsheet so you can compare what it good for you.
To be honest, I can’t tell you which TCM to use but I can tell you what I use. TM4J (Test Management for JIRA) is the one that our company chose: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1213259/tm4j-test-management-for-jira.
For TM4J, we must create the test scripts manually on there (like how you raise JIRA tickets) one by one or by importing a spreadsheet. When you say supporting both manual / automated tests, what you really mean is a TCM that can detect your test case files? I’m not sure.
I won’t say too much other than that because most of it can be seen online via: https://support.smartbear.com/tm4j-server/docs/welcome.html.
If you have any questions about that, I’m happy to share but I encourage you to do free trials of TCMs depending on your timeframe to invest in one. The community can give you a lot of options but in the end, you would have to see if they work in your real work environment.
I might be biased, since I’m a veteran user, but I think Practitest is an easy answer to your question.
First of all, this is a TCM with an open API which allows to create framework with literally EVERY automation tool. They also provide a step-by-step guide on how to implement their API for a better flow (of course you don’t have to do it their way). Cypress we used as well, but Jest should not be any problem either.
The tool differs between manual run and automated run, test case designed for automation and for manual testing (though you can create a manual run on automated test and vice versa if needed). It also is shown in reports, and the coverage that you’re looking for - percentage for different run statuses - can also be found in their dashboard items, which constantly update themselves.
They also have run duration, run estimation fields in the report engine, so all of this data is covered and easily generated.
As of execution of automation from within Practitest - they use a different approach: they have an addon called XBot which should be installed on your machine and executes scripts according to the pre-scheduled time that you assign to your test case.
Feel free to ask any questions about it, if I won’t have an answer I’ll ask our Automation team who work with Practitest API 24/7