From Manual Testing to Automated Testing

Case Study From Belatrix Software Factory - South America Outsourcing is Simpler!
About Jack Berlin

About Belatrix Software - About Prizm Share
test quality assurance tool scripts Belatrix automate Client time solution
Case Study From Belatrix Software Factory - South America Outsourcing is Simpler!
About Jack Berlin

About Belatrix Software - About Prizm Share
test quality assurance tool scripts Belatrix automate Client time solution
<p> 
 
 
 
Belatrix Software Factory | www.belatrixsf.com 1 
 
Case Study: From Manual Testing to Automated Testing 
 
 
 
The Company. This Client is a leading supplier of 
Enterprise 
solutions, 
desktop 
software, 
scientific 
databases, and professional services for biotechnology, 
drug discovery and chemical research, including software, 
databases, and web sites which enable customers to 
create, analyze and communicate chemical, biological, 
and scientific information more effectively.  
The Products. This Clientâ€™s 
products are used primarily in the 
pharmaceutical, 
biotechnology 
and chemical industries. They are 
also used in higher and academic 
education 
and 
government 
research. The company's principal 
software is the de facto standard 
and primary communication tool 
on the chemist's desktop. The enterprise version of this 
solution enables information research organizations to 
deploy application and information solutions using 
Internet, 
intranet, and extranet technologies. These 
solutions are now in use by companies such as Abbot 
Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, etc. 
The Challenge. With over 1,500 manual test cases, 
the quality assurance process for the Clientâ€™s main 
desktop application was quickly becoming very 
challenging to maintain. The application was constantly 
growing (more features were added) and we had to find a 
way to reduce testing times, increase the amount of test 
cases and improve the system quality overall without 
introducing more additional testing time. Based on this 
experience, 
the Belatrix Quality Assurance 
team 
proposed to automate our testing process. Due to the 
complexity of the application, we had to decide what the 
best testing architecture would be. These are the 
problems that have arisen:  
â€¢ There are several automation tools available 
(free and open source), but none of them provides a 
complete solution. Even the licensed ones can prove to 
be quite expensive and they confine you in their specific 
architecture 
and 
scripting 
languages. 
â€¢ We could spend too 
much time writing complex test 
scripts, so reusability was very 
important. 
â€¢ We could spend too 
much time maintaining scripts. 
Based on these restrictions, we realized we had a 
few options: 
ïƒ¼ Select a licensed tool 
â€¢ Benefits:  We could start creating scripts faster, 
since we do not need to develop anything. 
â€¢ Risks:  The licensed tools could not meet our 
requirements and we may not be able to adapt 
the toolâ€™s behavior due to the fact that we do not 
have the source code. If the tool turned out to be 
ineffective, much work would have been wasted 
as it would have probably been developed on a 
proprietary technology or language. 
 
 
 
â€œWith over 1,500 manual test 
cases, the quality assurance 
process for the Clientâ€™s main 
desktop application was 
quickly becoming very 
challenging to maintain.â€ 
 
 
 
 
Belatrix Software Factory | www.belatrixsf.com 2 
 
ïƒ¼ Select a specific free and Open Source tool: 
â€¢ Benefits:  they are free and we could add 
more features as needed because we have 
the source code. They tend to use popular 
scripting languages, preventing future lock-in. 
â€¢ Risks:  we could spend too much time 
creating scripts and maintaining them and we 
should also develop several features to cover 
our needs. 
ïƒ¼ 
Use and combine several Open Source test 
automation tools: 
â€¢ Benefits:  they have a low cost and  we could 
leverage a the best-of-breed approaches. 
â€¢ Risks:  some tools may not work well with the 
others. However, this can be mitigated with 
appropriate prototyping. 
The Solution. Along with the client, Belatrix decided 
that the best option was to follow the best approach and 
select multiple open source tools combined with a custom 
framework that allows us to: 
ïƒ¼ Reduce the time to create scripts. 
ïƒ¼ Reduce the time to maintain the scripts. 
ïƒ¼ Combine several automation tools in order to get 
the benefits of each one of them while 
circumventing their weaknesses. 
ïƒ¼ Develop special features that could be reused by 
all scripts: 
â€¢ 
Take screenshots 
â€¢ 
Connect with a data base 
â€¢ 
Create automated reports 
Some of the tools and technologies that were 
chosen include: 
ïƒ¼ Python as a general scripting language 
ïƒ¼ Open STA 
ïƒ¼ DummyNet  
ïƒ¼ PyWinAuto 
ïƒ¼ Selenium 
The Results. Belatrix helped the Client reduce the 
test processing time by 40%, add hundreds of additional 
test cases without affecting schedules and keep test 
cycles under control. 
Belatrix was also able to help the Client automate 
the system deployment process, as well as the system 
installation, installation testing, smoke tests, feature 
testing 
(including 
integration with 
other 
tools), 
performance testing and all the report generation to 
produce reliable quality metrics. 
Quality Assurance Outsourcing with Belatrix 
Belatrix has an impressive track record providing 
excellent Quality Assurance services to clients worldwide. 
We cover the full spectrum of Quality Assurance 
strategies, such as: 
ïƒ¼ Functional Testing 
ïƒ¼ Risk-Based Testing 
ïƒ¼ Graphic User Interface 
ïƒ¼ Acceptance, Usability and Accessibility 
ïƒ¼ Performance (Stress and Load) 
ïƒ¼ Regression 
ïƒ¼ 
Installation and Configuration 
ïƒ¼ Security 
ïƒ¼ API Testing (N.Unit and MS-VSTester Edition) 
ïƒ¼ Automation (Python, VBscript, Apodora, Mercury 
QTP) 
ïƒ¼ Smoke Test 
We invite you to learn how a relationship with 
Belatrix will give your company a distinctive 
advantage through low cost, disciplined, and high 
quality software development and quality assurance 
services.  
You may contact us at: 
businessdevelopment@belatrixsf.com. 
Phone number: +1 (801) 783-4269  
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