QA/Test Automation using QTP

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Business Situation

The client firm provides web-based environmental, quality, health & safety, and business-performance management solutions in Toronto, Canada, offering a library of over 65 unique software systems and modules, all of which strategically designed to address distinct specific business needs, to work either as stand-alone solutions or as seamlessly integrated combined solutions. Their software approach has high configurability, which allows the customers to build the perfect solution for their specific needs. How do they make sure it all works? The complexity implies tremendous QA/Testing efforts and respective/associated costs. A small change (any major/minor release to any software system/module) affects a considerable magnitude of workflows/scenarios. This gets worse if you consider the pure manual testing efforts. They needed to automate their testing efforts. The client firm was looking for an expert and reliable partner to help them with QA automation of various software systems and their interdependencies.

The Mindfire Solution

Mindfire took up the opportunity and started its relationship with the client firm last year and established a virtual team of QA resources adept at learning and understanding systems, associated workflows, creating manual and automated test cases as per requirements. An initial assessment period saw automation of existing set of manual test cases for a single module, resulting in the delivery of QTP automated scripts. The first selected system/module was as much a preview of complexities on offer, as it was a test of the QA skills/expertise. It was a less user-friendly application, with unstable layouts and difficult test cases. A tight timeline ensured a good test of delivery under pressure.

The Mindfire Solution Details

The first assignment underwent a swift execution, ensuring a successful on-time delivery. The second assignment saw QA automation of another module having about 100 test cases within a couple of weeks. A disciplined execution again ensured a successful delivery of scripts in time, with an automation-coverage of 92% of the manual test cases. The next assignment was a tough one, which required creation of 2300+ manual test cases before their migration to automated test cases. Mindfire team built these 2300+ cases in a month time.

Achievements

Mindfire team has successfully worked out solutions consistently gaining knowledge on system and its workflow, the team has managed to reduce the initial Script Automation time by 40%, using shared Object Repositories, reusable modules, and the Test Modularity framework. The team started with QTP 9.2, and is now migrating to QTP 10.0.

Technologies

The system to test is built using DotNet, and has over 65 independent modules.

Customer benefits

The client firm will greatly benefit with the automation cycle; in fact, automated testing for the first set of modules, in different customized environments, is already proving its worth. Automated scripts have replaced manual testing efforts spent on these modules, reducing the time involvement by 70%, and effectively eliminating active involvement of multiple human resources running the same manual suite across different platforms, OS, and customized environments.