From manual to machine
Software testing checks whether business use cases and administrative processes are correctly displayed in the software. In many industries/companies these business use cases can be so complex that experts must be involved to verify them.
Tests like these are tedious and time-consuming and when constantly repeated can place a strain on the business departments. Automatic test execution is the ideal alternative – especially if the knowledge and experience of the department is only implicitly available or if there are only a few written test cases that can be automated immediately.
The transition from manual to automatically processed test runs is a component of the 3-phase concept. Building on experience gained in large scale test projects, OBJENTIS has developed a concept for the systematic automation of functional tests. Emphasis in this concept is placed on the application case, specifically the “use case”.
Phase I: Test case documentation through twinning
OBJENTIS experts accompany, or “twin”, the client’s business specialists to document the test cases in writing. The proper structure is ensured by our experts’ methodological know-how, and phase one ends with completion of a test case repository. The repository can be accessed throughout regression testing, thus cutting the time it takes to create new tests. In case of software revisions, this documentation also provides a record for previous testing.
Phase II: Use case/test case adjustment
In this phase the test cases are systematically correlated to the use cases. This ensures adequate testing coverage while helping to identify redundancies to make them avoidable. The test cases are prioritized, and those found to be redundant or outdated can be removed. The objective is to reduce the testing time and effort, but not without taking into consideration the application risks. At the end of phase two, the use cases already have their test cases assigned, and it takes relatively little technical effort to further process the test cases automatically.
Phase III: Automation
In the last phase, automated test cases are generated from the use cases with in-house OBJENTIS tools. The test cases can be run with nearly any common automation tool. OBJENTIS experts are available to support clients with the initial implementation of automated testing. Thereafter, the client’s trained staff can efficiently perform regression testing in house.
