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A Simple (and Revolutionary) Test Automation Dashboard Even though most everyone recognizes that automation is a key element in improving test efficiency, many automation efforts unfortunately fall far short of achieving the desired results. One tool for keeping progress visible is an Automation Dashboard-a one-page report that tells the automation story clearly and simply with charts and gauges. This report becomes a tool to improve your organization’s understanding, communication, and use of good automation practices. At the same time it helps keep the focus on costs, benefits, purposes, and related automation issues that are often overlooked. Kelly Whitmill explains how the dashboard provides a quick measurement of the automation and allows results to be compared to expectations and other test efforts. Measurement and visibility alone promote improvement by increasing awareness of your automation goals.
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Kelly Whitmill, IBM Corporation
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Testing Software Builds Automatically Using Virtual PC Software When they receive a new software build, testers usually start their automated testing runs. Instead, what if they could execute tests automatically at the end of the build process? Using Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 as the example tool, Geoff Stewart shares his experiences using virtual PC software to configure, baseline, and isolate a test environment and automatically execute tests as part of the build process. By using virtual machine software via a command line interface, anyone can run tests without knowledge of the testing tool. Geoff demonstrates the technique and explains how he saves test results in XML for easier post-processing and historical reference. Get a head start on test execution, eliminate version conflicts, and save time installing test tools on host machines.
- An overview of virtual machine technology
- Integrating test execution with an automated build process
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Geoff Stewart, Itron Inc
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Automate Acceptance Testing using Open Source FitNesse FitNesse is an open source testing tool based on the Wiki Wiki Web and FIT (Framework for Integrated Tests). The Wiki Wiki Web is a collaboration tool in which anyone can create or change new pages to document or share any information. FIT is a framework and tool for creating automated acceptance tests. Joined together, FitNesse is a Web server-based tool for teams to easily and collaboratively create documents, specify tests, and run them. Micah Martin, co-creator of FitNesse, demonstrates how FitNesse can be used to create high-level feature tests that will drive development. Walk away with an understanding of how to automate acceptance testing in agile development and how it fits in with test-driven development.
- What a Wiki is and how to use it
- An introduction to the free FIT acceptance testing tool
- Acceptance testing as part of the test-driven development practice
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Micah Martin, Object Mentor, Inc.
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Quality Assurance as a Service Organization "QA is the bottleneck” ... "Why does QA take so long?" ... "You need to test faster." Often, key project stakeholders either do not understand QA or have difficulty quantifying the effects that increasing or decreasing test time will have on the project. First American CREDCO found the solution was to turn QA into a full service organization, complete with a "Quality Rainbow" menu of options to be purchased. Want it quicker and willing to accept a higher risk? Then select from Column 1. Want low risk and willing to take the time to ensure the product is pristine? Then select from Column 5. Whether your test team is small or large, you can learn to "in-source" QA services, set time and efforts expectations up front, and measure the value of QA activities so that QA does not become a roadblock to project success.
- A method to specify and quantify the services provided by a QA group
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Sandi Oswalt, First American Credco
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Automated Database Testing with NUnit With a framework built in .NET using the open source application NUnit, database application developers and testers quickly can create a basic set of build verification tests and provide a foundation for a set of more powerful tests. Alan Corwin demonstrates the framework in the context of a fully functional Web site and offers a brief history of how his team developed it to show how they came to introduce automated testing into their development process. Learn what problems they encountered, how they overcame them, and the value of this framework to the team. NOTE: Those with some knowledge of Microsoft's .NET framework, a .NET programming language, and object-oriented programming will get the most out of the advanced parts of the presentation.
- How to use NUnit, an open source test harness for .NET
- abstract test classes
- Increase quality and shorten development time with this framework
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Alan Corwin, Process Builder, Inc.
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Using Personas to Improve Testing Too often testers are thrown into the testing process without direct knowledge of the customers' behaviors and business process. As a tester, you need to think and act like a customer to make sure the software does-in an easy-to-use way-what the customer expects. By defining personas and using them to model the way real customers will use the software, you can have the complete customer view in designing test cases. Get the basics of how to implement customer personas, their limitations, and ways to create tests using them. See examples of good bugs found using personas while learning to write bug reports based on them.
- What you need to know to develop customer personas
- Use customer personas for designing test cases
- The types of bugs found by using personas but missed by other techniques
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Robyn Edgar, Microsoft
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A "Follow the Sun" Test Automation Strategy In this case study of an award winning project, Andy Redwood describes how his team used "best shoring" of testing services to reduce costs, reuse assets, and get the best from their test automation tools. In an enterprise-wide transformation process at a large investment bank, his team used available infrastructure, technology, tools, and process to reduce business risk from software changes with a new automated regression test suite. With some facts and figures and a little hindsight, you will learn how to provide global, automated testing services on a twenty-four hours a day/seven days a week, on-demand basis. Find out what metrics you need to accurately measure the costs and benefits of a "follow the sun" test automation strategy.
- A successful outsource project that measurably improved business resilience
- The do's and don'ts of offshore testing
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Andy Redwood, Buttonwood Tree Group
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Applying eXtreme Programming Techniques to Automated Testing "Automating manual tests was taking too long and we believed that overhead would become too high to maintain the automated tests. As the code base evolved and expanded, the performance and value of older automated tests deteriorated noticeably. What to do? Taking a lesson from developers in an eXtreme programming (XP) framework, we began applying these practices to our test automation project." Join Neill McCarthy as he shares his test team's adventurous journey from a traditional, plan-driven automation project to a set of agile practices including test-driven development. Learn from their failures, triumphs, and measures of success as Neill outlines the new automation framework that he employs today.
- Why adopt XP for test automation
- The people challenges of using XP in testing
- A framework for agile test automation development
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Neill McCarthy, BJSS
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Test Automation using Scripting Languages Unless you have an automation tool for functional testing, you probably do not have time to execute all the manual tests you should. Even if you have such a tool, you may not have the quantity of licenses necessary for reaching your desired level of efficiency. An alternative is to automate tests using scripting languages, such as VBScript, Ruby, or Perl. Scripting languages are at your fingertips every time you sit in front of your computer and are imbedded in many popular, commercially available automated test tools. With examples using VBScript and Internet Explorer, Dion Johnson reveals a step-by-step approach for creating and implementing automated tests via scripting languages. This eye-opening presentation offers valuable information for all who are truly serious about test automation.
- Accessing and implementing scripting languages
- Creating automated tests using a scripting language, e.g., VBScript
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Dion Johnson, DiJohn Innovative Consulting
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Automation Architectures -- Best Practices in Your Context How are you going to develop 1,000 or more automated test cases and run them automatically and unattended night after night? Commercial test automation tools get a bad rap because many organizations never get past the record / playback / fail cycle of frustration. These tools can contribute to your testing needs, but first you must understand what has to be done to make them work for you. Jamie Mitchell outlines different test automation architectures successfully in use today and discusses the pros and cons of each. He provides an up-to-date review of test automation tool categories for functional testing and discusses what it takes to implement them robustly. To meet your unique testing needs, find out which framework or combination of practices from different frameworks will work best in your environment and for your applications.
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Jamie Mitchell, Test & Automation Consulting LLC
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