Test Automation @ BackOffice Associates

BackOffice Associates uses test automation to help our clients receive more thoroughly tested and defect free products. Test automation is currently being used to nightly test the DSP applications. Product Management, Support, Development, and Quality Engineering each play a role in the creation of new functionality for our applications.  Here you will find a detailed explanation of our test automation process.  

A new feature is developed based on new design requirements, quality assurance discoveries, and feedback from our clients.  Quality Engineers work closely with Product Management as well as Developers to gain a clear understanding of the purpose of the feature and the functionality of the application.  User personas are identified so that the new feature may be developed and tested from the appropriate user perspective.    Concurrently developers and quality engineers work towards developing both the feature code as well as the automation that will test that new piece of functionality.

Once the features and the test scenarios are coded they are ready to be merged in with existing code making the testing process ready for execution.  

At least once each evening the automated test process is executed.  A new environment is created with the latest product code and feature tests.  Testing data is created automatically and the feature tests are then run using this data.  Once the test run has completed, the successes and failures are carefully analyzed by Quality Engineering and any findings are reported.  Feedback is provided to both the Developer as well as the Quality Engineer each time the tests are run.  Based on this feedback any test and/or code changes will be made.

With well over 500 test scenarios being run against the DSP applications, and more tests being added, test automation has proven to be very helpful in assisting the continuous improvement of the testing process.  More importantly it has allowed BackOffice Associates to provide to our clients higher quality applications that have been tested carefully and extensively.