iggered as part of troubleshooting to fix a bug. Most test management applications support automatic and manual test initiation. The testing application should be able to execute test cases, interpret the test results, store the results obtained and notify other applications on the test results. 53. Element management: These are applications that connect to the network ele- ments to collect management data. It can be used to perform FCAPS (fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security) management func- tions on the network element. Network management system will connect to multiple element managers. That is on the southbound interface the element manger interacts with the devices being managed and on the northbound interface element managers interact with network and service management solutions. These applications fall in the EML layer of the TMN model. The element manager can manage one or more network elements. It discovers the man- aged elements and routing audits the status of the elements. The EMS is used to execute commands on the network elements as part of network provision- ing, where the individual elements in the network need to be configured to interoperate and offer a service. 54. Customer query knowledge base: These applications are intended to help the customer support professional to efficiently handle the customer queries. Customer query solutions have a centralized knowledge base with details of Management Applications common customer queries that can be referred using links and search utilities to identify how to troubleshoot a problem. These applications support work- flows to assign customer complaints to the appropriate help desk when the user makes a call. Tracking of the status of a customer complain can be done with these applications. To achieve this functionality the support solution interacts with trouble ticket management solution. It is quite common to have the solution offered from a Web portal through which customer issues can be submitted and the central knowledge b