The Value of Professional Certifications in Software Testing

Software testing is a process to start a program or an application for finding out any software bugs. It can also be mentioned as the procedure of validating and also verifying which a software program or application or may be a product. It fulfills the business and also technical needs that led it’s design and the development. It may be used with the exact same characteristic.

Process - Testing is a process instead of a single activity.

Life Cycle Activities - Testing is a process which occurs all through the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). The method of designing tests at the start of the life cycle may help prevent defects by getting introduced to the code. Often it is known as 'verifying the test basis through the test design'. The test basis contains documents including the needs and design specifications.

Static Testing - It could actually test and find out issues while not executing code. Static Testing is carried out in the time of verification process. This particular testing comprises of analyzing of the documents which includes source code along with static analysis. It is helpful and affordable method of testing. For instance: reviewing, walkthrough, inspection, and so on.

Dynamic Testing - When it comes to dynamic testing the software code will be executed to show the results of running tests. This is carried out at the time of validation process. For instance: integration testing, unit testing, system testing, and so on.

Planning - It's important to plan as what exactly we wish to do. We manage the test activities, testing progress report as well as the software status in test.

Preparation – We need to decide on what testing we are going to do, through choosing test conditions along with designing test cases.

Evaluation - At the time of evaluation we should look into the results then evaluate the software in test together with completion criteria, that will help us to figure out whether or not we have completed testing and also whether or not the software product pass the tests.

Software products along with connected work products - In addition to the testing of code, the testing of need and the design specifications as well as the linked documents such as operation, user as well as training material is also essential.

If you are a test engineer or maybe a QA engineer it is quite important to have minimum of one Software testing certification. It will help in order to grow the software testing skills, in addition it is useful for testing people to have the promotion within their respective area in large MNC’s. Mentioned below are the some very important certifications for software testing. Look at the description in order to figure out the reasons why you need to decide to go with such certification.

Certified Quality Analyst (CQA) - To have Professional standard of understanding into the principles along with practices of quality assurance within the IT profession.

Certified Software Test Engineer (CSTE) - This is meant to make standards for the early qualification and gives direction to the testing function with an impressive educational program.

Certified Software Test Professional (CSTP) - In order to educate people from various field sound and the effective testing skills and methods and also to certify the individuals as Professionals in Software Testing. Quality Engineer Certificate (CQE) - This is meant for people who are aware of the principles of product as well as the service quality evaluation and the control. Certified Software Quality Manager (CSQM) - This is for the people who know quality principles and also the standards relating to organization as well as human resource management. Quality certainly is the buzzword in modern-day's highly demanding software sell. Quality is usually an important measure of the project success. That is the thing which a customer takes note of eventually. Top-quality products lead to customer satisfaction‚ whereas low quality ends up with customer dissatisfaction. Certified Software Quality Engineer (CSQE) - This certified is perfect for all those who have an in depth knowledge of software quality development along with implementation, possess a detailed idea of software inspection & testing, verification, & validation, and additionally could implement software development as well as maintenance processes and the methods. Quality Improvement Associate Certificate (CQIA) - This is meant to assess basic understanding of quality tools as well as their uses from people who are engaged in quality enhancement projects, while this is not necessarily are sourced from traditional quality sectors. Software testing can transform the success of your business process. Businesses can be helped by software testing in many ways which include constant growth, reputation building, and satisfied clients along with a passionate workforce. Low-quality software will cost you huge amounts of money along with a bad impression to any business's track record. Organizations usually overlook the operations of software testing, because of its lack of idea about the advantages it would possibly provide for their business. Towards building and launching an effective service or product, it is important that the business owners to have certified professionals in the software testing crew and enable their organization from relevant software certifications. Mindfire Solutions, an ISTQB Gold certified partner company, is one of the leading software testing companies in India and has been providing software testing services to its esteemed clients for over 15 years now. We have dedicated teams for enterprise, web and mobile app testing. If you need any kind of assistance in your software testing process, please feel free to get in touch with us now and our Software Testing Team will revert back with a free quote within one business day. Also as a special offer, you can avail the limited period Risk-Free Trial Offer.

Profession Wise, Is Software Testing a Dying One?

Software testing is extremely vital: Few days back, I received a strange comment for software testers from a developer in one of my blog. He was very much unaware of the demand and importance of software testers in the industry. He had a perception that software testers are not that much intelligent nor are they that much useful as that of a developer. I am very astonished to find such a comment over a public blog without any proper prior knowledge. As per my view, many of software developers lack the knowledge of all the dimensions of a successful software application. For successful software application or product, if any one plays the most important role is none other than a tester. Tester helps the product or application to be refined enough so that it can be of acceptable standard for the end user. Without an efficient software tester, we can’t reach at an outstanding end product. The best part is that industry has already understood this fact and hence they have taken their testing standard to a next level. They are investing more bucks on their Quality and Assurance (QA) team than ever. This is to help in developing high standard software applications in the industry which are not only of high quality but also extremely reliable.

Software testing is neither dying nor losing its importance in the industry: Hence at a moment when we are finding top IT giants of the industry focusing more on their QA team, we can’t think of software testing being dying in the industry. Rather we can visualise an extremely bright future for them in the industry. Well manual testers are losing their importance little bit in the industry in some specific situations due to introduction of automation testing tools recently. Still for other situations, there is a terrific demand of manual testers in the industry. If you are learning any automation testing tool then you will definitely get a better position in the industry in coming years.

Software testing is just getting more pace and efficiency with modern tools!! With automation testing tools, the testing process has become much more efficient and effective than before. It has eliminated all types of common errors including common human errors from the testing process which is a usual situation in manual testing approach. Moreover the testing process has gained pace and we can test any complicated application in less time and effort without compromising on the quality of testing.

Software testing professionals are having a bright future ahead!! There is no second thought about software testers in the industry that they are responsible for a better cyber world with highly optimised and effective software applications or products. They can make or modify a software application so that it can be user friendly and useful than before through their smart approach of testing the application. They can enhance the user experience of different smart apps like native apps or web apps for different platforms like Android, IOS and windows etc to a large extent that will definitely bring a dimple on the face of your user. Hence we can see a bright future for testers in the industry.

Mindfire Solutions has been providing software testing consulting to its esteemed clients for over 15 years now. We have dedicated teams for enterprise, desktop, web and Mobile Application Testing. If you need any kind of assistance in your software testing process or you need to hire software testers, please feel free to get in touch with us now and our software testing team will revert back with a free quote within one business day. Also as a special offer, you can avail the limited period Risk-Free trial offer.

Why Is It Important to Have a Test Plan in Software Testing?

Planning makes a task execution in a systematic manner: Planning is something that must be implemented before execution of any assignment. In fact planning gives an ideal path for the execution process. No matter which situation we are dealing with, we can make it simple by proper planning. Hence there is always need of planning in every domain and in every situation. In IT industry planning has even more importance just like any other industry because it not only reduces the time of execution but also increases productivity to a large extent. Hence planning is always done before we kick start any project work in IT industry for a smoother operation in future.

Test plan for finding a suitable way to execute the testing process: Testing is the most important phase of software development life cycle. In fact, it is the only process that starts before the development process, remains during the development process and ends after the development process. This indicates the potential and power of testers in the industry. Anything is useless unless until it is used in a productive manner and the same hold good for software testing as well. For a productive testing we must ensure a quality testing through proper screening and planning. For the same we have to test plan before we kick start the testing process. Test plan give an inside look of the project and hence helping in developing a better testing approach.

We can avoid loopholes: With test plan we can presume and assume all types of upcoming uncertain issues of the application. We can get into the application from the very beginning and can have a clear mind over the uncertain and unexpected problems that may arise during the development process. We can foresee those expected and unexpected issues from the very beginning and accordingly we can prepare our test cases. This will definitely help in avoiding minor to major loopholes in the application from the very beginning. Well it is impossible to predict all the uncertain issues from the beginning but still we can at least find most of them and this will definitely help in developing a better product or service.

Efficient testing can be achieved with test plan: There was a time, when testing was performed by manual testers who use their experience and expertise in finding bugs and issues in the application; with time, the complexity of software applications have increased significantly. As a result, testers are forced to rely on some reliable software tools for efficient testing i.e. automation testing tools. This helped them in quick and efficient testing. Similarly, test plans can also help in efficient testing by eliminating unnecessary tasks, processes from the application.

Effort will be minimized and productivity will be maximized: With test plan, we can reduce the effort of both tester and developer! Why developer? Yes, when we have a pre-planned testing approach, we can save the effort of tester and this will help in avoiding unnecessary iterative processes to a large extent which in turn reduce the effort and time of the developer. Hence it becomes a productive process for all.

Mindfire Solutions has been providing software testing consulting to its esteemed clients for over 15 years now. We have dedicated teams for enterprise, desktop, web and Mobile Application Testing. If you need any kind of assistance in your software testing process or you need to hire software testers, please feel free to get in touch with us now and our software testing team will revert back with a free quote within one business day. Also as a special offer, you can avail the limited period Risk-Free trial offer.

What Is the Best Tool to Start with Automation Testing?

Success of automation testing is based mainly on the selection of appropriate testing tools. It requires a lot of time for someone to select the appropriate automation tools found in the market. This is usually a one-time exercise which will reap success in your project in long run. You may get an opportunity to evaluate and choose an appropriate automation tool for your projects. The job would be challenging since you need to deal with your testing requirements and cost limitations, however it would be a worth working experience.

The following would be the key elements one should consider prior to making a choice on any sort of testing tool.

• Have you got the required skilled resource in order to allocate the automation tasks?
• What exactly is your budget?
• Will the tool suit your testing requirements? Do you find it ideal for the project environment also for the technology you will be using? Will it support all of the tools and objects made use of in the code? At some point you might face some problems for simple tests because of inabilities in the tool in order to find the objects used within the application.
• Is the tool offering you with free trial version that may help you evaluate before making a selection? Moreover has the tool got all features found in trial version?
• Is the present tool version reliable? Does the company of vendor set up with effective customer support along with online assistance resources along with the user manual?
• Exactly how is the learning curve of a tool? Is that learning time suitable for your needs?
• Would you like an automation tool just for your project requirements or else are you looking for one common tool for every project within your company? It will be an ideal choice if you choose a tool which can work with many coding languages in your projects.
• Which kind of testing types will it support? Tool that supports the most testing kinds (Unit, functional, regression and so on.) is usually a much better choice. Never choose a tool simply because the tool is supporting every testing kind. It is equally important that the tool needs to be good enough to automate your challenging needs.
• Will the tool be used for simple interface to generate and maintain test scripts? Record & playback tool along with the capabilities for edit recorded scripts can be a good solution.
• Will it offer easy interface although effective features in order to complete complex tasks?
• Is it not difficult to give input data for the complex or to the load tests? Tool supporting test data source through a number of data files which includes Excel, text file, XML and so on can be great help to the automation testers.
• Will it really give you an effective reporting along with graphical interface? Good along with concise reports can usually help you in concluding the test outcome very quickly.
• Will it integrate properly to your any other testing tools such as project planning or with your test management tools?
• What is the refund policy of the tool vendor?
• Existing customer feedback or the reviews about the tool.
• Is an initial training provided by the vendor?

Selecting an automation tool depends on which platforms you wish to do automated testing with. When it comes to Mobile you may go with cross platform testing using Appium or Robotium. Subsequently for the web application you have Selenium.

You can find many types of automation tools to choose from. In order to select the right tool to get your job done depends on what exactly are your requirements, what platforms (OS and Browsers) you wish to automate, what environments (QA, Production, Staging, Development) you would like to automate. Moreover, it depends on your application technologies, for instance client server, mobile based, web based, or desktop based. Among the most commonly used automation tools in the industry are Selenium, QTP/UFT, TestComplete, Telerik Test Studio, Squish, Appium and so on.

Selenium and QTP are considered the most popularly used options for functional testing available at present. Many consider QTP as the most ideal functional testing tool that supports on a number of coding languages as well as platforms while Selenium is the most effective functional web testing tool. soapUI and FitNesse also are well-known automation tools. FitNesse happens to be an open-source tool that specializes primarily in evaluating program objectives and the outcomes. It is usually meant for automating User Acceptance Testing while enabling the end users to write test cases. SoapUI is another open-source tool which does web service testing for the service oriented architecture, enabling any development team to perform compliance, automated regression, functional along with load tests.

Mindfire Solutions has been providing software testing consulting services to its esteemed clients for over 15 years now. We have dedicated teams for manual and automation testing. If you need any kind of assistance in your manual software testing process or you need any kind of assistance in web application automation testing, please feel free to get in touch with us now and our Software Testing Team will revert back with a free quote within one business day. Also as a special offer, you can avail the limited period Risk-Free trial offer.

Do Software Developers Need to Learn the Basics of Testing

Testing is an integral phase of SDLC: Software development life cycle is a complicated process and there are many phases in the development process. But testing is the most important phase of this life cycle. Testing starts before the development process with feasibility test and ends after the development process. This indicates the importance of testing in the software development life cycle. Software can never be successful without proper testing of the application. Hence testing is treated as the success pillar of any software application or product. So we are experiencing a continuous increase in demand of software testers in the industry.

Extra knowledge or skill is always an added advantage: No one can ignore the importance of extra knowledge in one’s life. Hence everyone loves to learn more and more. The same holds good for software developers as well. When you are working as a software developer in the IT industry, you should gain some additional knowledge that are closely related with the development process like efficient client interaction, testing and set up related tricks etc so that you can handle few common issues or situations in case the concerned professionals are not with you. This will definitely help you, your client and your organisation during a critical situation as a life safe guard.

Developer possessing testing knowledge is preferable in most cases: Testing is an integral and important part of software development life cycle and we can’t ignore its importance at any cost. But if a developer has some basic fundamental knowledge on software testing then, it will be definitely treated as an added advantage. We are not discouraging the importance of dedicated testers in the industry; but we are encouraging software developers to have some basic testing knowledge so that they can handle some urgent issues in the absence of testers. Moreover we have seen in many cases these part time testers (software developers) saving a significant amount of time, effort and money of the industry in a magical way. So as a smart software developer, you should also possess some basic testing knowledge for the benefit of the industry.

Productivity can be increased with the combo knowledge: In many small scale software development projects, we usually find budget constraints playing an important role in the development process. In those situations, if we have a software developer having sound knowledge in testing then it will definitely help the client and hence the project to be of better quality. The software developer can act as both developer and tester and hence he can eliminate the entire or partial cost of a software tester from the project. As a result, the cost sensitive project can get some room in expanding its functionality through that extra amount of money. This will definitely help in decreasing the cost of the project and also increasing the productivity of the project. So we should encourage software developers to learn fundamental testing methodologies for the benefit of the industry.

So, are you learning some basic testing tips and tricks? Yes! When are you going to learn the basic principles of software testing? You should start it from now to serve the industry in a better manner.

At Mindfire Solutions, we have been providing software testing services to its esteemed clients for over 15 years now. We also have dedicated teams for enterprise, desktop, mobile and web application testing. If you need any kind of assistance in your Software Testing process, please feel free to get in touch with us now and our Software Testing Team will revert back with a free quote within one business day. Also as a special offer, you can avail the limited period Risk-Free Trial Offer.