Software testing has come a long way in the last ten years. Test automation has significantly eased the burden on test managers, for instance. But there’s further to go.
Software testing has come a long way in the last ten years. Test automation has significantly eased the burden on test managers, for instance. But there’s further to go.
Even though we’ve seen innovations like test automation come into play, test managers are still struggling to cope with the increased volume and regularity of updates coming their way. We’re coming up against the limitations of test automation tools – namely changes that are significant enough to break the test script, leading to that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach when you check on your tests after running them overnight (or over the weekend!) only to find none of them have run.
And, perhaps most telling of all, 71 percent of respondents to a recent poll we took said that they still don’t use any specialist tools to manage software testing. Even in this day and age, software testing is stressful, complicated, and, if it fails, a weak point in your business continuity efforts.
At Original Software, we pride ourselves on being innovative and helping test managers do their jobs better and more easily. So, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work on those problems. Our answer? A new way of thinking about software testing – the Original Software Platform.
Manage, capture and automate testing in one place
It’s a simple idea, but a powerful one. Instead of using separate applications to manage your testing (or none at all), you bring it all under one roof.
With all your testing information and processes in one place, you can spend far less time tracking down test results, chasing business users to find out why they haven’t done a test, or hunting down test scripts you were sure you’d created but can’t find now.
You can also be confident that you haven’t missed anything because all your testing information is on one platform that’s been built specifically to manage testing.
Manage your testing from a central command console
Our platform is designed to be a single source of testing truth for your business. Any questions you have about testing can be answered here. Including: Which business users (still) haven’t completed their tests? Are my baseline automated tests up to date? Why did THAT test fail? What was that important bit of feedback I need to pass to a developer?
The platform is scalable, so it works just the same whether you’re managing testing all by yourself or you have a team of twenty. Plus, it’s easy to integrate with your dev apps, project management tools and more.
Capture all your test evidence. ALL of it.
The platform includes tools that record business users taking tests and enable them to give feedback clearly and consistently. If you’ve ever experienced critical feedback being accidentally left in a business user’s notepad, or tedious back-and-forth between you, business users and developers to make sure a bug is properly identified and resolved, our platform should feel like a godsend.
Those recordings of manual tests can even be turned into training documents and new manual test cases with ease and provide a detailed audit trail of every test for complete visibility and accountability should you need to investigate anything.
Fulfill the potential of automation
The platform takes a unique approach to test automation. In the first case, having manual and automated testing capabilities in the same platform makes it far easier to convert manual tests into automated ones, focusing your business users’ time and speeding up test cycles.
Secondly, our platform doesn’t have to be told what to look for in an automated test; it shows you everything that’s changed. Even spellings, system performance and images.
Still system-agnostic and ready for multi-application process testing
Our platform is a new way to think about what we do – but in many ways what we do hasn’t changed.
It is still possible to test your software whether you work on an ERP like Infor Cloudsuite, a behemoth like Salesforce, or a custom application you built yourself. Or whether you work on a mix of them all.
It’s also great for testing processes that hop between applications. In a single test you can move between Microsoft365 applications, green screen terminal emulators, single-page web applications and back again. So you can be sure that your tests accurately reflect the process your people are doing.
It’s a continuation of that philosophy. We’ve always been a one-stop shop for testing – it’s just that now, it really is one shop.
