Wednesday, 11 March 2015

Steps to Consider to Become a Quality Software Tester

To become commercially successful, each software application has to deliver rich and flawless user experience. So software testing has become essential for businesses to make the software projects successful. It has also become essential for enterprises to deploy talented and quality software testers to identify and fix all bugs, errors or flaws in the application before its commercial release. However, it is also important for software testers develop certain personal level skills, in addition to technical knowledge and testing skills, to make the software testing project successful.

How to Become a Quality Software Testing Professional?


independent software testing, QA testing services, hire software testersLearn Programming: As a software tester, you are not required to write longer lines of code. But to become a quality tester, it is a very good practice to have some coding experience. In addition to becoming proficient in a programming language, the coding experience will also help you in identifying and predicting bugs in the code before starting the testing process. The programming experience will further make it easier for you to solve complex problems by coordinating with the developers.

Focus of Application’s Critical Path: It is also important for you to identify the critical path of the application. The term critical path refers to the functionality that is frequently or most often performed by the user. As critical path of the application can have a huge impact on the business process, you must put special emphasis on the functionality during testing. The emphasis on critical path will eliminate the possibility of all critical errors.

Keep Usability of the Application in Mind: Along with ensuring that the application delivers flawless user experience, it is also important for testers to ensure high level usability. The test plan must focus on higher usability to identify and eliminate the redundant paths. You can even participate in the designing of new functionality to easily reduce the number of errors.

Keep Things Simple: Many testers consider agile testing methodologies as complex. But the agile testing methods aim to keep things simple. As an agile tester, you are responsible to guide the developers towards the end-user’s goals and objectives. At the same time, you must use a set of collaborative tools to communicate transparently with both developers and client.

Response Immediately to Changes: Nowadays, businesses frequently change the features and functionality of the software during development process. So you must be agile enough to respond to the changes immediately. It is also important to write the test cases and schedule test activities in a more flexible way. The flexibility will help you in accommodating, and responding to the changes as and when they occur.

Maximize Test Coverage: Often testing professionals find it difficult to reach 100% test coverage. But they must try to maximize the test coverage to while testing any application. You can achieve maximum test coverage by dividing the application under test into a number of smaller and individual functional modules. You can even consider dividing the large functional modules into smaller parts. The division will make it easier for you to write test cases for the individual unit modules.

Analyze the Test results thoroughly: The quality software testers always analyze the test results in detail. The final test result can be either pass or fail. But you must analyze the final test results thoroughly. The analysis of the final results will help you in solving the problem by troubleshooting its root cause. The developers also appreciate your initiative to provide solutions to certain problems, in addition to logging the bugs.

The trends in software testing keep changing frequently. Most enterprises, nowadays, adopt the latest test automation tools and frameworks to deliver flawless software testing. So it is important for testers to note down new terms, concepts and observations, along with reading news and blogs regularly. The testing professionals can further join various online forums to acquire additional wisdom, while discussing the latest software testing tools and techniques. Test your applications by hiring testing services of an
independent software testing company that fits your budget and time.

We provide
QA testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Friday, 13 February 2015

Quick Test Pro - the Tool That Every Tester Is Seeking for

Testing is an integrated part of software development life cycle. Experts believe that testing is the most important phase of any software development process. Hence there is a tremendous demand of testers in the IT industry. Testers are basically two types i.e., Manual Testers and Automation Testers. Manual Testers are those who are responsible to test an application in different methods using their experience and expertise. On the other hand, automation testers rely on testing software tools to test the application in less time but with more accuracy. These testing software tools are otherwise known as automation testing tools. Few industry leading automation testing tools are QTP testing tools, Selenium, Robotium etc. Today in our topic we will discuss about QTP automation testing tool and QTP testers who are in a great demand in recent period.

custom QTP testing company, quicktest pro testing services, QTP testers indiaWhy QTP? QTP testers are in a huge demand in the industry because of the reliability and quality of this testing tool. QTP is an automated testing tool from HP and we all know the popularity of HP in the industry. Hence we can expect an exceptional quality and reliability from this testing tool. QTP is one of few automation testing tools which has the capability to test different types of applications like desktop applications and web applications. QTP is more popular among the desktop application testers; because, it has unmatched quality in the industry. Moreover this is extremely reliable too. All the major java applications of old era are tested by QTP testing tool. In recent period it is also popular among the web testers in the industry.

Multiple application support: As we have already discussed that QTP has the potential to test both web applications as well as desktop applications hence it will be unfair if we will not discuss the alternative face of the software tool. All types of new web applications can be tested using QTP automation testing tool. QTP is highly usable when we think about large size web applications. It has the ability to test each and every aspect of a web application like validating the web forms, testing the performance and quick test of the application. QTP can help an automation tester to test an application in very less span of time with more accuracy and efficiency.

Knowledge requirement: Well to be a QTP tester, you must learn a scripting language i.e., VBScript in order to prepare the testcases. Testcases are the programs which enables the tester to test the different modules of an application with accuracy in less time and more efficiency. It also helps in eliminating the iteration problem while testing an application that has many modules with several similarities. Test cases can be reused and hence it is an optimised process of testing that will definitely improve the productivity of the tester to a large extent.

Everything comes with some drawbacks: Though QTP is having potential to test both desktop and web applications but at the same time it has a limitation. QTP testers can perform their testing process only in the windows platform. It can’t be used in other platforms like MAC, UNIX, Android etc. Still industry demands more for the QTP testers because all the important features of QTP tool shadows few limitations. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a
custom QTP testing company.

We provide
quicktest pro testing services. If you would like to get your application tested by QTP testers India, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Few Tips to Effectively Plan Your Test Case

As a key part of software testing, test cases are used by the testers, developers and management executives. Normally, test cases are used as conditions to evaluate if the software application meets predefined specifications, and is ready to go live. The test cases further provide conditions through which the testers can verify and validate the application’s particular features or functionality. As test cases organize the entire software testing process, it becomes essential for QA professional to plan and write test cases effectively.

Tips to Plan and Write Test Cases More Effectively

independent software testing, web based software testing, hire software test engineerUnderstand the Exact Requirements: To write effective test cases, you must understand specific requirements. Also, you must remember that you must not assume any requirements while writing test cases. If you do not understand any requirement clearly, ask questions to the business analyst or client without involving the developers. Likewise, you must clearly understand the incomplete or ambiguous requirements before writing test cases.

Plan Test Cases to Cover All Requirements: Along the requirements, you also need to understand the features and functionality of the software application clearly. You need to ensure that the planned test cases cover all features and functionality mentioned in the requirement document. It is also a good idea to ensure that no requirement is left untested by using traceability matrix.

Write Independent Test Cases: When you write a test case to track multiple conditions, it becomes difficult to track the testing results and errors. So you need to ensure that each test case assesses only a single condition. Likewise, you must write independent test cases that can be executed without depending on other test cases. The independent test cases will make it easier for testers to easily assess different aspects of the application.

Create Test Suites: You can always accomplish exact scope of testing by avoiding repetition of test cases. Likewise, you must collect and combine generic test cases into test suites. The test suites will help you in saving the time and efforts required for writing standard common test cases. Further, the test suites can also be used throughout the project life cycle.

Decide Testing Priority: The significance of individual test cases will vary according to product, component or feature. So you must determine and assign testing priority while each test case. Once you assign the testing priority, the high priority test cases will be picked first during the execution followed by the medium and low priority test cases.

Break Complex Test Cases into Smaller Parts: When a test case has too many steps, it becomes difficult for testers to identify and fix the bug. There are chances that the tester may have to repeat all test steps to ensure that the bug is fixed. So while planning, you must break the large and complex test cases into several smaller ones.

Focus on Preparing Proper Data: While writing test cases, you will need a variety of input data. During testing, the application can pick the required input data from various predefined data locations. Also, the testers can provide input data while executing test cases. To effectuate test case writing, you must focus on the input data formats, and use the predefined data values to decide software and hardware requirements.

Decide the Test Case Format: The test case formats or templates vary from one organization to another. So you must decide the test case template by concentrating on several key elements. Along with the id, title and summary of the test case, the template can also include required prerequisites, test steps, expected results, actual results, test case status and comments. However, your choice of test case template must be simple and easy to understand.

Often reviewers reject test cases written by software testers because of bad quality. That is why; each tester must understand the important characteristics of a good test case. At the same time, he must plan the test cases by keeping in mind the goals of the software testing project. Test your applications by hiring testing services of an
independent software testing company that fits your budget and time.

We provide
web based software testing services. To hire software test engineer from us, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.

Wednesday, 21 January 2015

The Importance of Testing for SDLC

outsourcing software testing, application software testing, hire software testersSoftware Development Life Cycle or SDLC has various types of models. Each of these models is used during the testing stage. Therefore, testing proves to be an essential component in SDLC. With the help of various types of testing including element, assimilation, user recognition and regression tests, the coders are able to provide a reliable application. The server system is any kind of system network is measured as the main terminal whereas the other procedures are considered minor terminals. Therefore, SDLC will include both the main and minor terminals while approaching the statement.

There are, in fact, various phases of testing in SDLC that are indispensable. These are vital as they help in the development of the project and clears out the glitches, if any. Here’s a short description about each stage –

Various Phases of Testing in Software Development Life Cycle

The first phase of testing is known as the inception. At this stage the engineer gets the scope to identify the major requirements for the project. The data is generally recorded and kept in the architectural reference document. The main issues tackled in this stage are information, data and system designs.

The next phase is known as elaboration. This is where the test engineers decide about the project plan. An important phase, here the complete design is being documented and stored in the System requirement document in addition to the product as well as requirement documents. In the JAD stage, commercial reviewer, planner, execution, project organization, etc are attended to.

Next comes the construction stage. At this phase, the main role is played by the programmers. They build the project as per the approved plan at the JAD phase. The testers are supposed to follow the programmers for carrying out several adjustments. Several types of faults might be overlooked or misunderstood by the programmers. At this stage it is the testers who should be solving the problems. In order to develop the HLS or high level scenario, a testing group is needed. The testers are expected to ensure that all the elements in the project adhere to the standard quality affirmation.

Finally, it is the transition phase where the errors found are tested once more by regression test. This helps in developing consistent systems.

Purpose of testing: Testing, thus, plays a major role in developing software by identifying the errors and providing solutions to solve them. This is important so that quality solutions can be delivered to the clients. Every software has bugs and they need to be fixed.

The main purpose of this process is to check whether there are any discrepancies in the development procedure. Quality cannot be sacrificed or overlooked when it comes to developing software. The resting process ensures that all the requirements are included and the final product is functional as expected. The test plan is document where all the necessary information about the project is listed. Every data required for each of the test cases are also to be found here. Thus, all the test cases can be validated in order to find out whether there are any errors in the system or the app.

Once the test plan is approved it leads to the closure of the project. Thus, the cases are quite vital for designing templates. Additionally there are scripts which are subsequently converted into the cases.

Early testing – a blessing: It should be noted at this stage that early testing is recommended for development processes. The quicker you find the bug, the better. It helps a lot of control the cost if bugs are found and fixed at early stages of the development. Moreover, if they are found early it takes lesser time to fix the issue.

In addition, if the tests are written beforehand, it helps to fix the cases at later stages. Preparing for this early also prevents the occurrence of unknown risks and there is adequate time to deal with the delays and risks.

Last but not the least, this process leads to the production of several intermediate products that can be checked to confirm whether they are meeting the standard needs of the users. Keeping user experience in mind is an essential component of this process. Hence, the software testing is an indispensable method when it comes to developing a bug free and user friendly system or app. If you are thinking of outsourcing software testing projects to offshore companies, you must evaluate them to see if they are sufficiently agile or not!

We provide application software testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Wednesday, 14 January 2015

QTP Testing Is Considered to Be Most Reliable - Why?

custom QTP testing company, QTP automation services, certified QTP testersQTP is an automation testing tool that is considered reliable. QTP or Quick Test Professional was originally created by Mercury Interactive and now it is a part of HP Quality Centre Suite. There are various reasons why this tool is considered to be reliable. Besides being easy to use it has the capability of recording actions as well as playback the same. There is a record button in QTP in order to record a new test. All the features that are required to carry out an effective automation testing are present in this tool. As far as the QTP IDE is concerned, there are 3 add-ins here – Web, ActiveX and Visual Basic. There are various links which can be utilized to know about the latest features as well as best practices applicable to the present version.

Here’s a list of reasons why Quick Test Professional is preferred as a reliable tool for automation testing –

It can be used in all kinds of framework: From the perspective of test frameworks, this is an effective tool that can be easily applied to all kinds of frameworks. The data driver functions and abilities in this tool are simply outstanding. It is quite simple to build customized frameworks by using QTP.

Compatibility with Microsoft Object Model: The products related to Microsoft Object Model or MOM can be easily recognized by using Quick Test Professional. The developers can read, write as well as modify. Whether it is excel, outlook or word doc, all of these can be created easily with the help of QTP.

Record and Playback a Test: It is quite simple for even a non-programming person to record test cases, scripts, customize and playback the tests. This tool also allows the users to record the scripts in 3 varied recording styles according to the requirement. These styles are Normal, Analog and Low levels. In case a developer is interested in recording the events, these recording modes will prove to be quite useful.

The process – Object Identification and Object Repository: Object repository is available in two modes – shared and local. The former is used for regular application objects while the later is applied for particular application objects. This is one of the best features of QTP. This tool stores the standard and non standard properties of the several objects of application under test. When the time for execution approaches, Quick Test Professional is perfectly aware of the fact that where the objects are located as well as how to reach them on an immediate basis. This, in turn, helps to increase the impact of the test execution. Such smart object identification ability is an advantage for QTP.

Regular Expression is a concise source for ‘Matching’: QTP supports RegEx. This enables the specifying and recognizing of the texts that includes particular words, characters and patterns. While automating dynamic content these are quite effective.

Function Libraries: When it comes to in-house function libraries, there is a huge resource in Quick Test Professional. There are functions to deal with data manipulation, conversion, date and time, etc. Thus, the developers need not reinvent anything. They have the required functions at their disposal.

Analysis and Recovery: Proper error messages as well as logs are reflected through QTP. Besides, there are also set break points which can be used to seek out the values of the runtime variables with the help of Script Editor and debugging features. The recovery scenario manager aids in recovering from any kind of unforeseen events including pop-ups, application crash, etc.

Maintaining and Reusing: The primary idea behind automated tests is that there will be reusability as well as maintainability or both. QTP simplifies maintaining the functions, objects, test scripts, everything that is built with QTP.

Environments that is supports: The tool generally supports only the Windows platform. But it can be actually used for automation tests across several platforms. It also supports some of the most widely used browsers including Firefox as well as Internet Explorer.

Integration with other tools: QTP is easy to integrate with other tools as it is not limited to Quality Center tool that is used for test management. All the resources for tests can be stored in a single repository as well s the tests can be executed directly from the Quality center.

Packed with such convenient features, the QTP is considered one of the most reliable as well as easy to deal with when it comes to automation testing. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a custom QTP testing company.

We provide QTP automation services. If you would like to get your application tested by our certified QTP testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Is It Good to Hire an In-house Tester or to Outsource Testing?

offshore software testing, QA testing services, hire software testersTesting is mandatory may it be in-house or external: Testing is an integral part of software development life cycle. Any application that needs to be refined in terms of quality and reliability must go through several stages of testing processes. Hence the industry understands the importance of testing for any product or service to survive in the market and they give it maximum priority while developing any software application, services or product. Well, there is basically two options a client has to test his application thoroughly i.e., through an in-house tester team or outsourcing the testing operation to a reliable third party. Whatever the case may be the target of any project is to achieve reliable and quality output as the end product and this can only be possible through proper testing processes.

In-house testing: In-house testing is done by team of testers for any enterprise in parallel with the other works of the organization. These testers or a single tester is responsible for testing the application or product which is being developed by a software farm which may be a foreign body. Well, since the tester is with the organization itself, hence we can expect a quick filing of bugs in our product as we find during the working.

Outsourcing testing: On the contrary, out sourcing testing defines we have to rely on a foreign party who can test our application thoroughly to get a reliable product. Well in this case we can’t ignore the importance of offshore software development farms in the industry. India is the best place to outsource your software product or application because they are extremely reliable and quality conscious as well. Moreover, Indian offshore development farms can provide you the same or even better quality of end product with proper testing at an affordable cost. They can take the total headache of your testing operation over themselves and give you a peaceful sleep at night.

Should you outsource? When we think about in-house testing we must consider the associated expenditure for the operation. We have to pay a huge chunk of bocks on a regular basis for the tester team even if they remain idle for most of the time. On the other hand, if we rely on a tester who may not know everything about what we need to test our application then that becomes a headache for the owner. But, if we outsource our testing operation to a reliable software farm then we can save a considerable amount of money because we pay on a per work hour basis. Again upon outsourcing, the offshore software development farm will provide all types of necessary and immediate assistance for our project at an affordable cost through their expert testing team. Hence we can rely on them without any doubt in mind.

Why take unnecessary stress if it can be transferred at low cost: It’s obvious that we have lots of other works to do like marketing, campaigning, dealing with different parties etc to enhance our growth. So why we take this unnecessary burden that too at a cost of heavy amount of money and anxiety. So we shouldn’t behave like a fool and should outsource our testing operation to a reliable software farm. Test your applications by hiring testing services of a offshore software testing company that fits your budget and time.

We provide QA testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Few Benefits of QTP Testing

custom QTP testing company, QTP testing services India, certified QTP testersImportance of Testing: Testing plays an extremely important role in software development life cycle. The testing process checks the reliability and quality of a software before it move to the end user in the final stage. To get a quality product we must have to test the application thoroughly to check if there is any loop-hole still present. Tester behaves like a connection bridge between the end user and the developer. He communicates to the developer about the user experience of the end user. Since the developer knows the background process and flow of the application hence he couldn’t feel any difficulty while browsing his own application as an end user; at that time the tester checks the application from the user’s point of view and gives the feedback to the developer to enhance the quality and reliability of the application. Hence the tester’s importance can never be ignored.

Why Automated QTP Testing: In the modern era due to increase in the demand of the customers and clients, web developers or application developer are bound to develop huge applications to satisfy them. These huge applications are usually having a complex structure and hence it is extremely difficult for a manual tester to check each and every module of such complex application. To avoid this problem, industry developed many software tools that can help the testers to test the application automatically with few instructions in less time and more accuracy. These software tools are also known as automated testing tools and QTP is one such piece. QTP is extremely reliable automation testing tool to test any size of application with more efficiency and accuracy.

QTP testing for all applications: Unlike many other automation testing tools which are specific to a domain like web domain, Android domain etc, QTP is an automation testing tool which can be used for a wide range of applications starting from desktop to web that run on windows platform. Well QTP is a product from HP and hence we can expect reliability and enterprise standard quality from QTP.

QTP need only one scripting language knowledge: The best thing about QTP is that it needs the tester to learn only one scripting language i.e., VBScript in order to make the best usages of this automation testing tool. In other automation testing tools like Selenium, the tester must learn different languages depending on the application for which we are going to make our testing operation. This simplifies the way of testing for the automation tester.

QTP automation testing uses reusable test cases: QTP testers can write a testcase to test a specific module of an application which may be repeated several times in the application. With QTP, the tester needn’t to write the same code repeatedly for those similar modules rather the automation testing tool can take care of those modules using reusability concept for the testcases. This decreases the complexity, effort and testing time for the application.

Bright future of QTP automation testing: Due to simple nature, QTP has already received a tremendous popularity among the modern automation testers to test and produce enterprise standard software applications for the industry. Moreover, it increases the quality of the application by eliminating all the unnecessary efforts, time-lapse and hence making it a productive tool for the enterprise. Moreover, it eliminates the threat of any hidden bugs that may be present during manual testing due to human errors. Hence, we can see a bright future for QTP testers. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a custom QTP testing company.

We provide QTP testing services India. If you would like to get your application tested by our certified QTP testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.