GitLab’s study indicates that in a world where 26% of organizations release builds hourly and 59% of enterprises develop new software daily, speed is essential. Unlike regular software, enterprise applications and systems are highly complex, often encompassing a wide array of features and functionalities; therefore, having a comprehensive and systematic testing approach is needed.
This article will analyze the critical considerations of enterprise software testing and the transition and measurement of enterprise test automation strategy.
Key Considerations for Enterprise Software Testing
Enterprise software comprises multiple components, including databases, operating systems, servers, storage, networking, management tools, etc., making it more difficult to perform testing due to the process complexities and transaction data density. To ensure the enterprise software is tested as efficiently as possible, here are some factors to consider:
1. Enterprise Test Strategy and Frameworks
It’s essential to provide a centralised and structured approach to manage and monitor the testing process, ensuring efficient management of testing efforts. Some common test management options used in enterprise software testing include:
- Enterprise test strategy: A high-level plan that outlines the objectives, test level and types, environments, reporting and metrics, etc., helping define the overall direction and guidelines for testing activities, including the selection of appropriate test frameworks.
- Test management frameworks: These are comprehensive frameworks that provide a structured approach to test management. They offer guidelines, templates, and best practices for test planning, test case creation, test execution, and result analysis.
2. Testing Team Ability and Scalability
Enterprise software projects often involve complex and large-scale systems requiring diverse skills and expertise to cover all testing aspects effectively. Thus, the enterprise software testing team should have the ability to design comprehensive test plans and test cases customised for different enterprise software requirements and specifications. They should be capable of executing tests effectively and efficiently, ensuring thorough coverage of functionality, performance, security, and other critical aspects.
The scalability of the testing team consists of the flexibility to ramp up or down the team size as needed, including adding more testers, test automation engineers, domain experts, or specialised resources to handle increased testing requirements. By having a scalable testing team, enterprises can effectively manage the testing workload, maintain testing quality, and meet project timelines, even when faced with increasing project complexities or tight deadlines.
3. Automation Testing
As enterprise software is typically complex, encompassing a wide range of functionalities, integrations, and modules, manual testing alone cannot effectively cover the extensive test scenarios and configurations required to ensure the software’s quality and reliability. Thus, enterprises should consider automation testing since it allows for comprehensive and systematic testing, ensuring that all components of the software are thoroughly tested.
For instance, banks and financial institutions often need to handle large volumes of data and transactions, with multiple users accessing the system simultaneously. To ensure the software can run smoothly, they should execute a wide range of crucial financial test cases such as performance, regression, and load testing. By implementing test automation, they can perform multiple test cases at the same time, accelerate the testing process by automating repetitive tasks, and improve test coverage.
4. The Appropriate Testing Tools
Different enterprise software will need different testing environments. Choosing the right automation testing tool will enable enterprises to optimise their efforts and achieve effective testing outputs, especially when it comes to automation testing.
A testing tool that is chosen should provide scalability and flexibility, enabling enterprises to adapt to changing technologies and allowing for easy integration with other tools and systems With a multitude of options available, only a handful of tools, like Katalon and Kobiton, possess the adaptability required to meet these specific enterprise requirements.
Transition Plan to Enterprise Test Automation Strategy
Whether you are currently part of an enterprise test environment plan or are considering starting one, here is a step-by-step guide to getting started:
- Assess current testing processes: Evaluate the existing testing processes, including manual testing practices, test coverage, and areas that can benefit from automation. Identify the pain points, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement.
- Define automation goals: Determine what your enterprise aims to achieve through automation, such as accelerated testing process, improved test coverage, enhanced product quality, and increased efficiency.
- Engage key stakeholders to gain agreement and support for the strategy: As stakeholders may have several concerns when shifting from manual testing to automation testing, it’s crucial to communicate and involve them in the development of the test automation strategy.
- Establish test automation framework: Develop a robust test automation framework that provides a standardised approach to automation. Define guidelines, best practices, and coding standards for creating reusable test scripts, managing test data, and handling test environment configurations.
- Identify test scenarios and design test scripts for automation: Enterprises need to determine the critical functionalities and workflows required to be tested to optimise the testing efforts and allocate resources effectively. Based on the identified test scenarios, design and develop automated test scripts using the selected automation tools.
- Integrate test automation into CI/CD pipeline: Automate the execution of tests during build deployments and incorporate automated tests as part of the enterprise software’s release process.
- Implement test data management: To ensure the availability of relevant and reliable test data for automation, you should establish a test data management strategy, including the processes for creating, maintaining, and refreshing test data sets.
- Shortlist benchmark to monitor and improve: identity testing metrics to evaluate the current situation and gauge future improvement. Develop and maintain a regular reporting schedule for these metrics, such as a monthly scorecard, to track performance consistently.
Best Practices to Apply Enterprise Automation Testing Strategy
Here are some practical tips that we’ve gained during our partnership with other organizations:
- Engage an automation team: To cover different aspects of enterprise software and increase test coverage, Discovermarket, an insurance company in Singapore, collaborated with the KSM Solutions testing team to help them develop the appropriate testing strategy specialized for their enterprise. From that, they can navigate the challenges specific to enterprise environments and tailor testing approaches accordingly.
- Conduct proof of concept (PoC): Before scaling up automation efforts, perform a proof of concept to validate the effectiveness of the selected tools and frameworks. This helps identify any potential challenges or limitations early on.
- Focus on training and educating the team: Our team have provided training and education to the testing team and other stakeholders of Maxis, a telecommunication company operating in Malaysia, on the selected automation tools, frameworks, and methodologies. Foster a culture of continuous learning and skill development to ensure the effective adoption of their automation strategy.
Sum Up
The pursuit of quality is ongoing for any enterprise testing goals. Enterprise software testing requires careful consideration of various factors to ensure the delivery of high-quality, reliable software. Among those considerations, the enterprise testing team is vital in achieving successful software testing outcomes.
By collaborating with a trusted enterprise testing team such as KSM Solutions, we can handle large-scale testing efforts, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and implement robust test management processes. We help streamline the testing process, enhance efficiency, and ensure the delivery of high-quality software that meets predefined needs and expectations. Moreover, with domain knowledge in financial services, we have partnered with many banks and financial institutions to accelerate their testing process while minimizing defaults.
Author Bio
Van Pham is an experienced content writer at KMS Solutions with a strong background in writing and a deep understanding of the technology industry. Van specializes in creating engaging and informative content that covers a wide range of technology topics, from emerging technology trends to industry insights.