Software QA FYI - SQAFYI

QACenter Regression Testing Products Summary

By: Operative Software Products

QARun records user actions and system responses into reusable scripts that test specific application functions.

TestPartner is an automated functional testing tool that has been specially designed for testing complex applications based on Microsoft, Java and web based technologies.

QADirector gives development and testing teams a framework for managing the entire testing process-from design to execution to analysis.

Reconcile lets you prioritize your requirements and manage the testing effort based on your priorities.

TrackRecord provides an automated tracking system that keeps vital defect information flowing between testing and development teams.

File-AID/CS provides complete data management for client/server environments.

 

QARun

Advantages

Test Creation and Execution
Test Verification
Test Results Analysis
Advanced Data Functions

Wide-ranging Support
Central Repository
Java Support

Web Site Analysis
Euro Support
Intelligent Test Scripts
Automatic Synchronization

Test Creation and Execution

Improve testing efficiency by automating setup and execution of test scripts. QARun uses an object-oriented approach to automate test script generation, which can significantly increase the accuracy of testing in the time you have available. As you point and click, QARun records user actions and system responses into reusable scripts that test specific application functions. You will create powerful, feature-rich tests even if you don't have extensive knowledge of programming languages or application structure.

Test Verification

Simplify test verification with QARun's interactive process. No programming is required to make the verification or to record the application response to the log file. Windows, Menus, Dialogs, Bit Maps, Text, Time, Date and Numeric comparisons can be made using QARun's powerful checking features.

Test Results Analysis

Know the state of the application under test at any time. QARun creates a log file each time a test is run. It contains all the commands and test data sent by scripts to the target application, along with color-coded results of all the checks made. If a check fails, the expected and the actual responses are written to the log for comparison.

Advanced Data Functions

Reduce the number of scripts needed to perform a large range of tests. QARun's advanced data functions allow you to abstract input data into an external data file, so that a single script can enter a variety of data into the application to represent different test scenarios.

Create, verify and restore data with integration between QARun and File-AID. Use File-AID to create datapools for data entry during testing. Invoke File-AID's comparison feature directly from QARun's built-in file check function. Then view the comparison results from the QARun log files, the central point for verifying test results. Restore your test database using File-AID, ensuring repeated tests are run without data modification.

Wide-ranging Support

Learn only one tool, QARun, to test diverse applications in today's complex IT environment. You can test web, Java, ERP/CRM, character-based wireless and PDA applications as well as traditional client/server and emulator-based applications.

QARun's test creation and execution capabilities are available for in-house and purchased applications for a variety of platforms and development environments, including Siebel, SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft.

Test multiple types of web enabled applications with a single tool, by using QARun. Support for web technologies includes ActiveX, HTML, DHTML, XML, Java beans, and more. Execute web tests independent of the web browser using QARun. Record test scripts under Internet Explorer, then run the same script under Netscape—and vice versa.

Java Support

QARun supports applications developed from the leading Java development environments:

  • JVMs: IBM, Sun, Microsoft
  • Java Class Libraries: AFC, AWT, Borland JBuilder, Infragistic Jsuite, Swing, IBM Visual Café, Visual Age

Because there are numerous components that comprise a Java application, QARun provides Active Object Recognition (AOR). This facility enables users to "teach" QARun about Java controls that may not be necessarily supported out-of-the-box. AOR is an "industry-first" feature based on patent-pending Java testing technology that enables testing teams to define their own support for customized Java controls and more comprehensively test their applications and components.

Central Repository

Create benchmark script libraries that are largely independent of incremental application changes. All QARun scripts, checks, events, and object definitions are stored in a central repository. Test scripts can reference many checks, events and object definitions which, in turn, can reference many test scripts. When you change the definition in the repository, all references to the definition are automatically updated.

Web Site Analysis

Analyze web site and web application performance using QARun's Site Check. This wizard-driven task lets you test for orphaned pages, broken URLs, bad links, moved pages, new and old pages, and fast and slow pages. The Site Check also lets you check single URLs.

QARun's Site Check capability now includes a spell check feature that lets you check HTML pages of a web site against many pre-defined or user-defined languages. Afterward, you can view a report that shows the spelling errors and the pages on which they occur.

QARun supports DHTML and XML syntax checking during site checks. In addition, integration with Compuware's test data management tool enables you to compare data easily from specified tables, database structures, text files, XML files and QACenter scripts with an easy-to-use wizard.

Euro Support

QARun can aid businesses in testing and validating conversions into the newly adopted euro currency. QARun supports the euro symbol and can verify the conversion between two non-euro currencies using the required triangulation process, which involves converting the source currency to the euro, and then converting from the euro to the target currency. The Conversion Rates configuration dialog in QARun allows users to set the conversion rates for the different currencies as well as the cross rates.

Intelligent Test Scripts

Sophisticated error recovery through event logic. Decisions based on the error are required during testing. QARun uses a simple event-driven logic to build intelligence into test scripts. Test reliability is increased by enabling the test script to make decisions about the flow of the automation process.

  • An event is a condition that is internal to the computer system but external to QARun.

Automatic Synchronization

Synchronize test scripts with the application under test. A built-in synchronization method automatically synchronizes the test script. No additional scripting is needed. Scripts written for web applications accessed via a browser can also utilize automatic synchronization.

TestPartner

Advantages


Validate Web Technologies
Simple or Advanced Testing
Create & Execute Visual Tests
Simple Data Driven Tests
Integrated Functional and Performance Testing
Multiple Tests for the Entire Application


Validate Web Technologies


TestPartner is founded upon the same standardized technology used to build and support web & client/server applications, allowing you to validate HTML, Java, DHTML and other web technologies with speed and confidence.

ActiveX
Validate any third party ActiveX control using TestPartner's VBA test automation infrastructure. Even if your application relies on ActiveX controls made by different vendors users can automate and test underlying properties instead of only being able to drive the objects on a positional level.

COM Objects
Validate GUI and non-GUI components using TestPartner's extensive support for testing component-based applications. TestPartner is the only testing tool that enables users to test client side COM objects while they are actually running and also allows the testing of server side COM objects through the scripting language. This means that testing of an application can start earlier, before the GUI has ever been created, ensuring that all aspects of a distributed application function as expected.

Simple or Advanced Testing


Develop scripts using TestPartner's versatile, tiered approach. Testers who do not have programming knowledge can use the TestPartner Visual Navigator to quickly create visual-based tests and execute them. Underlying the Visual Navigator is the full power of the Microsoft VBA language. Developers and more technical testers can rely on the VBA architecture to create advanced test cases. The tiered approach offers a reduced learning curve without sacrificing rich testing functionality - a combination that make it ideal for e-commerce testing.

Create & Execute Visual Based Tests


Record and playback tests using the Visual Navigator. Each test is displayed in a tree-like structure, showing clearly the path taken through the application. This visual representation of the tests allows users with little or no programming experience to be as effective as the most technical user.

Simple Data Driven Tests


Guidance by TestPartner's automatic wizards allow you to create intelligent tests, reducing the need to modify the high level scripts themselves. Using TestPartner's ActiveData wizard, testers can create a single script to input valid or non-valid data into the system and verify the results. This means less scripts are needed to carry out a series of test conditions and less maintenance overhead. It also eliminates the need to modify the scripts directly, making it easier for non-technical testers to create complex tests.

Integrated Functional and Performance Testing


Save time and effort by generating performance and load testing scripts from actual test executions. Using TestPartner with Compuware's QALoad, you can automatically capture performance & load testing scripts, while creating or executing functional test scripts.

Multiple Tests for the Entire Application


Gain the confidence that every part of your application has been tested. Multiple types of tests can be executed by leveraging the DevPartner Automated Error Detection technology with TestPartner. These tests cover problems such as memory leaks, invalid API calls and allow you to isolate problems down to a line of code or a reproducible case.

 

QADirector

Advantages

Automated Test Management
Manual Test Execution on Personal Data Assistants (PDA)

Maximize Usage of Resources
ActiveAnalysis - Run two types of tests at the same time!

Automated Test Management

Streamline your test process with Compuware's QADirector. Test planning, execution, analysis and defect tracking are all possible from one central location—QADirector.

Test Planning

Avoid errors and surprises caused by constant changes to test plans and requirements. Using QADirector with Compuware's requirements management tool , test plans can be generated in accordance with your changing requirements. Integration between QADirector and Compuware's requirements management tool accelerates test planning and ensures end-user needs are met.

QADirector also provides integration with DOORS requirements management tool from Telelogic.

Test Design

Organize large volumes of test scripts using QADirector's test suites. Create test suites that cover an entire application, by logically grouping testing scripts in a visual tree structure, including automated and manual tests. Determine the application functions and the associated tests needed to verify the application completely. MS Word-based test plans can be imported to automatically generate test suites.

Test Execution

Overcome the time restrictions that often make thorough testing impossible, by automating test execution. QADirector quickly and easily runs the testing scripts and returns and stores status information when testing is complete.

Gain testing flexibility by executing tests interactively or in scheduled fully unattended batch sessions (daily, weekly or monthly). Focus on analyzing test results during the business day by scheduling tests to run overnight.

QADirector provides a single framework from which a variety of development and automated testing tools can be executed. This framework shortens the testing process by executing multiple types of tests concurrently against an application.

Test Analysis

Quickly identify problems and assess application quality by viewing test results from multiple tools in a single view. The results of each test run are logged by QADirector. Compare results from multiple test runs, for an overview of quality progress. From this summary testers can easily identify a failure, zero in on the problem and access application quality.

Defect Reporting

QADirector provides pre-defined reporting as well as the ability to export data to many popular reporting tools. Results from failed tests are easily loaded into the defect reports of Compuware's defect tracking tool. The defect ID is stored with the test procedure for easy follow-up.

Manual Test Execution on Personal Data Assistants (PDA)

Run manual tests from a PDA with QADirector. Through the HotSync operation, manual tests are transferred from QADirector to the tester's PDA handheld. The assigned tester uses the PDA handheld to view and execute the job. After the job is complete, the HotSync operation to upload the results to the PC where the tester can view the results in QADirector.

Maximize Usage of Resources

Execute tests across an application's distributed components as it is planned for production. QADirector also executes tests on remote machines in parallel, which helps distribute the load across the system and determine how the software will work across different clients, servers and platforms. Parallel test management will also allow more testing in less time.

ActiveAnalysis

Run two types of tests at the same time!

ActiveAnalysis capitalizes on key functions of development tools to provide deeper root cause analysis in the testing process—allowing you to identify not only when a defect occurs in an application but also where the problem is and why. ActiveAnalysis embeds important developer details within summary reports, such as code coverage, memory leaks and identifies performance bottlenecks. This enables development managers with added insight required to help their teams quickly identify and correct problems, effectively spending less time recreating errors and more time on productive development.

Prove the effectiveness of a testing cycle.

Analyze code coverage while a test suite is executing, using QADirector and Compuware's code coverage analysis tool. QADirector provides a central view of the test results and code coverage statistics, allowing users to assess software quality and reliability objectively.

Increase your ability to reproduce errors.

Locate programming errors while a test suite is executing, using QADirector and Compuware's automatic error detection tool. Find errors that might have gone undetected if the code was not executed in a production-like environment. Provide development with detailed information to begin correcting the error immediately. This speeds the problem resolution process.

Tune your applications for maximum performance.

Optimize the performance and usability of your software using QADirector and Compuware's performance profiling tool. They automatically locate performance bottlenecks, then report application and component performance data, providing you with the information needed to deliver the fastest applications in your enterprise or on the Internet.

Reconcile

Advantages

Accelerate Software Development
Achieve Predictable Results
Leverage Existing Investments
Communicate & Implement Change Quickly

Accelerate Software Development

Changes are an integral and necessary part of the software development lifecycle. Unfortunately, these changes can slow planning, development and testing-delaying projects and thereby increasing time to market. Reconcile gives team leaders the ability to rapidly assess and respond to proposed changes with informed, up-to-date responses. The ultimate result is a more efficient delivery of well-defined and better-scoped projects through a thorough understanding and evaluation of requirements change.

Achieve Predictable Results

Each functional area of your team must be informed and in-sync as applications progress through the project life cycle. Reconcile provides you with the abilities to:

  • capture and manage business, technical and testing requirements across MS Word documents
  • track the source of each requirement, including its priority and status
  • correlate open defect issues to your original requirements.

These capabilities enable you to meet business and reliability expectations by ensuring that planning, development and testing activities mesh together as the project advances. Change makes it difficult to avoid errors and surprises; test plans and requirements need to be in constant agreement. Fortunately, Reconcile's requirements plans can be used to generate and update test plans created with Compuware's test management tool. Therefore, you can deliver tested and reliable applications even with constantly changing requirements.

Separation of team members, due to their function or location, can also make it difficult to ensure a successful finished product. To handle that issue, Reconcile provides multiple reporting formats, ad hoc reporting and multiple project support.

Leverage Existing Investments

Create and manage all types of requirements using Reconcile's intuitive MS Word architecture. Reconcile requires minimal initial resource investment. Full integration with popular development and testing tools minimizes learning curves. Your team can immediately begin to implement-and benefit from-a structured requirements management process, without the need to learn and adapt stand-alone tools with no interoperability.

Reconcile provides a flexible and easy-to-use requirements model. Pre-defined requirement types are available and easily modified by project or across multiple projects. New requirements can be added and configured to meet your overall project needs.

Reconcile was designed to share information with other tools that support the project life cycle, eliminating the time-consuming task of documenting similar information in multiple sources. Specifically, Reconcile features:

Integration with Compuware's defect and project tracking tool

Issues and defects identified during testing or development can be immediately associated with the requirement that is affected, allowing team members to assess the impact and project managers to analyze the status of the project.

Integration with Compuware's test management tool

Testing requirements generated in Reconcile can be used to automatically generate or update an automated test suite in Compuware's test management tool.

Communicate & Implement Change Quickly

Often project changes are not communicated to the testing group, resulting in delivery of an inadequately tested application. Reconcile automatically generates and maintains up-to-date test plans based on the most current project requirements. This kind of communication gives your testing group the confidence that the application has been tested, according to timely requirements.

Poor methods of communication can also slow testing or development of the application. Reconcile offers a web interface to allow sharing of any Reconcile report across the Internet or an intranet, using its own integrated reporting and publishing tools. Integration with Compuware's project and defect tracking system allows your team to easily share information via reports, links and workflow notifications created with this tool.

Meeting the needs of multiple projects can provide another communication challenge. Software components must often meet the needs of more than one project; timely requirements information must be passed within and across each project. Compuware's requirements management tool's information-sharing capabilities easily meet this challenge.

TrackRecord

Advantages

Integrated defect tracking
Customizable workflows
Dynamic reporting
Automatic electronic mail notification
Customizable repository
Remote access

Integrated defect tracking

TrackRecord enables you to effectively track information about test failures and take control of software defect identification and resolution. TrackRecord's integration with Compuware's test management tool allows you to easily load a software defect into the tracking system. With the press of a button, key testing results are populated in the TrackRecord repository. Tight integration between Compuware's error detection tools and the tracking tool yields defect reports that enable developers to reproduce and correct issues quickly.

Dynamic Project Tracking

TrackRecord provides project managers with an up to the minute view of project status based on live data gathered directly from the development and testing team. Developers, testers and other project team members use TrackRecord to organize and communicate their project deliverables. As developers implement features, address software defects and tune their applications, TrackRecord continuously gathers and processes project status information and correlates it against project milestones. As testers uncover and report issues and certify fixes, TrackRecord automatically manages the communication and workflow. Team leads and project managers leverage TrackRecord for detailed project status and resource utilization data to support informed decisions on assignments, delivery dates and project risk. Using TrackRecord's milestone status reports the project manager can now view this data alongside the tasks, features, defects, and other project data that is related to each milestone as defined in the initial project plan. Using TrackRecord's bi-directional integration with Microsoft Project, it is finally possible to keep project plans and resources up to date and resources balanced without interrupting the team with constant progress update queries and status meetings.

Customizable workflows

TrackRecord provides a graphical workflow facility for defining and automating the project workflows, thus providing a process for ensuring that software deliverables and defects are appropriately routed through development, QA, documentation and other affected groups. This automated workflow management ensures that the software development process is repeatable and that issues are not overlooked. Workflow rules can be established to support the flow of tasks and information around the team. The data types and workflow features are highly customizable so that teams can implement TrackRecord in their current environment and support their existing processes and standards. TrackRecord allows QA managers, project managers, testers, and developers to better communicate and focus on resolving problems and improving application quality.

Dynamic reporting

TrackRecord's dynamic reports are always up-to-date and reflect the most current information in the repository. When information changes in the repository, TrackRecord automatically routes it -allowing critical defects to receive instant attention. The dynamic queries and automatic notification promote a seamless flow of information between testing and development. Notification can be customized by structuring users' view of the repository according to their specific needs. This allows testers and developers to focus on changes relevant to them, while a manager can view the overall picture.

Automatic electronic mail notification

The TrackRecord AutoAlert module provides electronic mail notification of reported defects and other new information added to the repository. This feature extends the built-in notification provided by the dynamic views to include occasional users and remote users in the flow of information.

Customizable repository

TrackRecord is a flexible tool, where virtually every product feature, from the fields shown on a defect or task submission form, to the rules applied to automatically populate project specific information, to the data and fields recorded in TrackRecord, can be defined and shared or protected according to site specific interests and processes. Further, the database, user interface, permissions and workflow processes can all be adjusted along the life of your project, so you can incrementally tune your installation to support your evolving work processes.

Remote access

Testers and developers can also obtain current information and report software defects remotely by accessing TrackRecord via an Internet browser. Anyone with a browser and the appropriate access privileges can enter defects into the repository, update items and view reports.

File-AID/CS

Advantages

XML support
Copy related subsets of data
Transform data
Validate the test database
Copy data from any source
Edit client/server data
Generate data when there is no source
Restore baseline database

 

XML Support

File-AID/CS provides data management for objects created in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) for complex information-sharing between B2B web applications. File-AID/CS gives users the XML edge, allowing them to use XML technology to bridge the gap between web-based applications.

With File-AID/CS, you can verify the reliability of your B2B application and the XML data it uses by generating XML data for test purposes and validating the accuracy of the results. With its simple Graphical User Interface, developers and can easily transform complex relational databases into accurate streams of XML data.

File-AID's Compare facility discovers, displays and reports differences between two XML files or between an XML data stream and a relational database table. A color-coded comparison report, viewable either online or in print, identifies the exact XML data that has been inserted, deleted or changed.

Copy related subsets of data

File-AID/CS allows developers to populate test tables with subsets of data that accurately reflect production relationships. You can quickly define the criteria for copying subsets and extract the precise amount of data required to satisfy the relationships defined between the tables. You need copy only the rows required to satisfy the selected relationships, customizing data for specific testing requirements. You can also save, modify and reuse all extract and load criteria, making it easy to repeat the process each time you must restore the test database. File-AID/CS helps load a set of related tables into Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Microsoft SQL Server or DB2 UDB, regardless of the database management system where the data originated.

Using File-AID/CS in combination with File-AID/RDX on the mainframe, you can create test data by easily selecting synchronized subsets of DB2 data and loading them into your target client/server databases. File-AID/CS automatically generates the DDL and runs the necessary utilities to create the target tables, keys and indexes. It also loads the data in the proper order to maintain the original data relationships and dependencies.

Transform data

File-AID/CS automatically transforms data in the major client/server databases, eliminating the need to write one-time programs. It manipulates, converts and transforms data to create specific test cases.

You define transformation criteria for each column/field through a graphical interface. You can use data structures as templates for identifying the columns/fields containing the data values. For example, use table definitions, DDL or COBOL record layouts directly as the templates. You can also define selection criteria to age only a subset of a table/file.

Validate the test database

Once you have created your test data and run a test case of your application, you need to be able to view and analyze the results. You can do this manually, but scanning pages of "before" and "after" data can be both tedious and inaccurate. File-AID/CS automates this comparison for you.

File-AID/CS gives you an efficient, accurate way to compare the differences in Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2 UDB, Sybase, Informix and many other 32-bit ODBC-compliant databases. It can also compare ASCII text and report files.

File-AID/CS enables you to:

  • compare one or more pairs of tables or files
  • compare tables in different databases
  • restrict the comparison to selected rows or columns
  • save the comparison report as proof of the results.

The File-AID/CS report includes rows that have been inserted, deleted or changed. In addition, File-AID/CS can group the comparisons you have created and run them in batch. If you want to examine specific portions of the tables yourself, use File-AID/CS to browse them. With File-AID/CS's query facility, you can easily select subsets of data to view. After retrieving the data, you can further customize the display to view only the data you need and in the order you need it. In addition, File-AID/CS can automatically find any invalid data in UNIX files so that you don't have to search for it manually. It can also display multiple tables simultaneously from the same or different databases.

Copy data from any source

File-AID/CS enables you to create test data by copying a subset from an existing database or file. File-AID/CS can convert, copy and reformat a range of data types and formats. It can be used to copy a subset of data between two like file or database or easily create test data.

For example, if you need to access production data stored in Oracle or DB2 UDB, File-AID/CS can subset that data based on your selection criteria then load it into any if the other supported databases. You can also use File-AID/CS to convert data between numerous data types and relational databases; for example, between XMLand Oracle, or Sybase and Access.

Using a graphical interface, File-AID/CS enables you to view your source and target data structures side by side, drag and drop data fields between them and define any modifications or calculations required for these fields. It also converts EBCDIC to ASCII and performs intelligent conversions of packed fields, if necessary. You can also save these conversion criteria to restore your data at any time.

Edit client/server data

After having copied data into your test environment using File-AID/CS, you can further refine the data to introduce new test conditions.

Using File-AID/CS's spreadsheet interface, you can access Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Microsoft SQL Server and DB2 UDB data from anywhere in the enterprise. You can also access UNIX files through the same interface and use COBOL record layouts as templates. These editing and browsing capabilities allow you to make changes easily and accurately.

Generate data when there is no source

Sometimes there is no existing data within your enterprise to use as a starting point for your testing needs. File-AID/CS can automatically generate test data, based on the parameters you define for generating the columns and rows. For example, it can generate random numbers, create strings in specific formats, create numbers sequentially and ensure that values fall within certain limits. This saves you the time it would take to enter the data manually.

Restore baseline database

Once you have run a test case of your application, you need to reset your test data to its baseline values. The File-AID/CS products help automate this process several ways: if your data has only a few changes, you can use File-AID/CS's editing or global search/replace features to restore the test data to its original values; if your application changed a lot of data, you may prefer to recreate the original test tables from the master test database. The stored conversion and load criteria make it easy to refresh the test data automatically.


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QACenter Regression Testing Products Summary