HP Sprinter – New Era in Manual Testing

Problems faced in manual testing:


Manual software testing is the oldest mode of testing soft wares and is still in practice. But all these years of practice do not make it a routine as one would expect. We need to accept the below mentioned facts first.

• Manual testing can often be very tedious and time consuming. The productivity of a tester depends on multiple sources (test script, test data, defects tracked, application under test).

• In today’s world where software needs to operate in multiple operating system environments and web browsers, manually testing software adds a large amount to the time needed to release an application.

• Manual testing is often error prone. Test steps are easily missed, test data often incorrectly entered, and defects are often incorrectly captured thereby decreasing overall quality of the application, increasing risk the application poses, and increasing costs due to associated work replication.

What is HP Sprinter?


HP Sprinter is an easy to use solution provided by HP that delivers accurate and efficient manual software testing fully integrated with HP Oracle Application Management and HP Quality Center.

How HP Sprinter ease manual testing?


With this new era of HP Sprinter, manual software testing does not have to be tedious, error prone, or time consuming anymore. Some of the features are:

• HP Sprinter dramatically reduces time needed to perform manual software tests and increases their accuracy and effectiveness.

• Manual tests are launched from HP Application Lifecycle Management or HP Quality Center into HP Sprinter where tester carries out the test.

• The actions and results of the test are simply recorded and results are saved within HP Application Lifecycle Management or HP Quality Center.

• Defects can also be directly logged within HP Application Lifecycle Management or HP Quality Center without leaving HP Sprinter, helping bridge the gap that exists with developers.

• HP Sprinter also handles automated injection of data into fields under test increasing the speed and accuracy in which a test can be executed.

• HP Sprinter allows screen capturing, screen annotation, and movie recording. It can also be used to automatically record and log tester’s activities and actions when executing exploratory testing without pre-defined steps.

• HP Sprinter’s mirror testing capabilities allow users’ actions to be automatically replicated across multiple systems hosting multiple environment configurations.

Conclusion:


HP Sprinter thus helps to streamline manual testing and improve collaboration and communication. It increases speed of execution, improves productivity, reduces costs and accelerates application delivery.

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Cloud Computing- Easily Config To Any Computer Resource's

What is Cloud Computing?


Cloud Computing is a model that enables access to a configurable computing resource, which is easily accessible with no or only minimal service provider input.

“If the user does not know the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services of computation, software, data access, and storage services”, then it is Cloud Computing
.
The Flexible usage of IT services which are available in real-time/on-line via the Internet/Intranet, enabling users global access to standardized services. Cloud Services require no (or minimal) initial fixed cost investment and are charged on a usage basis.

What can be achieved with Cloud?


Within Cloud Computing, varieties of technically innovative solutions are combined and can deliver the potential for an innovative business approach leading to:

• Cost  Reduction
• Cost Structure Improvement
• Variability of Cost
• Flexibility of Services
• New business models
• Time to market for new products is significantly reduced

Steps to Optimize Cloud Computing:

Is the Business ready to use Cloud?

If yes, which services offered within the Cloud are the most suitable to support the Business Model?

Before engaging in Cloud Computing, initiate a project that reviews existing processes and products. The review process should go through the following steps in order to optimize use of Cloud Services:

Step 1: Standardization – Evaluate the actual level of process automation within the business being serviced.

Step 2: Virtualization – Identify the opportunities (from an IT and process perspective) within the existing operating model to virtualize services.

Step 3: Automation – Analyze level of automation of processes and identification of potential by using the Cloud for virtualized processes.

Step 4: Cloud Computing – Introduce those selected services into Cloud and define how to integrate Cloud services into existing IT/process environment.

When should a company go for cloud computing?


There is a growing belief that over the next few years, Cloud Computing will become a major stimulus for change in how corporations view and use Information Technology.

Cost efficiency, scalability and availability are the main drivers in the discussion regarding Cloud Computing. Security and privacy are the main issues, which need to be dealt with when using services in the Cloud.

From an end user perspective, Cloud Services will offer small and midsize companies access to a level of technology that is currently not available to them. Large corporations will be able to make their IT environment more flexible and reduce their cost base. The speed of new product developments will increase significantly and will offer major advantages for the end customer.

Conclusion:


All major providers offer services in the Cloud, which can bring enormous advantages to large, small and midsized companies when properly implemented and used. There are challenges in implementing Cloud Computing, which are similar to those inherent in IT sourcing engagements and can be successfully dealt with when addressed in a structured way.

HP Extensibility Accelerator

The rapid adoption of Rich Internet Application (RIA) technologies and Web 2.0 innovations has significant implications for both web users and the teams involved in the functional testing of web-enabled applications. The advent of Web 2.0 applications has created unprecedented challenges for organizations that focus on automated functional testing.  Web 2.0 enabled applications can leverage various technologies on the client side and through web browsers. With Web 2.0, the client side of the application processes more scripted code and rich presentation frameworks than in traditional environments. This shift of processing to the client side challenges the capabilities of all toolsets designed for the functional testing of Web-Enabled Applications.

Testing challenges in Web 2.0:

Some of the typical challenges faced were as follows:

• Web pages are dynamic and asynchronous.
• Portions of web pages can now be refreshed automatically to give users updates on sports scores, stock quotes, etc.
• Current activities of people they connect with via social networking sites
• Users have more control than ever before. Via sites such as iGoogle, users can now create their own home pages that bring together information and content from across the web like, local weather forecasts, headlines from prominent news outlets, and videos from YouTube etc.
• Client side of the application processes more scripted code and rich presentation frameworks than in traditional environments

Why HP Extensibility Accelerator?

HP thought of putting forth advanced tools to test Web 2.0 technologies with HP Functional Testing. As a result, HP came up with a new accelerator for functional testing to overcome those challenges. The Extensibility Accelerator for HP Functional Testing provides a Visual Studio-like IDE that accelerates and facilitates the design, development and deployment of HP QuickTest Professional Add-in Extensibility support sets.

These support sets extend the HP Functional Testing Web Add-in so you can test Web controls that are not supported out-of-the-box.

Evolution of HP Extensibility Accelerator:

Extensibility is enhanced and accelerated with the new HP Extensibility Accelerator for Functional Testing software, which provides an environment that speeds the development of Web Add-in Extensibility toolkit.

What is HP Extensibility Accelerator?

HP Extensibility Accelerator for Functional Testing is a separate utility that can be used on a machine with or without an installed copy of HP Functional Testing.

It provides a user interface and special tools that help us define new test object classes, map those test object classes to the controls in our application, and teach QTP how to identify the controls, perform operations on the controls and retrieve their properties.

Features of HP Extensibility Accelerator:

• Creating and defining the test object classes using JavaScript functions for the custom controls.
• HP Extensibility Accelerator provides JavaScript editing capabilities and debugging tools to facilitate the writing of these functions.
• Maps the test object class to your control and application, and it automatically identifies the rules that will teach HP QuickTest Professional how to recognize the test object class in your application.
• The HP Extensibility Accelerator IDE simplifies the process of creating and editing the test object/toolkit configuration XML files.
• The HP Extensibility Accelerator deployment capabilities enable you to automatically deploy your new toolkit support set to HP QuickTest Professional or to package it so you can share it with other HP QuickTest Professional users

Conclusion:

With the HP Extensibility Accelerator for Functional Testing, we’re making it easy for our users and partners to create their own extensibility assets and extend our software to support web controls that are not supported out of the box. With the hundreds of Ajax toolkits in use today and new ones coming out each month, the HP Extensibility Accelerator provides an extremely important set of tools for your organization.

The software itself can be installed and used on a machine that does not have HP QuickTest Professional on it. Custom toolkits developed with the software can then be deployed on one or more systems that are running HP QuickTest Professional.

Pre-requisites for General Automation

Automation testing is the most preferred way to achieve our testing goals on time. But it is in turn has lots of dependencies on other parameters. We will see below some of them.

Why Test Automation?


Below are some reasons on why to go for automation:

• New releases and bug fixes in working module

So automate your testing procedure when you have lot of regression work.

• Testing web applications with multiple users simultaneously

Automate your load testing work for creating virtual users to check load capacity of your Web Application.

• Testing application where code is changing frequently

Automate your testing work when your GUI is almost frozen but you have lot of frequently functional changes.

Risks associated with Automation:


There are lots of risks associated with test automation. We need to give importance to each one of the below to reap the benefits out of automation.

• Skilled resources:

For automation you need to have resources having some programming knowledge.

“Do resources have sufficient programming knowledge for automation testing? “


If not, do they have technical capabilities or programming background that they can easily adapt to the new technologies?

• Initial cost for Automation is very high:

Automation cost is too high for initial setup i.e. cost associated to automation tool purchase, training & maintenance of test scripts are very high.

• Do not think to automate your UI if it is not fixed:

Beware before automating user interface. If user interface is changing extensively, cost associated with     script maintenance will be very high. Basic UI automation is sufficient in such cases.

• Is your application stable enough to automate?

It would be bad idea to automate testing work in early development cycle (unless it is agile environment). Script maintenance cost will be very high in such cases.

• Are you thinking of 100% automation?

You cannot 100% automate your testing work. Certainly you have areas like performance testing, regression testing, load/stress testing where you can have chance of reaching near to 100% automation. Areas like User interface, documentation, installation, compatibility and recovery where testing must be done manually.

• Do not automate tests that run once:

Identify application areas and test cases that might be running once and not included in regression.

• Will your automation suite be having long lifetime?

Every automation script suite should have enough life time that its building cost should be definitely less than that of manual execution cost.

This is bit difficult to analyze the effective cost of each automation script suite. Approximately your automation suite should be used or run at least 15 to 20 times for separate builds (General assumption. depends on specific application complexity) to have good ROI.

Conclusion:


Automation testing is the best way to accomplish most of the testing goals and effective use of resources and time. But you should be cautious before choosing the automation tool.
Be sure to have skilled staff before deciding to automate your testing work. Otherwise your tool will remain on the shelf giving you no ROI. Handing over the expensive automation tools to unskilled staff will lead to frustration.
Before purchasing the automation tools make sure that tool is a best fit to your requirements. You cannot have the tool that will 100% match with your requirements. So find out the limitations of the tool that is best match with your requirements and then use manual testing techniques to overcome those testing tool limitations. Open source tool is also a good option to start with Automation.

SAP TAO and Panaya – Complementers and not competitors

Panaya is new Software as a Service solution that reduces the cost and risk of making changes to ERP systems. The tool was founded in 2005 by Yossi Cohen, an expert in the field of application management.


It is designed for business users, from CIOs to business analysts, Panaya automatically analyzes the impact of pending business process changes and informs all stakeholders on a need to know basis. Panaya can be used during implementation, maintenance and upgrades.


Utilizing a SaaS model, Panaya can be deployed within a few hours to instantaneously lessen the risk of business disruption and reduce ERP maintenance costs.


What Panaya provides?

• Effective Test Management
• Shows you what will break
• Tells you exactly what to test
• Automatic code corrections
• No more test maintenance: test scripts always stay up-to-date
• Creates test scripts for you, as you go
• Tests can be run manually or automatically
• Test results are documented for you

What can be achieved by using Panaya?

• Cut 70% of your SAP upgrade cost and Effort.
• Cut 50% of your planning and development costs.
• Enable companies that use SAP to save up to 50% of their application lifecycle costs.
• Minimize the risks associated with system changes.
• Utilizing cloud-based simulation to analyze the impact of pending changes, Panaya automatically pinpoints which custom programs will break as a result of an upgrade or support package implementation.
• No Installation required.
• Reduce risk of post go-live downtime.

How it complements SAP TAO?

• The main pre-requisite for automation using SAP TAO is availability of manual test cases in a standard format. Panaya provides manual test cases as you go saving lots of time and effort.
• SAP TAO has high reusability and ease maintenance – minimal effort is required during maintenance phase – Panaya can really help TAO when SAP Upgrade happens.