ennovate's Object Oriented Test Automation script ensures holistic Enterprise Collaboration Software Testing

The Client :
Our client, an US based company with worldwide operations, is highly renowned for providing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) products. Our client offers collaboration software products with the following capabilities:

• Helps create workspace that blends with and extends tools like e-mail, instant messaging, and desktop productivity applications.
• Enables Ad-hoc workspace creation, productivity application integration, e-mail integration, instant messaging integration, collaborative document authoring, advanced subscriptions and notifications, intuitive task and issue tracking and contextual search.

The Challenge :
The client was on the look out to have Software QA and Testing done on various modules of Collaborative application software.

Group Memory

1. RDMBS: Collaborative product uses RDBMS as a central repository for data and support MS SQL Server 2000/2005 and Oracle 9i/10g databases.
2. Application Server + Web Server: Collaboration bundles an application server, which is Apache Tomcat. The use of web server is optional. You can also configure Collaboration to run in a clustered environment.
3. LDAP Server: Collaborative product users can be pre-defined within supported directory (LDAP) server.

User Interface

1. Browser: Users may gain access to the Group Memory based on their access rights using a browser.
2. E-mail: Email can be used to post documents, participate in discussions, be notified on modification of objects
3. FTP: FTP access permits users to view, edit, delete and save documents, to create folders, rename items etc.
4. WebDAV: A WebDAV compliant server lets you drag and drop contents between GM and your windows environment.
5. C-mail: C-mail is like having a personal assistant who is always online and always reading email from you.
6. API: A defined set of classes and interfaces that allows users customize and access GM objects using languages such as JAVA or Jython.
7. Portal

Access Control

Access to object in GM is controlled through the application of Access Policies. Actions on objects of GM are granted or restricted by Access Roles assigned to users in the access policy.

Content Management

1. Cabinets and Folders: All objects are organized into containers called Cabinets and Folders.
2. Documents: Users may collaborate with peers to develop and use shared documents.
3. Workspaces: Workspaces are special areas designed as Collaborative Environments for projects, accounts and other group work. When using a workspace, users may exchange information and provide private access to specific business partners.
4. Communities: Community is an online workplace to find, discuss, and share information; run a project; coordinate account activities; and collaborate with and learn from other team members.
5. Dashboards: The dashboard is an object whose purpose is to display other objects. Any object can be linked to or moved into a dashboard and will be displayed in a particular manner.

Collaboration Tools

1. Calendars & Tasks: Calendar can be used to arrange and organize meetings, Track attendees of the meeting, Add reminders etc. Task can be used to: Assign either yourself or a colleague to the task, Set deadlines for the task, add a task priority etc.
2. Workflow: This feature allows configuring pre-defined set of activities and events that are used in a business process.
3. Discussions: A discussion allows specific groups of people to discuss via e-mail
4. Subscriptions: Users are notified of objects such as Personal Page Notification & E-mail Notification on subscription
5. Search: The search server component is responsible for searching objects in response to requests from main Server. The index server is the component that indexes objects from main server into search server.
   

The Solution :
ennovate Technologies team of engineers was responsible for the complete Software QA Planning and Management activities. Manual and Automation Test techniques were employed in the course of Test Cycle.

Manual Testing:
The following Software Testing and Certification processes were performed on each of the above mentioned modules:

• Regression Testing
• Functional Testing
• Ad-hoc Testing
• Installer & Upgrade Testing
• Integration Testing (with related applications)
• API Testing
• Reliability Testing
• Clustering and Load Balance Testing
• Volume Testing
• Indexer Testing
• Added features testing

Automated Testing:
ennovate introduced test automation using Silk scripts mapped on an object oriented architecture. A library of custom classes and modules were shared by all the scripts. This ensured that changes in GUI or software functionality effected minimal corrections on test script consequently enabling virtually uninterrupted test automation. Over 50 silk scripts were used throughout automation.

Following activities were performed in the course of Test Automation:

• Script Maintenance (for upgraded versions of software)
• Porting of silk script (from older version of software to newer versions)
• Regression Testing (Silk)
• Web server certification (Silk)
• Database certification (Silk)
• LDAP Server certification (Silk)
• API Testing (Python)
• Volume Testing (Python)

Other SW QA activities included:

• Test cases updates and maintenance
• Test environment setup
• Automated test scripting/execution
• Filing and tracking defects
• Defect closure

The Challenges:

• Product integration with other client products and different third-party applications followed by Testing and QA operations
• The product being a collection of more than 70 interlinked modules, testing of all the related modules had to be done for a bug detected in any one module.
• Project proceedings were required to be rescheduled due to a change in TPM.
• In order to test the product, an Application Server, Web Server, Database Server, LDAP Server, e-mail Client & Server and an autonomous search engine had to be set up and configured remotely.
• Since the product had multilingual interface, it had to be tested twice. First with English interface and data and second with other languages like French, Japanese etc. interface and data.

The Technology :

The Benefits :

• Experienced and Dedicated Offshore team that handled complete Project Test Planning and Management.
• Strong team of self-reliant professionals making possible least iterations in project flow.
• Test environment set-up services
• Bug detection and bug-fixing services.
• Team size varied depending on task enormity, spontaneously
• 24 hour work cycle and strict compliance to daily tasks
• Huge savings on Time and Money for customer due to offshore development model
• Timely adherence to Time to Market