Agile demands a holistic view of testing and Automation

With a growing move towards the cloud, mobility and eCommerce, there’s an increasing complexity in both developer and customer sides with respect to IT businesses. Despite competition heating up and the need to market quality products fast, the testing budgets aren’t expanding as they should have. With a limited budget that demands a lot to be done, agile practices and test automation have emerged as the driving force. Though agile is often perceived as applicable just to development teams, it needs the entire organization to adjust to become truly effective. Let’s see how a holistic view of testing and automation will power agile practices.

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The entire team at work

Testing isn’t just the responsibility of testers. To bring stability and quality to applications early in the development process and ensure the business processes are flexible enough to keep pace with agile methodology’s iterative nature, the entire agile team needs to think holistically about testing and automation plans, approaches and tasks. Thus, from deciding what tests should be automated in agile environment, the most beneficial areas to automate within each sprint and for overall release, implementing TDD and BDD, maintaining and reviewing automated tests in agile environment and deciding when not to use automated tests, broad and collective thinking needs to be done by the agile team. It’s important to address the crucial pain points, highest risks and greatest value at first and then assign the work within the team to someone who has the expertise to handle it. since the decision are content-driven and need holistic thinking, you shouldn’t be surprised to find priority given to setting up a unit test framework and creating a unit test as compared to automating functional testing.

Tying tool technology with knowledge

A holistic view of testing needs will help set a good framework for your automation. From reusing elements (such as a button press function or edit filed) and codes across applications of a similar technology type, maintaining and updating changes to location from a centralized point, to maintaining flow control in error (where scripts stop, report error and return to a clean slate to get ready for the succeeding test) and detailed reporting of error, you can create an automated framework that’s not limited to a specific automation technique or tool. Holistic view will also let you expand the benefits of automation to areas like data mining, data cleanup, application sanity tests (conducted by environment support teams and in case of failure, offering a preliminary diagnosis). Thus, by blending automation with tools, techniques and business understanding, delivering high quality software consistently and at a pace will become a reality.

Bringing testers and users into the fold

How many times have you faced problems in your end product due to late involvement of testers in the development cycle? Does late user involvement bother you as you often find no direct link between a user’s requirement and the system features your developers and testers have implemented and tested? Solution to such problems lie in a holistic view where you use an automation approach with a scriptless, behavior-driven, tool agnostic approach to utilize end users effectively while involving testers early on, thus blending technical and domain skills of the team to deliver quality products that meet the end-users’ demands and needs effectively.

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Increasing the automation footprint

Since each release in agile testing has multiple iterations and sprints, the number of changes and volume of work is quite high. Thus, increasing the automation footprints in all aspects of the delivery procedure will help organizations save cost and time as they will no longer depend on manual processes. For example, if you consider the operations layer of test environment, a few key areas you can automate involve knowledge management, reports and dashboards, and service desk. Apart from establishing a single point of contact, such automation will pave way for easy knowledge base access and better control and visibility through fast and detailed reporting. Again for the test environment layer of data and application, you can automate app installment and code deployment, test data generation, version management, service virtualization. These will help in quicker installation and code deployment, higher test data availability, testing at early stage and better test coverage. Thus, for continuous integration and continuous delivery, knowing what and how to automate is crucial.

The collective agile team also needs to consider all validation, verification and automation work to arrive at the most beneficial solution to the business at a given point of time. Want to know how you can use a holistic view of testing and automation in the agile setup for better decisions and quality outcomes? Feel free to drop us a line at contact us or reach us via Ph: 678-361-4357.

QA and Testing in the Automotive Sector driven by Digital Technologies

Companies in the automotive sector are increasingly trying to get close to the end customers by leveraging the digital technology. Irrespective of their location, automotive companies all over the world are trying to adapt their operations using digital means and seeking to reach and engage with the customer on a more personal level. Thanks to an increasing digitalization in this sector, almost 43% of automotive participants in the World Quality Report 2016 said they have engaged a dedicated Chief Digital Officer, which is second to the Government and Public Sector that stands at 51%. With digital manufacturing and autonomous driving playing key roles in this sector, the requirement of quality QA and testing services has emerged as an essential component of delivering quality end products to customers. With systems and equipment becoming smart and connected while robotics, embedded software and digital communication causing an exponential growth in data, there’s a growing emphasis on testing and QA. Even testing smart technology for autonomous cars like guiding vehicles to clear lanes or amidst high traffic or on highways etc would mean new technologies and skills in testing which could pose a challenge.

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Data security and privacy

With connected car features like safety monitoring, vehicle management and driver behavior analysis, it has become important to address consumer concerns about data privacy and security. Hacking is also a big threat for the automotive industry, more so as several connected car features aren’t as well protected as they should have been. This makes the specialist area of cyber security in QA and testing much in demand. Static application security testing, dynamic application security testing, manual code review and penetration testing are some key areas of focus for QA and testing professionals though finding the right tools and skills could pose a problem.

Setting up of centralized and decentralized TCOE

Unlike the HQ-centric model prevalent until a few years ago where a lot of time was needed to get innovations out to global markets and a solitary system was rolled out all over the world, emphasis is on de-centralized systems development with a more market-specific approach where applications and systems are tested in an agile DevOps model to reduce the time to market and meet specific demands of customers in a particular region. No wonder a lot of importance is given by automotive companies on setting up TCOE (Testing Center of Excellence) in a hybrid (offshore/near-shore) model with a collaborative, more deeper engagement between QA and testing teams and the local partners, while a decentralized TCOE is considered important for efficiency and agility.

Outsourcing of QA and testing to offshore partners

With the automotive sector becoming more industrialized, the OEMs and others are responding to cost and quality pressures by outsourcing their QA and testing tasks. Earlier, OEMs used to outsource just their application management but according to the World Quality Report 2016, 44% of automotive participants say they have outsourced a majority of their testing activities to an independent QA partner.

A rise is predicted in the QA and testing spend of automotive companies, mainly driven by the sector’s enthusiasm for automation techniques and emerging technologies. In fact, some of it is already evident as 47% of World Quality Report 2016 respondents belonging to the automotive sector say they use predictive analysis to find or optimize test coverage area in a DevOps setting. Respondents are also upbeat about the use of modern technologies and automation in the coming year with 40% foreseeing use of predictive analysis (for automated detection of risk factors), while 48% and 43% were in favor of cognitive automation and robotics automation respectively in the near future. But despite these promising trends and predictions, the sector will soon settle with its use of modern technique and automation and the need of bringing QA and testing functions closer to the main markets will be felt. Though offshore locations provide benefits in terms of cost and labor arbitrage at present, increasing automation and use of intelligence-led test data and test environment management will tide over these benefits and may soon start a trend of negative off-shoring.

Final words

As digital technologies are driving all areas of the automotive sector – from assembly and supplier plants to original equipment manufacturers (OEMS), QA and testing have become integral to speed up operations and ensure quality to let companies offer a better, more personalized experience to their end customers. For quality QA and testing services in the automotive sector at competitive rates, you just need to connect with TechArcis.

What will be the Role of QA and Testing in an Enterprise Digital Transformation Journey?

Gradually advancing digital technologies are not only giving the industries the needed thrive but the society is also included in this wave of digital transformation and adoption. To meet the expectations of digitally equipped customers, all the industries and specifically IT is greatly dependent on the Quality Assurance (QA) and testing to ensure the product quality and user experience is good. QA and Testing used to be a rigorous and time-consuming process, but now we have a simple solution to it, that involves using an agile project management and product development methodology and deploying software in a DevOps environment where testing is embedded in the software development process.

Because customers are getting more and more connected with businesses in various ways than they did earlier (Mobile, Web, iPads, Voice, Smart TV’s etc.), your IT department needs to take a different approach to delivering applications and test them on Mobile Devices, Desktop and other gadgets that customers use. UI and customer experience is key to client satisfaction. To ensure a strong foothold in the rapidly improving digital journey, DevOps model is the simple and effective mode to streamline the product development process.

Today companies are facing two main challenges, staying at par with all the modern technologies and to render high-quality customer experience. Delivering standard quality applications which are highly stable and change the way customers interact with the digital arena have become must-have for companies. Quality assurance aids organizations in dealing with these challenges, and provide a seamless experience to their customers. But we aren’t talking about your everyday QA here. New age Quality Assurance services now need to be in sync with digital behaviours and all touch points of your customers. This will help enterprises introduce value into the entire customer chain.

As a result of the digital transformation, there is an increased risk of cyber-crimes and cyber-attacks. It becomes really important for users to protect all their assets and resources in the new digital landscape. So it is important to protect the user by doing proper security and compliance testing. It is a good practice and in some industries, it is mandatory to publish/flash the risk, if any, to the user before they get into any particular digital application.

The main goal of the organization should be to make sure that all the channels of interactions offer a stable experience. Both the physical channels such as stores and digital channels such as phones and wearable should be able to provide the customer with a connected and consistent set of features. Hence it is also the performance that counts a lot.

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QA should be able to prepare high-quality frameworks around security, privacy and data integrity and those should be a part of your solution. Enterprises should have a digital assurance platform (Production like environment) in order to full-fill the critical role of QA during digital transformation. This platform should provide a set of assets and other reusable enablers which can be used to improve the efficiency of testing processes and quality assurance. The digital support providing platform must be able to cover all the digital value chains, which should begin with the content creation which is followed by development, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and delivery.

Without right QA strategy, the investments made in the IT infrastructure, tools, and other resources cannot take organizations too far. For improving the customer experience and user satisfaction, QA enterprises must provide them trustable products and services. QA team must step up to integrate testing of embedded software and devices as well as IT solutions and should be able to move beyond the traditional functional testing.

Nowadays companies have gone past the age where they wait for 9 to 12 months before releasing an update or a new product. Today, companies must release product updates constantly and keep it up to date with the new features. This takes things to a whole new level as this keeps them on their toes at all times. In the digital era, the timeline would be further reduced. So it is crucial for the organization to adopt DevOps based QA strategy which supports the fast changes.

In conclusion, we would say:

Enterprises QA and testing services must advance and adapt to the constantly changing digital transformation journey for being effective and spot on. In order to have all the characteristics and behaviour of an ideal organization, you must focus on, and maintain, the quality of all the digitally complex product implementations. You should also include services and support for multiple platforms, services, and applications while keeping in mind the external conditions that might affect the customer life-cycle. QA and testing should be involved in the overall SDLC and follow in-sprint automation and DevOps implementation.

Role of Automation in the era of Agile

As more and more businesses are embracing agile development and testing, automation has become the norm of the day. For cutting down the time of development and time to market, automation has emerged as a critical component as it helps maintain agility throughout the development cycle where various teams cooperate and collaborate, with an emphasis on continuous improvement.

Let’s take a look at how automation plays a key role in Agile environments.

Running Regression Test Suites

For testing existing functionality, you can use completed acceptance tests for creating regression tests and then run them. Regression tests focus on checking existing software applications to ensure that an addition or alteration hasn’t broken any existing functionality. It also helps catch bugs that may have been introduced accidentally into a new product or a new/updated version, apart from making sure that bugs eradicated earlier continue to stay dead. However, with the focus on Agile environment these days, where a new product/release/update is released every 2 weeks or so, you need a sustainable architecture for automation that performs well in the era of Agile environments. Unlike regression tests that are run after a product is ready, you need to run tests simultaneously from the planning through development and design and finally testing stage to ensure that the end product is functional and bug-free. That’s why experts say that without automation, you just can’t leverage Agile to the fullest, at least not with numerous high quality deployments happening over short periods.

Why Use Progressive Automation?

An inherent feature of Agile environments is the continuous process of design, development, testing and delivery. No wonder that the industry is using progressive automation, which is cross-compatible across all software development lifecycle models and designed to offer the most optimum results. Unlike regressive automation where automation can be done in the N-1 or N-2 sprint, progressive approach lets you do it in the Nth sprint itself.

To perform automation in the Nth sprint, scripts to test new functionality need to be written for developed/development which is in progress. Testers too get involved early on into the development cycle, working closely with the development team and business users so that everyone shares the same knowledge base.

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How to enable progressive automation?

Framework: The first step is to analyze the design document and understand the data elements, screens, integration elements, etc. Then create object repository, screen links and modules as part of frame work. Meanwhile the required test scenarios will also be developed in parallel. The automation QA then analyzes the automation approach that needs to be followed and check framework utilities. Once the functional test cases are created and evaluated, they get converted to automation scripts, using framework. Next up is the dry run of the automation suite on a virtualized environment, the results of which are validated by the manual team. After the designated environment starts functioning, the executions are performed on an actual dedicated environment.

It is important to note that we will have short span of time to complete the script in progressive automation. This can be achieved with scriptless automation framework where the user can create/modify the test scenarios through GUI and in the backend the required script will be generated automatically.

Continuous Integration

Continuous integration (CI) in Agile environments aim to minimize the effort and duration needed by each integration episode so that a product version can be delivered on demand, at any time. To be able to deliver products suitable for release at any time, you need E2E (end to end) business process testing where after every 2-3 points in the sub-process, tests are run and then all these sub-processes are connected to give an enterprise solution. From cross-product integration to APA integration, continuous integration needs every team member to integrate at least daily. Thus, multiple integrations happen every day. An automated build running regression tests then verifies these to spot integration errors at the earliest. Thus, businesses face considerably lower integration problems, which in turn helps pave the way for development of cohesive software more quickly.

Continuous integration usually leverages –

a version control tool (SVN, Git, CVS etc)
an automated build and product release procedure
instrumentation of the build procedure to set off unit and acceptance tests each time any change gets published to version control

With CI, if a single test fails, the entire team is alerted of a “broken build” so that it can work to achieve a releasable, stable baseline again, as soon as possible. At times, a continuous integration server (such as Hudson, Cruise Control etc) may also be used to automate the procedure of integration, testing and reporting of test results.

To match the dynamism of business needs today, automation in the Agile environment is something to look forward to.

Load Testing in Agile Environment – Do You Know it All

Load testing in agile environment is being extensively used in most software development scenarios in order to help developers to respond to changeability. However, the industry still withholds certain misconceptions about load testing. Think you know it all? Read on to be amazed!

Automation Testing in an Agile Environment: Five mistakes to avoid while testing in agile environment

Importance of performance testing in Agile Methodologies

Most developers and code testers prefer load and performance testing in agile development methodologies over traditional approaches as it proffer opportunities to access the direction all through the development lifecycle. Moreover, there are certain benefits of using agile methodologies, listed below:

The widely accepted approach to development significantly decreases testing costs of the software
It helps developers to build the right software by rectifying the bugs during initial stages
It empowers load and performance testing teams to incessantly plan their release to optimize its value right through development, enabling them to be as competitive as possible in the market.
Specialized problem solving units with well – Load testers – are entities which receive inputs through sensors and act on through effectors.

Some important attributes which must be followed during load testing in agile environment are mentioned below:

The involvement of active user is imperative
The testing team must be allowed to make decisions
Requirements develop, but the timescale remain fixed
Step-by-step release and iteration
Gathering requirements at high level; visual & lightweight
Complete focus on the incessant delivery of products

Common misapprehensions about load testing

There are quite a few misconceptions regarding load testing. It’s time to bust them!

Performance Testing is completely different and is not feasible when it comes to agile environment– Performance testing offers a much more robust testing scenario since it enables the testers to test each module separately. A series of well-designed modular tests can help in overcoming this misconception.
Performance testing is not quick enough for agile development environment– The testers can rely on targeted performance testing in order to rectify any issues related to speed. Most testers put up SLAs on high priority to ensure that the testing process moves smoothly.
Another misconception related to load testing is that most developers feel that the application must not be subjected to performance testing until and unless all the features and functions are completed. However, this is not true since each module can be tested separately.
Measuring the actual performance of the application is not possible if it is under the development process. On the contrary, the developers can test the performance of their code using performance test in the early phases.
Another misconception related to load testing is that it does not require the inputs of the whole team which is untrue.

Scenarios and practices related to load testing in agile development environment

Agile-oriented computing actually boosts designing and developing applications in terms of independent software entities, placed in an environment. In agile-based computing, software entities interact with one another in terms of languages and high-level protocols so as to achieve goals.

The above mentioned features are well suited to manage the complexity of developing and testing software in current scenario since load testing, stress testing and performance testing play a key role in defining the scalability and work-ability of the application. The agile way in which agents interact and operate is well suited to the unpredictable scenarios where software is likely to operate. The load testers ensure that application is tested through recommended procedures to ensure that it runs without any glitch.

In this methodology, only the true valuable features for a system are selected by eliminating waste and thereafter, those features are prioritized and delivered in small batches. The process put emphasis on the speed and efficiency of development workflow. There should a fast and reliable feedback between programmers and customers.

Key Features of load testing in Agile Methodology

It focuses more on the efficiency of the use of team resources
Methodology ensures that everyone remains productive as much as possible
It involves writing automated unit tests along with the code.
Lean methods focus more on concurrent work
Kanban development method is basically used by organizations to administer the development of products with an emphasis on incessant delivery, while not overburdening the team.

Now that you understand load testing better, we hope you can embed it in your agile setting. With so much changing about testing tools and processes, this is a great time to make load testing a part of your agile process.

Get in touch with TechArcis’s Agile Test Specialists today.

Why Companies Shouldn’t Miss Out On Incessant Software Testing?

Why is software testing so critical? The answer is simple. Software bugs and errors are so widespread and so detrimental that they cost the US economy an estimated 0.6 percent of the gross domestic product. This amount approximately translates into a whopping $100 billion annually. Of this amount, half the costs are borne by the users and the other half by the software developers and software vendors. We must remember that nearly every business and industry in the United States depends on development, marketing, and after-sales support of software services and products.

A study conducted by the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has assessed that more than a third of the costs can be eliminated by improved software investigating infrastructure consisting of a paraphernalia of testing tools for load testing, stress testing, and performance testing.

Many are not aware what software testing is all about. Countless people believe testing of software is high-tech jargon beyond easy comprehension. This perception, unfortunately, is a myth. In this electronic era, we need not be experts to be familiar with the basic concepts of software investigation. Understanding of the key features and advantages of software investigation helps a wide cross-section of professionals and businesspersons in their day-to-day business.

Different Web Testing Applications and Their Functions

The checklist of web testing applications is broad constituting many items. Here we shall deal with a few of them.

Performance testing

A web application should sustain heavy workload, especially during peak times when many users access the same page simultaneously. In addition, the site must be able to handle input data from a large number of users simultaneously. A performance test also includes stress testing where the system is tested beyond its specification limits.

Security testing

Security testing is done by various methods. One of the methods is by pasting internal URL directly into the browser address bar without logging in to ensure that the page does not open. Additionally, the product should use SSL for security measures. Web directories and files should not be accessible without the download option.

Most importantly, all error messages, login attempts, including security breach attempts, must get registered somewhere on the web server.

Functional Testing

The functional testing focuses on manual as well as automation testing. A functional testing is a bunch of various types to execute the perfect product.

Unit Testing

Unit Testing allows your find more bugs at code level or more refined class level. Whatever you are developing Unit testing applies there, be it a web application or mobile app development. It is a concept that is up to the discretion of the team whether to use it or not.

Integration Testing

In integration testing, every element is treated as an atomic unit or as a black-box, at the same time the interconnections among them are checked and modelled to conduct software testing of component interfaces and interplays.

Interface Testing

Verify that communications between the systems are done correctly if all supported hardware/software has been tested. If all linked documents are supported/opened on all platforms the security requirements or encryption while communication happens between systems. Check if a Solution can handle network failures between a Web site and application server.

System Testing

System testing is the testing of a complete and fully integrated software product. System testing simulates real-life scenarios that occur in a simulated real-life test environment. It tests all the functions of the system.

Regression Testing

Regression testing is a crucial stage for the product & very useful for the developers to identify the stability of the product with the changing requirements.

UAT (User Acceptance Testing)

User Acceptance Testing which means agreement or approval. It is used to ensure that the software is satisfying the functional and performance requirement of the end user.

Non-Functional Testing

There are a bunch of software testing types which differentiate the job work for the QA while testing the apps. It is a testing to determine the performance of the system to major the measure, validate or verify quality attribute of the system.

Documentation Testing

Documentation testing helps to estimate testing efforts required and test coverage. Software documentation includes test plan, test cases, and requirements section.

Installation Testing

Installation testing is a type of quality assurance work in the software industry that converges on what customers will need to do to install and set up the new software successfully. The testing process may involve full, partial or upgrades install/uninstall processes.

Performance Testing

Performance testing includes Load testing, scalability testing, volume testing, stress testing. TechArcis has the best Quality Assurance as well as Software tester team who provide performance testing on amazing projects for mobile apps.

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What Is The Road Map To Higher Quality Software?

Software testing is a continually evolving process. Software investigating and evaluating companies are consistently striving to identify and remove software bugs. If all software bugs could be identified and removed in real time, the benefits to industry and business are huge and unquantifiable. Plenty of inadequacies are still plaguing the software market. Standardized testing tools must ensure a rigorous testing certification process. The roadmap to higher quality software is undoubtedly improved and foolproof software testing.

Conclusion

Quality Assurance & Testing is crucial and fulfills a critical role in any digital transformation journey. TechArcis understands that each industry has specific business requirements and a unique set of challenges that need focused testing solutions. Leveraging our domain expertise, leading-edge tools and methodologies, delivery model and industry best practices, we offer customized solutions for industry-specific software testing requirements to enhance targeted business performance. Our industry solutions help enterprises across various sectors keep pace with real-time requirements, address test specifications, and simulate them to the scalability of production. Contact us today!

Impact of Mobility in helping of Digital Transformation

Forrester Research “Maximizing the Impact of Digital Transformation,” provides that 82% of respondents opined that mobile is the base of digital transformation. Businesses look at mobile as a central part of the digital transformation and depend on it to enhance access to information, better the process efficiency, improve employee productivity, minimize operational cost, and more, and are now reconsidering their mobility approaches in the wider context of digital transformation.

While the business processors behind mobility approaches are to increase operational efficiency, the mobile experience characteristically falls short of user expectations. Many business apps fail to acquire popularity, and according to the study by Enterprise Mobility Exchange as it falls short on cracking the complexities of app development and this where TechArcis can help you with the testing solution to make your app agile and effective in its functionalities. Though we will tell you the probable reason for it:

Enterprise apps are too complex or confusing to use
Apps are deficit in needed functionality
Back-end data has not been properly designed for mobile consumption

These challenges must be addressed to exploit the full power of enterprise mobility for true digital transformation. Some key elements to be considered in any enterprise mobility strategy and they are major focus on the contextual user experience, effect on business results, and a general structure business process.

Having contextual data “in the mobile moment” is crucial to understanding and responding efficiently to a work scenario. A contextual mobile app can change the user’s work experience, making it better, safer, and more efficient—or even completely be transforming it. Regardless of the industry, you can benefit from the mobile transformation, as long as you make use of the data in the right context.

Mobile enterprise apps should focus on providing the user with the best data to enhance their experience and improve the overall process. Mobile technology allows simpler access to multiple enterprises and non-enterprise systems (e.g., weather data). Even better, by leveraging mobile device capabilities like location, activity history, etc., the user experience and consumption of data can be put in the right context and dramatically simplified.

Most importantly, however, the impact of mobile in digital transformation does not stop with the user experience. Mobile apps are a great way to bridge gaps between the physical and digital world. An easy example is a store visit, in which the merchandiser captures the status of the promotion, uploads pictures, provides information on out-of-stock items, etc.

So, what TechArcis can do in fortifying the enterprise app?
Mobile apps offer an ideal starting point for your company’s digital journey. Apps can transform the way business is done. These transformation journeys are often long and indirect, but with a smooth and flawless testing, we can help you make your projects successful, while your business gets momentum for the transformation process and instant results are received in contextual, consistent, and scalable experience everyone can love.

How Safe is your Mobile Banking App in 2022?

With the emergence of mobile banking apps, a huge percentage of banking transactions have already moved away from traditional methods like using services of ATMs or bank branches. In light of this progression, banks are continually striving to introduce innovative and advanced mobile services

According to a report prepared by KPMG, number of mobile banking users will get doubled by 2019 and reach a quarter of the global population. With the emergence of mobile banking apps, a huge percentage of banking transactions have already moved away from traditional methods like using services of ATMs or bank branches. In light of this progression, banks are continually striving to introduce innovative and advanced mobile services. It goes without saying that the end users’ expectations are also rapidly increasing. Such expectations include the highest level of performance, support for a never-ending number of mobile devices and a complete package of features that can empower them to meet their routine banking needs seamlessly. In this scenario, testing of mobile banking apps has become extremely crucial to ensure a flawless and smooth user experience. Banking applications deal with absolutely confidential financial data, which has made their testing one of the most difficult ones with some major and mandatory elements. Let’s have a look at 4 key elements that have to be considered while testing mobile banking apps

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Getting right kind of test data

Different types of misuses can happen if a customer’s personal information gets uncovered in public domain. Hence, to prevent this, most countries have strict regulatory requirements that often make the personal information inaccessible to the testers. To produce right kind of test data, a tester should consider retail banking apps that validate testing over different devices. For instance, in case of two customers having short and long names and different account balances, testing the app with these data may ensure the intactness of the screen layout in different cases. Merging of synthetic data creation with data masking empowers the tester to deal with this problem successfully. The personal information is obscured while the synthetic test data is generated after actual comprehension of the business flow.

Testing device performance for dealing with large volume of data

Another key element of mobile banking apps testing is device performance with regard to large volume of data. A small action taken by a user can result in generating in large volume of data including user location, log-in date, time etc. As different mobile devices consist of different hardware resources, testing should cover every interface by creating distinct data sets to eliminate the effect for a specific feature across interfaces. Key factors to be considered while testing are:

OS Version: Testing should be performed on all key OS versions currently in use.
Display Density: Display densities i.e. screen resolution and screen size of a device can negatively impact user experience in terms of look of UI and web page rendering. Hence, a mix of separate display densities should be tested.

Other factors like CPU type, memory etc can also affect specialized applications based on certain device features. Hence, they should be taken under consideration too.

Emphasize clear differences in test plans

It’s crucial to mitigate the risks arising out of the technical and functional differences between test and production environments at a later stage. Generally, in a production environment, files are transferred automatically through FTP whereas in a test environment, the same is done manually by the testers. In the former scenario, the automated transfer is capable of detecting issues like repetitive transfer of same file, delay in transfer etc, thus mitigating significant issues. In reality, any of these issues can lead to serious customer dissatisfaction. So, while defining the test plan, differences between both the environments must be taken into account and conveyed accordingly to the testers.

Optimizing testing efforts

As diverse mobile devices and their respective operational differences increasingly become the norm today, it’s almost impossible to test all combinations. After all, it isn’t feasible to test the apps on different platforms running various OS versions and on a considerable range of devices from different manufacturers. Instead of giving this task even a try, testers should embrace a subjective approach. For instance, they should think of the devices/platforms that have biggest penetration in a specific geographical area. To optimize testing efforts, such insights can be obtained from Google Analytics, Dynatrace etc. Marketing research teams should be able to provide the testers with valuable inputs related to customers’ app usage patterns, which can help in testing the apps.

Final words

Testing of mobile banking apps is quite a complex process. Testers must be adequately competent and a technically and strategically dynamic test plan has to be in place for successful and time-bound testing. Most importantly, as banking domain is unquestionably the most endangered area for cyber-theft, testers must concentrate on safeguarding personal information through precise testing. That’s why these key elements should be considered by testers when they test mobile banking apps.

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Connect and collaborate with TechArcis ‘ Mobile Apps Testing Consultants’ to reap the benefits of transformation for your Mobile Banking Apps. For any information on Mobile Banking Apps Testing , feel free to Contact Us .

Multiple testing strategies to achieve quality in DevOps

Continuous testing and quality monitoring together with continuous test development based on TDD, BDD and shift-less as well as shift-right testing are all crucial for DevOps quality. At the same time, performing quality checks at different points in the DevOps cycle is also the responsibility of everyone involved. For example, the emphasis at continuous build is to find if the build has the potential of interfering with operation, while validating usability and functionality is focused upon at continuous development. The focal point of continuous integration is to validate security, performance and usability. To ensure quality in DevOps, clear understanding of potential risks and priorities with respect to business performance and customer value is also crucial. Let’s take a closer look at some key aspects that drive an integrated DevOps quality approach.

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An automated testing process and continuous quality monitoring:

These are related to the continuous build, development and deployment process. With a completely automated process of testing, every aspect (from test planning, test strategy, test environment set up to test data provision and test execution including functional and non-functional testing) is covered. Validation checks are performed with quality analysis tools while newly created/defined validation checks are automatically included in the complete set of existing quality checks. Based on instant user reports and production incidents, quality level of applications is monitored closely and continuously by setting up a quality automation framework.

Continuous testing:

This implies continuous quality since every step of the SDLC process is under consistent quality check to ensure flawless delivery and faster time to market. Continuous testing is performed by adopting the following approaches:

Shift-left and shift-right: Shift-left is an integral part of continuous integration, while shift-right is used when the domain of testing is extended after receiving end-users’ feedback.
TDD and BDD: With these methods, everyone involved (from developers and operations to users and testers) get a quick idea of the expected functionality and operations of the application. When coupled with priorities and possible risk factors, such knowledge can act as inputs to generate test cases automatically.
Continuous Integration with Test Automation: With this, you can reduce the manual effort, thus helping testing and development teams to detect and fix issues faster throughout the SDLC process.

Integrating Non-functional Testing with Continuous Testing:

Usually, non-functional tests are not frequently run in normal continuous-integration-system cycles since they may take a lot of time to be executed. For example, it may two weeks to run a stability test. But to achieve quality in DevOps, it’s important to integrate non-functional tests for performance, usability and security etc with continuous testing. Increasing the number of test beds that allow multiple, overlapping tests or configuring the CI systems to selectively run longer tasks based on their capacity are some ways of doing it.

Other key points to consider:

For DevOps quality, the following too should be given due importance:

Tracking frequency of new code deployment: It will let team members of any project track the regularity of deployment.
Tracking lead time and change in projects: While the former will help to track successful deployment and find areas of improvement, the latter will help set parameters to track project changes.
Tracking percentage of failed deployments: This will help to know the deployments that led to users’ negative feedback and outages, both of which will help to ensure quality right from the beginning till the end of the process.
Assessing MTTR (mean time to recovery): This helps to check how market-ready the product is by tracking failures and complex issues, together with evaluating how efficiently teams can handle such difficult situations and bounce back on track.
Checking stability of performance metrics: Irrespective of changes in deployment indicators or user feedback, performance metrics should stay stable as they indicate the preparedness of the application/software within the defined limits.

Final Words

To improve the value your business delivers, you need to choose a testing partner that knows and implements steps to achieve excellence in DevOps quality. TechArcis can play this role well by bringing its experienced test team to help you achieve DevOps with quality. Contact us today to get started.

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An automated testing process and continuous quality monitoring:

Continuous testing:

Integrating Non-functional Testing with Continuous Testing:

Other key points to consider:

Final Words

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