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Uncategorized

The Silver Bullet for Testing at Scale

August 21, 2023 by Lauren Payne

Thanks to Testory for providing us with this blog post.

Testing has always been a bottleneck in the development process. Since product teams often sacrifice time spent testing, the workload testers face ebbs and flows.

Your company’s testers most likely know what it’s like to work weekends and evenings when there’s a release coming up. At points like those, they generally have to take on low-level work to make sure they check everything and deliver a high-quality product. But that overworks them and leads to burnout.

Product teams often think about the silver bullet: how do you scale testing (increase capacity) instantly without just throwing money at the problem?

Before we answer that question, however, we should take a step back and look at the big picture. What challenges are inherent to testing?

Testing requirements by role

CTOProduct managerHead of testing
Faster time to marketYesYes–
Budget optimizationYesYes–
Product Quality for CustomersYesYesYes
Peak loads––Yes
Routine tasks––Yes
Variety of testing enviroments––Yes

Every role has its own problems. How do you solve them all at the same time?

A few years ago, we took a systematic approach to testing challenges, eventually coming up with a product for the largest IT company in our region. The solution married a variety of ML and other algorithms with traditional IT tools (Tracker, Wiki, TMS) and thousands of performers scattered across different time zones. That eliminated the bottleneck. With a dozen product teams online, they could scale testing or remove it altogether based on need.

On the one hand, we’re constantly improving our algorithms to give better feedback faster. On the other, our automated system selects professional testers who guarantee that same great result.

Another advantage our system offers is that it stands up well to load spikes around the clock rather than just during regular working hours.

Let’s look at an example. In February 2023, a large customer handed Testory a process that included 2240 hours of work, 1321 of which were outside business hours.

As you can see on the graph, the load placed on testers was anything but even. There are a thousand reasons why that could be. Some peaks outpaced the capacity of a full-time team working regular hours, though expanding the team would have resulted in team members sitting around the rest of the time.

All that makes sense on the graph. The red line represents hours, with eight full-time employees sufficient to cover the total of 65. As you can see on the graph, the load was more frequently heavier, meaning that team of eight wouldn’t be up to the task, though there were also times were they wouldn’t have had enough work.

How does it work?

The customer embeds crowd testing in their development pipeline, calling the process from their TMS as needed and running regress testing in our product with external testers.

When they submit work for crowd testing, our algorithms scour our pool to select the best performers in terms of knowledge, speed, and availability, then distributing tasks so we can complete a thorough product test in the shortest possible time. We then double-check the result, compile a report, and send the report to the customer. That’s how we fit N hours of work into N/X hours.

The customer can scale up testing whenever they want, then scaling back and paying nothing when they don’t have work to do. It’s an on-demand service.

Performers enjoy an endless stream of work that’s perfect for their skill set in addition to some that pushes them to learn and grow. For our part, we offer testers special skill- and knowledge-based courses, stable payment that depends on how many tasks they complete, and the opportunity to work from anywhere in the world.

What’s the bottom line?

We free up resources our clients can rededicate toward interesting and higher-risk work, help out with peak loads, and streamline costs:

How can you get that for yourself?

Testory is a separate process and product born to help large companies. It’s for anyone trying to quickly deliver IT products that solve user problems. If you’re interested in leveraging our experience, get in touch, and we’ll build a roadmap for you.

Author

Mary Zakharova

Mary has been working with crowdtesting products for 6 years. She started her career as a community manager in a testers’ network.

In recent years, Mary has been in charge of the Testory product

Testory is an EXPO Exhibitor partner at EuroSTAR 2023

Filed Under: Software Testing, Uncategorized Tagged With: 2023, EuroSTAR Conference

Orchestrated Testing Within Continuous Delivery

August 7, 2023 by Lauren Payne

Thanks to Sixsentix for providing us with this blog post.

Over the last few years, the market has put great effort into delivering solutions as fast as possible. The software has transitioned from having a supportive role in business to becoming a crucial part of the business itself. For instance, e-banking platforms have enabled clients to complete the job on their own. For many companies, this meant building new layers of software applications on top of the previous system of record, like CRMs or ERPs.

So, what’s the motivation behind this? Firstly, they are trying to differentiate themselves from the competition with faster and more flexible solutions. Secondly, they are disrupting the market with new innovative solutions. To go back to the banking example, many financial institutions are nowadays creating new brands (companies, applications, services, etc.) to target new segments of the market or even to create new niche markets.

The Problem: Excessive focus on the system of innovation (and disregard for other systems)

On the one hand, utilizing the systems of records to create a new service can be challenging to facilitate a quality release in a short period of time. For example, systems of record can be heavily impacted by regulatory mandates or using legacy technologies with old software architecture patterns.

Then, companies have rolled out the Agile Delivery Frameworks used in the systems of innovation, expecting to have the same outcome. But is this really possible? Are all the organizations able to become the next Spotify? In our experience, it’s not so easy. There are some serious challenges that need to be overcome:

  • The systems coexist, but some of our clients do not even notice that.
  • The same Agile Delivery framework does not suit all the systems, even in the same company or organization.
Source: Ketut Subiyanto

The Solution: Orchestrating testing between all systems

On the other hand, a new app can be done overnight within system innovation. Thus, time constraints, as well as the level of dependencies, are crucial attributes for a faster release among the three system platforms.

So, what do we do? Should we slow down the innovation to onboard the systems of differentiation and record onto our model? Definitely not!

Sixsentix’s approach is to use QA and specially the test architecture discipline as the orchestrator between systems. The main purpose of test architecture is to prepare the systems of differentiation and record to keep up with the pace of the system of innovation or even increase it! Our client portfolio consists of mid-sized and large companies from diverse business domains with one thing in common – most of them have developed new systems of differentiation and innovation very quickly. Here are some of the crucial lessons we’ve learned so far:

  • Risk-based testing brings two main benefits when testing applications within the system of record. On one side, it plays the role of guardian of quality for the system of record. On the other side, it helps the system of innovation to get faster evidence and, consequently, make early decisions whether to release to production or not.
  • Each system needs a different type of testing strategy, and each test strategy must consider the coexistence with the other systems. One testing strategy (i.e., approach, infrastructure, tooling) does not fit all the systems.
Source: Sixsentix’s adaptation of Gartner’s PACE Layered Application Strategy 

The Sixsentix Way: Using test architecture service to bridge the gaps

To further illustrate these ideas, let us consider the situation at one of our client companies, where we identified a lot of dependencies between the system of innovation (i.e., mobile apps) and the system of record (i.e., core business CRM).

  • Before implementing our test architecture service, we spotted the following symptoms:
  • Overload of delivery backlogs
  • Dependencies between agile teams consumed almost all the development capacity
  • Delivery objectives (time to market) could not be accomplished
  • Detection of side-effects in production environment
  • Huge effort on consolidating test evidence for audit-relevant systems

But after implementing the service, we could observe a number of improvements:

  • Quality Assurance supports faster releases with risk-based testing
  • Test automation degree was massively improved, allowing Continuous Testing
  • Audit-relevant test evidence is delivered efficiently thanks to methodological test coverage
  • Throughout business-facing testing, the dependencies are better understood and therefore the backlogs of all three systems are better aligned and prioritized
  • On an organizational level, shift-left has been enabled
Source: Envato

This perspective on frequent SDLC challenges is the result of Sixsentix experience, by consulting and operationalizing QA solutions at large scale organizations. If you wish to find out more about how test architecture can help bridge gaps between the three systems, find us at the Sixsentix booth. We look forward to discussing this topic and exchanging ideas about QA and software testing with you at the EuroStar conference!

Author

Sixsentix

Sixsentix is a leading provider of Software Testing Services, QA Visual Analytics and Reporting, helping enterprises to accelerate their Software Delivery. Our unique risk-based Testing and QACube ALM Reporting and Dashboards, provide business with unprecedented quality and transparency across Software Delivery projects for faster time-to-market. Sixsentix customers include the largest banks, financial services, insurance, telecom providers and others. Sixsentix Onsite, and Nearshore (SWAT) services deliver optimized testing outcomes at significantly lower costs and help customers with scalability to keep pace with digitalization.

Sixsentix is an EXPO Exhibitor at EuroSTAR 2023, join us in Antwerp.

Filed Under: Test Automation, Uncategorized Tagged With: EuroSTAR Conference

Why Crowdtesting Should be an Imperative Pillar of Quality Assurance

August 2, 2023 by Lauren Payne

Thanks to MSG for providing us with this blog post.

Users are looking for products that inspire – or at least don’t bother them

Future generations – all of them digital natives – will no longer enter their business relationships as traditional customers. The changed demands and the constant transformation through digitalization are turning customers into users. But where no human interaction can create trust, dispel doubts, and answer questions, the product alone is in the spotlight and must have the ability to convince in a very short time and with a reduced attention span.

Attractive, easy to use and – best of all – with a higher range of functions.

Constantly available and nearly unlimited offerings are no longer disruptive but common standards. This applies to products, services, and public offerings at the same time. So, whatever your offer is, you must make sure, the users find it attractive, easy to use and with a suitable range of functions.

The users – not a homogeneous mass

Another challenge is to meet the different target groups and to create a digital infrastructure that covers their different needs equally. Those of Generation Y and Z, which have the purchase power and demand of the future expect modern forms of interaction, purchasing products and services fully digital. The future “everything is now” generation, which is no longer tied to long-term contracts and is used to getting whatever they are looking for on demand.

The competition among web-offerings, which compete without ties and with the promise of a “change of supplier in minutes”, meets this need. The time span to inspire or disturb new users is accordingly very short. Not at least because the tolerance for errors also decreases with the rising use of digital products. By now, most users have gained so much experience with apps and online products that they have a clear expectation of functions and usability. If these expectations are disappointing, they simply download the next app. And even if this is sometimes tied to opening an account, today this can be done quickly enough and with reasonable efforts.

The subjective experience counts

As good as product design and functionality may be, the product experience is and remains subjective. Every product will always create a subjective use case for the user, and this must work to store a positive experience.
A subjective use case could be that a user carries out his transactions exclusively while commuting on a mobile device and expects for instance a banking app to be compatible with his mobile device. The app should be so intuitive to use that external distractions do not disrupt the user flow and ideally the data flow should adequately handle the switch from 3G/4G mobile networks to WLAN networks. If all this fits, the experience is consistently positive.

This in turn not only brings the advantage that the individual user is satisfied, but providers also benefit from the fact that an experience is always communicated to others.

Position yourself on the market through assured quality

By assessing the product quality, you may influence your positioning on the market towards an outstanding product experience. This inherits the following to be ensured:

  • The smooth functionality of the product on the most popular devices in the market.
  • The provision of the appropriate range of functions with the right characteristics for the target group.
  • Covering as many subjective use cases as possible to avoid negative surprises after go-live.

While the first point can still be tested internally and in the laboratory, for example with emulated devices, as part of a verification, the other two points can only be tested as part of a validation.

Crowdtesting offers solutions

Crowdtesting is the validation of digital products involving your target group – remotely via the internet. Leaving this rather rigid definition behind, this method offers good tools to meet the three challenges of digital assurance. It allows positioning towards the upper right quadrant of digital excellence and thus can serve to stand out from the masses with an outstanding product.

Figure. 1: The quadrants of digital excellence

Crowdtesting helps you to cover subjective use cases and perceptions in any phase of the life cycle. You get a direct insight into whether your target group feels heard and can adapt at any time. In addition, with the variety off devices and mindsets added to your testing process you will be enabled to find functional and technical issues which wouldn’t be uncovered in the lab. And if there are no functional problems, that’s worth a pat on the back for your development and builds confidence in your product.

Feedback will always be a part of this testing process and even if the insights and “bugs” gathered in this process may not be fixed, they can be incorporated into the further development of the product. In the meantime, the results help customer support to prepare for possible enquiries and to create meaningful FAQ lists.

Conclusion – Crowdtesting is useful in any phase of a products lifecycle

It gives a good insight into the technical and functional stability of your product and provides the opportunity to understand the (future) users from the beginning and develop with a focus on their added value. You don’t have to wait for feedback from customers who may be disappointed once, not return to your site at all and not using your app a second time.

Author

Johannes Widmann

Johannes Widmann has been working in the field of software quality and digital assurance for over 22 years. He is a dedicated desciple of crowdtesting since 2011 and has built up passbrains, one of the leading service providers for crowd-sourced quality assurance. Since January 2021 passbrains is part of the msg group.

MSG is an EXPO Exhibitor at EuroSTAR 2023, join us in Antwerp

Filed Under: Quality Assurance, Uncategorized Tagged With: 2023, EuroSTAR Conference

We’ve got the Stage – You’ve got the Story

July 17, 2023 by Lauren Payne

The 2024 EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference is going to Stockholm, Sweden.

If you’ve ever wanted to speak at EuroSTAR and share your story on Europe’s largest stage, the Call for Speakers is open until 17th September.

Now is the time to start thinking about what you’d like to share. What experiences will help others in the room. Perhaps it’s something that didn’t work at first but then you found a solution. It might be technical, or it might core skills.

EuroSTAR 2024 Programme Chair, Michael Bolton, is inviting you to explore the theme, ‘What Are We Doing Here?’ – it’s a wide-open question, with lots of possible interpretations and related questions.

Talk Type

We’ll share more on these later but for now, there will be three main types of talks:

  • Keynote – 60mins (45mins talk + 15mins Q&A)
  • Tutorials/Workshops – Full-day 7 hours OR Half-day 3.5 hours incl breaks
  • Track Talks – 60mins (40mins talk + 20mins valuable discussion)

Who?

Calling all testing enthusiasts and software quality advocates – whether you’re a veteran, or new to testing – to share your expertise, successes (and failures) with your peers; and spark new learnings, lively discussions, and lots of inspiration.

Think about what engages you in your work, engrosses you in testing, challenges you’ve faced, or new ideas you’ve sparked? Get in front of a global audience, raise your profile, and get involved with a friendly community of testers.

Here’s everything you need to know about taking the first step on to the EuroSTAR stage.

We invite speakers of all levels to submit their talk proposals and take the biggest stage in testing!

What Do I Need To Submit?

A clear title, a compelling abstract and 3 possible learnings that attendees will take from your talk – this is the main part of your submission. We’ll ask you to add in your contact details and tick some category boxes but your title, talk outline & key learnings are the key focus.

Topics for EuroSTAR 2024

Michael is calling for stories about testers’ experiences in testing work. At EuroSTAR 2024, we embrace diversity and value a wide range of perspectives. We’re most eager to hear stories about how you…

  • learned about products
  • recognised, investigated, and reported bugs
  • analysed and investigated risk
  • invented, developed, or applied tools
  • developed and applied a new useful skill
  • communicated with and reported to your clients
  • established, explained, defended, or elevated the testing role
  • Created or fostered testing or dev groups
  • recruited and trained people
  • made crucial mistakes and learned from them
START Your Submission

Mark Your Calendar

Here are some essential dates to keep in mind:

  • Call for Speakers Deadline: 17 September 2023
  • Speaker Selection Notification: Late November 2023
  • EuroSTAR Conference: 11-14 June 2024 in Sweden

If you’re feeling inspired, check out the full Call for Speakers details EuroSTAR attracts speakers from all over the world and we can get over 450 submissions. Each year, members of the EuroSTAR community give their time to assess each submission and their ratings help our Programme Committee select the most engaging and relevant talks. If you would like help writing a proposal see this handy submissions guide and you can reach out to us at any time.

EuroSTAR 2024 promises to be an extraordinary experience for both speakers and attendees. So, submit your talk proposal before 17 September 2023 and let’s come together in the beautiful city of Stockholm next June. Together we’ll make EuroSTAR 2024 an unforgettable celebration of software testing!

Filed Under: EuroSTAR Conference, Software Testing, Uncategorized Tagged With: EuroSTAR Conference

Efficient Software Testing in 2023: Trends, AI Collaboration and Tools

May 31, 2023 by Lauren Payne

Thanks to JetBrains Aqua for providing us with this blog post.

In the rapidly evolving field of software development, efficient software testing has emerged as a critical component in the quality assurance process. As we navigate through 2023, several prominent trends are shaping the landscape of software testing, with artificial intelligence (AI) taking center stage. We’ll delve into the current state of software testing, focusing on the latest trends, the increasing collaboration with AI, and the most innovative tools.

Test Automation Trends

Being aware of QA trends is critical. By staying up to date on the latest developments and practices in quality assurance, professionals can adapt their approaches to meet evolving industry standards. Based on the World Quality Report by Capgemini & Sogeti, and The State of Testing by PractiTest, popular QA trends currently include:

  • Test Automation: Increasing adoption for efficient and comprehensive testing.
  • Shift-Left and Shift-Right Testing: Early testing and testing in production environments for improved quality.
  • Agile and DevOps Practices: Integrating testing in Agile workflows and embracing DevOps principles.
  • AI and Machine Learning: Utilizing AI/ML for intelligent test automation and predictive analytics.
  • Continuous Testing: Seamless and comprehensive testing throughout the software delivery process.
  • Cloud-Based Testing: Leveraging cloud computing for scalable and cost-effective testing environments.
  • Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Automating repetitive testing tasks and processes to enhance efficiency and accuracy.

QA and AI Collaboration

It’s no secret that AI is transforming our lives, and ChatGPT’s collaboration can automate a substantial portion of QA routines. We’ve compiled a list of helpful prompts to streamline your testing process and save time.

Test Case Generation

Here are some prompts to assist in generating test cases using AI:

  • “Generate test cases for {function_name} considering all possible input scenarios.”
  • “Create a set of boundary test cases for {module_name} to validate edge cases.”
  • “Design test cases to verify the integration of {component_A} and {component_B}.”
  • “Construct test cases for {feature_name} to validate its response under different conditions.”
  • “Produce test cases to assess the performance of {API_name} with varying loads.”
  • “Develop test cases to check the error handling and exceptions in {class_name}.”

Feel free to modify these prompts to better suit your specific testing requirements.

Example
We asked for a test case to be generated for a registration process with specific fields: First Name, Last Name, Address, and City.

AI provided a test case named “User Registration” for the scenario where a user attempts to register with valid inputs for the required fields. The test case includes preconditions, test steps, test data, and the expected result.

Test Code Generation

In the same way, you can create automated tests for web pages and their test scenarios.

To enhance the relevance of the generated code, it is important to leverage your expertise in test automation. We recommend studying the tutorial and using appropriate tools, such as JetBrains Aqua, to write your tests that provide tangible examples of automatically generating UI tests for web pages.

Progressive Tools

Using advanced tools for test automation is essential because they enhance efficiency by streamlining the testing process and providing features like test code generation and code insights. These tools also promote scalability, allowing for the management and execution of many tests as complex software systems grow.

UI Test Automation

To efficiently explore a web page and identify available locators:

  • Open the desired page.
  • iInteract with the web elements by clicking on them.
  • Add the generated code to your Page Object.

This approach allows for a systematic and effective way of discovering and incorporating locators into your test automation framework.

Code Insights

To efficiently search for available locators based on substrings or attributes, you can leverage autocompletion functionality provided by the JetBrains Aqua IDE or plugin.

In cases where you don’t remember the location to which a locator leads, you can navigate seamlessly between the web element and the corresponding source code. This allows you to quickly locate and understand the context of the locator, making it easier to maintain and modify your test automation scripts. This flexibility facilitates efficient troubleshooting and enhances the overall development experience.

Test Case As A Code

The Test Case As A Code approach is valuable for integrating manual testing and test automation. Creating test cases alongside the code enables close collaboration between manual testers and automation engineers. New test cases can be easily attached to their corresponding automation tests and removed once automated. Synchronization between manual and automated tests to ensure consistency and accuracy is a challenge that does not need to be addressed. Additionally, leveraging version control systems (VCS) offers additional benefits such as versioning, collaboration, and traceability, enhancing the overall test development process.

Stay Tuned

The industry’s rapid development is exciting, and we are proud to be a part of this growth. We have created JetBrains Aqua, an IDE specifically designed for test automation. With Aqua, we aim to provide a cutting-edge solution that empowers testers and QA professionals. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to innovate and contribute to the dynamic test automation field!

Author

Alexandra Psheborovskaya, QA Lead and Product Manager at JetBrains

Alexandra works as a SDET and a Product Manager on the Aqua team at JetBrains. She shares her knowledge with others by mentoring QA colleagues, such as in Women In Tech programs, supporting women in testing as a Women Techmakers Ambassador, hosting a quality podcast, and speaking at professional conferences.

JetBrains is an EXPO Platinum partner at EuroSTAR 2023, join us in Antwerp

Filed Under: Software Testing, Uncategorized Tagged With: 2023, EuroSTAR Conference

Check out the EuroSTAR 2023 EXPO (Including Prizes!)

May 22, 2023 by Fiona Nic Dhonnacha

Are you ready for EuroSTAR 2023? The conference kicks off in just a few weeks, with 4 awesome days of testing, learning, and connecting with the global testing community.

The EXPO hall is at the heart of EuroSTAR, and draws some of the biggest companies in the world! Meet one-on-one with pioneering organizations, explore the latest solutions and tools in testing, see live demos, and find new ways to solve your testing problems. Bring all your questions too!

It’s also a great way to get yourself out there and meet new people during the session breaks. Network with your fellow attendees – and of course, visit all the EXPO booths throughout the conference to find out how you can get your hands on some of the incredible prizes below!

A big thank you to our Platinum Partners Jetbrains, Karate Labs, LambdaTest, SauceLabs and Xray; and our gold partners, along with all our brilliant exhibitors. Check out all our 2023 partners.

Get Tickets
Check out the EuroSTAR 2023 EXPO to be in with a chance to win this super cool Batman helmet from LambdaTest.

I’m Batman! Scoop this very cool Batman Lego helmet from LambdaTest, who will also demonstrate how your businesses can drastically reduce time to market, through faster test execution: ensuring quality releases and accelerated digital transformation.

Sauce Labs provides the world’s largest cloud-based platform for the automated testing of web and mobile applications – and they have a chance for you to win a €100 Amazon voucher if you stop by their booth and enter the draw!

Say hello to the team at the Xray booth and be in with a chance to win Sony airpods. You can also hear more about their extensible test management platform – their REST API and out-of-the-box integrations make it easy to build a CI/CD pipeline.

Check out the EuroSTAR 2023 EXPO to be in with a chance to win these Beats headphones from HCL.

HCL Software‘s aim is to drive ultimate customer success; and it’s the cloud-native solution factory for enterprise software – powering millions of apps at more than 20,000 organizations. Enter their draw to win a set of Beats headphones.

Check out the EuroSTAR 2023 EXPO to be in with a chance to win this Lego hut from Leapwork.

Stop by the Leapwork team’s booth to be in with a chance to win this incredible Lego hut! You’ll also learn more about their entirely visual no-code system that everyone can understand, to empower your digital transformation.

Tea and coffee drinkers should stop by Mabl‘s booth, who are offering a gorgeous subscription to Sips By. You can also discuss their test automation platform built for CI/CD, and see how it can work for your business.

Enter the draw at the OpenText booth and you could scoop this slick gaming keyboard. It’s their 11th year partnering with us and they’re looking forward to chatting to you, and demonstrating their innovative solutions to help your business thrive.

The team at SmartBear are ready and waiting to show you the tools to help streamline your software process while seamlessly working with all the tools you already use. Plus, it’s your chance to win a portable laptop monitor.

Sogeti‘s quality engineering & testing practice help empower you to deliver the positive experience your customers expect. Enter their competition and you might be walking away with a VR headset and controller.

It’s TestRail‘s third year joining us at EuroSTAR, and they’re on hand to help you speed up testing, improve product quality and ship releases faster. Stop by their booth and you might win a Star Wars Lego set.

Chat to Testsigma to learn more about their open source no-code test automation tool, designed to reduce your test creation and maintenance time. The team are also offering a lucky competition winner an Apple iPad!

Tricentis are joining us for their 12th year – we’re thrilled to have them on board again. Stop by to hear about their AI-based, automation platform – and enter their booth competition to win some Apple airpods.

ACCELQ is proven to speed up automation development by 3 times and bring down the maintenance by 70% – have a chat with the team to see what they can do for you. Plus, they have a Google Home up for grabs.

You could win a super cool Nintendo Switch if you stop by the b.ignited booth. The team are excited to meet everyone and share how they produce no-nonsense software, automated by testing wizards!

Take some time to find out more about PractiTest‘s test management solution, which incorporates all testing elements in one central platform, to empower your organisation. Enter their competition and you could win this incredible drone.

*Photos are representations only. All prize details will be provided by each partner and these photos do not indicate the exact make or model of what is being provided.

That’s just a taster of what to expect – there are lots more prizes to be won, including:

  • iPad from Applitools
  • Lego Antwerp set from CTG
  • The Atari Flashback console from Curiosity Software
  • €100 Amazon voucher from Hexaware
  • Airpods from Inflectra
  • A Lego rocket set from PII Guard

It’s going to be an unforgettable 4 days, so grab your ticket now and we’ll see you at Antwerp Zoo.

book tickets

Filed Under: Uncategorized

EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award

May 2, 2023 by Fiona Nic Dhonnacha

The 2023 EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award is open for nominations!

Take a moment to consider who you would like to see recognized for their outstanding dedication and contributions to the world of software testing. It might be your colleague, your mentor, team-leader, or an author whose knowledge sharing has helped you in your career.

Community recognition

The Testing Excellence Award is the highest honour awarded by our community each year. It highlights outstanding achievements by the exceptional people in our community: those who help us achieve more, be more, and aim for more by continuously striving for excellence in their work.

Who can nominate?

Anyone can make a nomination for the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award, but you will need input from others in the community to demonstrate your nominee’s contributions to the overall software testing community.

nominate now

Who to nominate?

Think of your colleagues, friends, managers or mentors. Who through their passion, learning and willingness to share, significantly helps to move our industry and community forward?

They are usually driving innovation, research ways of advancing testing as a craft (and openly share their research!), and/or perhaps they are eternally supportive of others in the industry and help others grow.

They may have:

  • Increased public awareness of the importance of software quality & testing
  • Contributed to the improvement of software development and testing processes
  • Advanced the publication of research findings in the field of software quality and testing
  • Or it’s likely they will have promoted a love of further education and lifelong learning in software quality and testing

What to include?

  • About the Nominee – who they are, what they do, some biographical info
  • Highlights of Contributions to the wider Testing Community
  • Why they deserve this Award
  • Testimonials from members of the Community
  • If they have LinkedIn recommendations, you can also add these
EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award past winners

Celebrating testing legends

The existing winners of the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award are some of the most influential members of the global testing community, from AnneMarie Charrett to Martin Pol. Each winner has made a difference to our community.

Commemorating achievement

Every year, we present the winner with a pdf of their nomination as a keepsake so the more you can include, the more they’ll see how much they are appreciated within the community. Here are some of the lovely testimonials given to Award winners in the past:

  • “a well-known expert who is recognized as a renowned thought leader in global Software Testing Community.”
  • “part of the role of a tester is to make people think – think about how something could be tested, think about the risks they may face, think about how to communicate that information and this year’s winner must he thanked for their continued efforts in making thinkers out of all of us.”
  • “has always been a supportive and challenging friend in testing. I know that I am far from alone in being able to say that she has helped many testers around the world to become better.”
  • “Nobody knows more practical things about testing, test management, test strategy – all things testing, than her”.
  • “There are many, many people in the testing community whom I respect and from whom I can learn. However, there are only a handful I regard as truly guiding influences.”

When to submit

Entries must be submitted by 21st May, so start your nomination today. If you have any questions at all, please get in touch.

start nomination

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Why Do Testers Need CI/CD Systems?

April 19, 2023 by Lauren Payne

Thanks to JetBrains for providing us with this blog post.

This post was originally published on the JetBrains Qodana Blog.

Competency in the TestOps field is now just as much an essential requirement for QA engineers as the ability to write automated tests. This is because of the ongoing development of CI/CD tools and the increasing number of QA engineers who work with pipelines (or the sequence of stages in the CI/CD pipeline) and implement their own.

So why is CI/CD such an excellent tool for quality control? Let’s find out!

Running Tests Automatically

Automated tests haven’t been run locally in what feels like ages. These days, CI/CD pipelines run tests automatically as one of their primary functions.

Pipeline configuration can be assigned to DevOps. But then we will be a long way from making use of the CI/CD tool’s second function: quality control, or more precisely, “quality gates”.

Quality Control Using Quality Gates

But what are quality gates? Let’s say the product code is like a castle. Every day, developers write new code – which could weaken the foundations of our castle or even poke holes in it if we are really unlucky. The purpose of a QA engineer is to test each feature and reduce the likelihood of bugs finding their way into product code. Lack of automation in the QA process could cause QA engineers to lose sleep, since there is nobody to watch over all the various metrics – especially at dangerous times, like Friday evenings when everyone wants to leave work and is hurrying to finish everything. An ill-fated merge at that moment can cause plenty of unwanted problems down the line.

This problem can be solved by building-in quality checks.

Each check deals with a different important metric. If the code doesn’t pass a check, the gates close, and the feature is not allowed to enter. A feature will only be merged into the product when it has passed all the checks and potential bugs have been fixed.

What Quality Checks can be Included in the CI/CD Pipeline?

We need to put together a list of checks to ensure that the process is as automated as possible. They can be sequenced in a “fail first” order. A feature must pass all the checks to get through the pipeline successfully. The initial checks ensure the app is capable of working: build, code style check, and static analysis.

“Build” speaks for itself: if the app fails to build, the feature does not progress. It is important to incorporate a code style check into your CI/CD pipeline to ensure the code meets unified requirements, as doing so allows you to avoid wasting time on this kind of bug during code reviews.

Static analysis is an essential tool for judging code quality. It can point out a vast number of critical errors that lead to bugs and decrease the number of routine and repetitive tasks for the QA team. Afterwards, developers should fix the detected issues and hand the code over for the testing stage.

We then continue with stage-two checks: unit tests with coverage analysis and coverage quality control, as well as integration and systems tests. Next, we review detailed reports of the results to make sure nothing was missed. At this stage, we may also perform a range of non-functional tests to check performance, convenience, security, and screenshot tests.

When developing a pipeline, we need to pay attention to 2 competing requirements:

  1. The pipeline must guarantee the best possible feature quality in light of your needs.
  2. Time spent running the pipeline should not slow down your workflow. It should generally take no more than 20 minutes.

Examples of Tools to Incorporate in Quality Checks

Code Style Highlighting

A code style is a set of rules that should be followed in every line of code in a project, from alignment rules to rules like “never use global variables”.

You might be wondering what style has to do with testers. The answer is a lot. A style check provides several benefits for QA experts, not to mention the rest of the team:

  1. A unified style helps developers work with the code and gives them more time to implement new features and fix bugs.
  2. A unified style allows you to dispense with manual code checks and use a CI/CD tool to run the checks instead.

Large companies usually have their own style guides that can be used as examples. For instance, Airbnb has a JavaScript style guide, and Google maintains several guides. You can even write your own, should you wish.

The choice of tools for code checking depends on the language. You can find a suitable tool on GitHub or find out which tools other teams use. Linters use bodies of rules and highlight code that fails to abide by them. Some examples include ktlint for Kotlin or checkstyle for Java.

Static Code Analysis

Static code analysis is a method of debugging by examining source code without executing a program. There are many different static code analyzers on the market.

We’ll now look at a platform we’re developing ourselves – Qodana. The significant advantage of this code analyzer is that it includes a number of inspections that are available in JetBrains development environments when writing code.
Many of you probably use an IDE-driven approach, where the IDE helps you write code and points out bugs such as suboptimal code usage, NullPointerExceptions, and duplicates.

But unfortunately, you can never be sure all the critical problems found by the IDE were fixed before the commit. However, you can ensure that the issues will be addressed by incorporating Qodana into your CI/CD pipeline.

Qodana, the latest addition to the family of products from JetBrains, is a cutting-edge static analysis platform designed to help developers and QA engineers improve their code quality, making it more efficient, maintainable, and bug-free. Its static analysis engine is the only solution on the market that brings native JetBrains IDE code inspections to any CI/CD pipeline. The platform provides an overview of project quality and lets you set quality targets, track progress, and automate routine tasks like code reviews.

Interactive inspection report in the Qodana code quality platform.

If you can’t fix everything at once, you can select critical problems, add them to the baseline, and gradually work your way through the technical debt. This allows you to avoid slowing down the development process while keeping the problems that have been found under control.

The updated baseline in the Qodana code quality platform.

Test Coverage

Test coverage is a metric that helps you understand how well your code has been covered by your tests (generally unit tests).

Here, you need to define the minimum coverage percentage you want to support. The code won’t be able to go live until it has been covered sufficiently by the tests. The minimum percentage is established empirically, but you should remember that even 100% coverage may not completely save your code from bugs. According to this article from Atlassian, 80% is a good figure to aim for.

Different coverage analyzers are available for other languages, such as Jacoco for Java, Istanbul for JavaScript, or Coverage.py for Python. You can build all these analyzers into your CI/CD pipeline and track the metrics with ease.

Shaping the Release Process

In addition to automatically running tests and ensuring particular code quality requirements are satisfied, the CI/CD tool lets testers organize the release process.

The release process can be complex and depend on many different manual actions. It is often a completely manual process: the artifact is created by a developer, then passed to the testers for checks, and finally comes to the person who knows how to roll it out for the go-live. Once again, there are a lot of potential choke points here. For instance, one of those people could fall ill or go on vacation.

An effective release process will look different for each team, but it will generally include the following steps:

  1. Each change in the Git branch triggers a build of the app.
  2. The build undergoes quality checks and does not become part of the main branch until it passes all the checks successfully.
  3. A release candidate is taken from the release branch or the main branch: this fixes the version and guarantees that nothing will go live unless it has been tested and has not been changed afterwards. This helps with tracking releases and all the changes they include. In addition, storing artifacts of the stable version makes it possible to revert to them quickly in the event of an unsuccessful release.
  4. The release candidate is tested and undergoes final checks.
  5. The release candidate goes live. This may be either a manual or automated pipeline launch, if the release candidate passed all the checks at the preceding stage. The choice between an automatic release process and a manual one will depend on how frequent and important the releases are, as well as the preferences among team members and the convenience of the rollout.

Any CI/CD system allows you to set up this type of process, which should be convenient for the whole team, including the testing team.

Given the factors outlined above, we believe following these basic rules will help ensure an easy and efficient release process:

  • Artifacts must be ready for download and testing, ideally stored in one place.
  • As many checks and tests as possible must be automated.
  • All complex operations with builds should be as automated as possible.
  • All builds that will go live should be recorded and remain available for a certain period after release. This will help if you need to investigate errors in the production version, reproduce bugs, or just track the history.

We would also like to remind you that if quality metrics are not controlled automatically and are not actionable, they are useless, as there’s no way to guarantee that these metrics will be adhered to.

Implement pipelines, automate processes, and use static code analysis!

Your Qodana team

Author

Alexandra Psheborovskaya, QA Lead and Product Manager at JetBrains

JetBrains is a global software company that creates professional software development tools and advanced collaboration solutions trusted by more than 12.8 million users from 220 counties and territories. Since 2000, JetBrains has built a catalog of 34 products, including PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA, ReSharper, PhpStorm, WebStorm, Rider, YouTrack, Kotlin, and Space, a new integrated team environment.

Qodana is the code quality platform from JetBrains. It provides a project overview and lets developers and QA engineers set up quality gates, enforce project-wide and company-wide coding guidelines, better plan refactoring projects, and perform holistic license audits. Qodana’s static analysis engine enriches CI/CD pipelines with all of the smart features of JetBrains IDEs, supports 60+ languages and technologies, and allows analysis of unlimited lines of code.

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Filed Under: DevOps, Test Automation, Uncategorized Tagged With: 2023, EuroSTAR Conference, Test Automation

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