automation through the back door
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When working on test automation, it seems that even though you have done everything right—good architecture, efficient framework, and good tools—you still don’t make progress. The product Seretta Gamba’s team was to automate had become so successful that anyone with even a little domain knowledge was sent to the field while those left on the automation team didn’t really know the full application. In typical Catch-22 fashion, the regression testing workload prevented testers from supporting the automation team who therefore could not automate what would have effectively reduced the regression test load. Seretta reasoned that since testers used exactly the same information needed to execute manual tests, the most efficient way to “harvest” tests would be to extend the test automation framework to also support manual testing. Learn how Seretta succeeded in giving better support to manual testing while simultaneously collecting the data needed to finally move on with test automation.TRANSCRIPT

W3
Test Automation
5/7/2014 11:30:00 AM
Automation through the Back
Door
Presented by:
Seretta Gamba
Steria Mummert ISS GmbH
Brought to you by:
340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888-268-8770 ∙ 904-278-0524 ∙ [email protected] ∙ www.sqe.com

Seretta Gamba
Steria Mummert ISS GmbH
Seretta Gamba has more than thirty years of experience in software development. As test manager at Steria Mummert ISS GmbH, Seretta was charged with improving the test automation process. After studying the current strategies, she developed a style of keyword-driven testing and a framework to support it. In 2009, the framework was extended to support manual testing. Speaking about this at EuroSTAR, Seretta got the attention of Dorothy Graham who subsequently invited her to contribute a chapter to Dot’s book Experiences of Test Automation. After reading the entire book, Seretta noticed recurring patterns in solving automation problems and is currently intent on cataloguing test automation patterns.

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� www.steria-mummert-iss.de
W3 - Automation Through the Back Door
Seretta Gamba
Steria Mummert ISS GmbH
� www.steria-mummert-iss.de
Steria Mummert ISS Presentation.pptx
© Steria Mummert ISS GmbH
Agenda
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�The Problem
�The “Back Door” Idea
�The Implementation
�Conclusion and general
discussion

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The Problem
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�The company
�The application
�The developer team
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The Company
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Steria Mummert Consulting is one of
the top ten IT companies in Germany
(Counseling, IT-Service). In Germany
and Austria about 1700 employees.
Mummert ISS GmbH was established 2002 as
a 100% subsidiary of Mummert Consulting.
Develops standard software for insurance
companies. About 70 employees.
The Steria Group is one of the
top ten IT-Service companies in
Europe with worldwide about
20000 employees.

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The Application
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The product is:
� a complete software solution for insurance companies
� a standard software, that enables flexible management of
the products and processes of an insurance company -
both partner (customer) and portfolio can be easily
maintained
System design:
�Completely newly developed standard solution
�Customer oriented application structure
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The Developer Team
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Test
Automation
Team
Product
Team
New Customer
New Customer
New Customer
X
Old Customer
Old Customer
Old Customer

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The „Back Door“ Idea
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The „Back Door“ Idea
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�What do we need in order to be able to
automate?
� Knowledge of the application under test
� Test specifications
� Automation strategy
� Test Tools

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The „Back Door“ Idea
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�What can manual testing deliver?
� Knowledge of the application under test
� Test specifications
� Automation strategy
� Test Tools
� www.steria-mummert-iss.de
Steria Mummert ISS Presentation.pptx
© Steria Mummert ISS GmbH
The „Back Door“ Idea
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�What do we need in order to be able to
automate?
� Knowledge of the application under test
� Test specifications
� Automation strategy
� Test Tools

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� www.steria-mummert-iss.de
Steria Mummert ISS Presentation.pptx
© Steria Mummert ISS GmbH
Our Automation Strategy
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�Our Command-Driven framework supports the test
automation team by (mostly) eliminating the need to
program new keywords and by automating some of the
steps
Prerequisites:
Test cases Registration of GUI ControlsCommand Library
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Our Automation Strategy
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�Step 1
Capture
Tool Script
�Step 2
Tool Script
ISS
ISS Test Station
Driver
Data-Template
�Step 3
DriverData Suite
Preparation:

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Our Automation Strategy
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�Execution
Test suite Capture-Replay Tool Test results
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The „Back Door“ Idea
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�What do we need in order to be able to
automate?
�Can manual testing deliver it?
�Can we convince our colleagues to switch over to the
“automation” framework for manual testing?
�Can we extract and use the collected Information for
automation?
����
����

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Supporting manual testing
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In order to support manual testing with the automation
framework, we had to find out how testers worked and
devise better support.
The original testing procedure was based on excel-test-
sheets, that would be performed again and again for
regression testing.
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Weaknesses of manual testing
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Test casemaintenance
• Corrections or improvements to the test template can get lost
• Test-specifications are very “concise”
Defectreporting
• Cumbersome defect reporting
• Test cases tend to be repeated in order to report the defects exactly
Summary reporting
• No automatic statistic of the executed test cases versus the fix status of the found defects

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Supporting manual testing
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Many of the available features in the
automation framework could, with no
change, be employed to support manual
testing.
Add or change test cases.
Overview of the available test cases.
Logging of test results.
Result reports or overviews.
Prioritization of the test cases.
Defect reporting.
Ava
ila
ble
fe
atu
res
Corrections or
improvements to the
test template can get
lost.
No automatic statistic of
the executed test cases
versus the fix status of
defects found.
Cumbersome defect
reporting.
Test cases tend to be
repeated in order to report
the defects exactly.
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Steria Mummert ISS Presentation.pptx
© Steria Mummert ISS GmbH
Needed for supporting manual testing
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Support for manual test execution
• Test driven by sequential display of the selected test cases
• Paperless execution
• Support in:- Performing tests.- Maintaining test cases.- Creating defect items.
Import test-template sheets
• Import from the current excel sheets (csv-files) to the test suites in the framework format
• Import functionality driven by an external table.

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Needed for supporting manual testing
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Detail test execution for developers
• Capture-facility integrated into the framework.
• Generation of a capture-replay script with simultaneous recording.
• Starts or stops by pushing a button.
• Recording automatically attached to defect tracking item
Save application status to file
• Integration of SQL-scripts to extract data from the database.
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The Implementation
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�Manual testing with the automation
framework
�Automating the manual tests

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Manual test execution using the test automation
framework
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Set preconditions
and export them to file
Start recording
Perform test case
Export post-
conditions to file
Check
test
case
display
test caseOK
Defect
Start test suite
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„Harvesting“ Manual Testing
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Test cases
After the testers started working with the framework,
creating more automated tests has been much more
rewarding because some steps have already been
performed
Tool script

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Automating the manual tests
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Step 1
• Call the framework functionality to transform the captured tool-scripts into Command-Driven scripts
Step 2
• Rework the command-Driven scripts
Step 3
• Create the new test procedures
Step 4
• Insert the test procedures to perform the test cases in the test suite structures
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Conclusion
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�Short summary of our experiences
�Next steps
�General discussion

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Short Summary of our experiences
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After some time to allow the testers to get acquainted
with the new process, we started to get the first results.
� The testers had a hard time getting used to the new
formats.
� The import facility, test-sheet ���� test suite was well
accepted from the very beginning.
� The recording feature was very well received by both
testers and developers.
� In the beginning the testers were recording either too
much or too little.
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Next Steps
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<and they lived happily ever after. Well, we still have lots
of effort and work to do.
� Partially automated
tests.
� Sophisticated metrics.
� Integration with test
planning and
management tools .

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Conclusion
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"If you can't get in the front
door, try the back door".
We couldn't do automation
straight on, but found a way
to do it indirectly by
supporting the testers
where they were.