Organizations implement automated testing in hopes of reducing time and cost while creating higher quality products. They invest in tools, training, and development; identify candidates for automation; and then develop and execute test scripts. Unfortunately, some of these projects are considered failures because the promised savings are not realized. Funding for future automation efforts may be reduced, or automation projects may be cancelled outright. Management support, effective test design and test data management, low maintenance requirements, along with meaningful reports are key to a successful and cost effective automation. Paul Maddison shares how CUMIS has invested more than ten years in test automation—continually growing their investment, reducing costs, and shrinking time-to-market. Paul details their approaches for script design, data management, test candidate selection, and effective reporting to management. Learn approaches that can mitigate challenges and give you a higher return on investment—today and well into the future.
2. Paul Maddison
The CUMIS Group
Senior quality assurance analyst Paul Maddison has more than ten years of experience
in automated testing using a variety of tools. Working with business analysts and
testers to identify automation candidates, Paul is continually expanding testing
coverage, increasing the return on investment, and reducing regression testing
timeframes. He has coordinated the automation team’s development and
maintenance of a regression test bed of more than 8,000 scenarios representing about
75 percent of the overall test effort. Recently, Paul designed and developed a self-
serve approach to automation execution for use by business analysts and testers
allowing the automation team to focus on coding efforts to replace script execution.
Contact Paul at paul.maddison@cumis.com.
3. 1
Test Automation
It’s a Journey, Not a Project
Paul Maddison
The CUMIS Group
paul.maddison@cumis.com
The CUMIS Group
The CUMIS Group Limited (CUMIS) partners with
credit unions to deliver competitive insurance and
financial solutions In doing so it creates financialfinancial solutions. In doing so, it creates financial
security and promotes the growth and success of
the credit union system in Canada.
As the leading provider of insurance-related
products and services to the Canadian credit union
system CUMIS serves approximately 380 credit
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system, CUMIS serves approximately 380 credit
unions, with a total of more than five million
members.
4. 2
Getting Started
» Resources
–Experienced developers.
d f–Aptitude for testing.
–Strong unit testing track record.
» Tool selection
–Establish your requirements.
–Demo on your software.
k d
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–Take a test drive.
–Report generation & augmentation.
–Training availability.
»
Getting Started
» Management Involvement
–Visible management support.
ff l k h–Current staff may look at project as a threat.
–Establish development milestones.
–Celebrate successes.
–Communicate, communicate, communicate.
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5. 3
Return On Investment
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Test Candidate Selection
» Prerequisites
– Reliable test environment.
– Existence of effective manual test cases.
– Availability of subject matter experts.
» Failure Impact
– Company credibility.
– Affect on bottom line.
M l T i Eff
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» Manual Testing Effort
– High number of resource intensive test cases.
– Similar test cases with various data combinations.
6. 4
Test Candidate Selection
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Test Candidate Selection
» Effort Savings Formula
XX
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e.g. 10 minutes * 50 test cases * 3 test cycles =
25 hours of manual testing effort
7. 5
Test Candidate Selection
» Insurance Premium Calculations
Coverage Term
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Script Design
» Framework For Reusable Code
– Flexible functions for data population and workflow.
S i t i t i d d– Script maintenance is reduced.
– Dynamic environment selection.
» Coding Standards
– Common naming conventions.
– Internal & external documentation.
» Importing Data
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p g
– Allows for creation using other tools and their features.
8. 6
Data Management
» Importance of data driven tests
– Ease of expansion & maintenance.
E b dd d f l– Embedded formulas.
– Automation script with multiple data sets.
» Watch Out For Dates
– Use of day or year offsets. e.g. Birthdate vs Age
» Formatting
– True/False.
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/
– Large numeric.
Automated Script Reporting
» Purpose of Reports
– Must be adequate enough to manually reproduce failing
test casestest cases.
» Levels of Granularity
– Summary Report Contents
» Description of each test scenario and the execution result.
» Number of verifications performed.
» Timeframe required for execution.
Si l S i R t C t t
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– Single Scenario Report Contents
» Data used in test scenario, expected and generated values.
– Execution Log Contents
» Identification of failing field, expected and generated value.
12. 10
Taking It Further
» Test data creation
– Manufacture data files with correct formatting for use in
automated tests or for processing in other applicationsautomated tests or for processing in other applications.
» Data Extraction
– Extract and save data with specified formatting.
» Environment Smoke Testing
– Test connectivity between applications and verify
application functionality before starting a test cycle.
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» Response Metrics
– Compile response metrics for business team review.
Questions?
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