What is our primary use case?
We are using the on-premise version and testing an eCommerce platform: SAP Hybris. This would take in all of our vaccine orders over the Internet. That is primarily what we are testing it on.
How has it helped my organization?
The autotesting piece has allowed us to complete testing more quickly, which helps us with our agile sprint. We are getting our releases out at the end of every four to six weeks, then pushing them out. Thus, we're delivering value in terms of our website being faster. The whole autotesting piece has helped us get there and deliver that. This has saved us time.
What is most valuable?
We are able to take about 1500 manual test cases, working with the Worksoft resources and system, and clobbered them down to 600 to 700 test cases. Our testing has gone from what would have been a course of six weeks down to a little over a week's worth of testing on the autotesting. This is possibly because our systems aren't all in sync at the moment, and we're still in the process of fine tuning this. When we finish fine tuning them, the testing may even be quicker.
For the tool, its valuable features are:
- The ability to build objects. E.g., if you have 50 test cases, but in those fifty test cases, they all had embedded a place order flow. You could build an object of place order, then all 50 of those test cases could use those steps in that object. This has been a real sharp feature, because you don't have to do those order steps 50 times like we used to do on our manual tests. You now have an object sitting out there where you can just reference the object, if you will. That has been a sharp feature.
- The general Capture tool, where you can walk through and mimic what you think is a test case, and the whole time it's capturing your steps. You can then use that to fine tune it and pull a test case out of it. We have it hooked up with Micro Focus ALM. This is where we have all of our test cases living, and it's sitting in that repository for us.
It is a pretty easy tool to use as far as automated testing tools go.
What needs improvement?
We went into this with the thought that we wanted to be able to hand this off to a business user, so the business user could develop their own test cases automatically through automation. We are not seeing that. We still have it assigned to an IT professional, someone who is certified in Certify. We constantly have to have that type of person around who can build these test cases for us. At the moment, there is not an automated testing tool out there that will allow a business user to develop their own test cases, and certainly not at the level that we want it to be it. So, this may not have been a realistic goal on our side to expect that one of our business people, who has their real job, could spend a couple hours here and there developing test cases on an automated testing tool, like Worksoft or any other.
It's a software package, and you have to know the software to be good at it. You have to have a certification in the tool to be able to be really good at it.
It would be great if our business testers could develop their own automated test cases. However, we either have to bring them up to a level of certification on the software or go hire somebody to do it. Worksoft, in essence, is the Mercedes-Benz of testing tools. If you want a Mercedes-Benz, you have to pay a bit more money.
With every release you do, you have to go back and touch your old test cases and bring them up to speed, or develop new test cases. In the beginning, that is a challenge because you have to have someone who is certified in the tool to help you develop these test cases.
It is a little complex for someone who is not in the autotesting space to learn it. Like any software, you don't show up to use Oracle Database on day one and think you know it. You have to learn it, get certified in it, and understand it. This tool is similar in that sense. You have to have someone who knows the tool and knows how to use it. It's not something that your business users are gonna pick up, especially if they have a day job. It will take a long time for them to pick it up without full dedication and going to get certified.
For how long have I used the solution?
Still implementing.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have had no issues with stability. It's been stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't jumped yet to other systems. We are definitely looking into that. There should be no scalability issues.
We came to Worksoft with the hope of doing end-to-end testing. When Worksoft came in, we challenged them for a week to show us that it worked where you jump systems. They literally put people on our site for a week. It was a quick little RFP. We did see it work, so we know it works. We saw it jump back to our CARS system. Literally, we pulled Revitas CARS system up, and it logged into our CARS system, that's a web-based system as well. It started going through the steps that we needed to go through in CARS, then passed the status back to our eCommerce system. So, we know it works for us.
We know that the systems that we have involved will work with the end-to-end testing, but we haven't gone there yet. It's mostly on our side, not the software nor Worksoft. We are just doing other projects right now.
We currently have ten people (tops) using it in our organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support was pretty sharp, friendly, and responsive. There wasn't anything glaringly wrong with them.
We have a guy from Worksoft sitting onsite. If I have a problem, I talk to him first.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Long ago, we used HPE QuickTest Professional (UFT). The reason that we had to get off it, because it was liked by our business people, was when we went to Hybris in 2015, they didn't work together. So, we jumped ship at that point and went back to manual testing.
While we already had manual test cases, we wanted to move to autotesting because we are doing agile sprints. Our sprints were down somewhere between four to six weeks, depending on what is in that particular sprint and various conditions of trying to get that sprint out the door. We are trying to get down consistently to four weeks. Consequently, we had these test cases, which was up at around 1500 before, and also manual. We needed to get them to run in quicker, shorter periods. That's where autotesting came in.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We had manual test cases already in place. Before you even got into the entire tool, you would have to do basically a cleansing of your manual test cases. We worked with Worksoft on an analysis period for about a month upfront, where they run through your test cases and make sure they understand what you're trying to test. Then, they try to map out a way forward as the best way to automate. Therefore, the gear up is the homework you do with them in that month before you even touch the tool. That is the setup piece.
The setup for us was wanting to know our test environments and putting together solid test cases. In our case, the account setup with customer emails, names, and addresses with all that testing data that you need. We spent that month getting the tests in good shape and all the prerequisites needed to run our tests lined up. Doing homework ahead of time then makes the autotesting run smoothly.
What about the implementation team?
We are still deploying. We started with what we called a 'pilot'. We gave them around 300 manual test cases, which we got down to 141 test cases as part of our pilot. We ended up reskinning out website, and consequently, we had to go back and touch all 141 test cases. Some of them have now become irrelevant with the reskinning of our site. Therefore, we had to go back and reanalyze all of them, and find the ones which were still relevant, which were 90 to 95 percent of them. Then, we had to touch them up. We are in the process of doing that now, touching up our old test cases and building new ones on top of them. This took us a good six months, but we are starting to run regression tests now, though they are not formally in place.
We hired resources from Worksoft, but we do have our own testing groups. We have also hired some Worksoft certified people. We have been using Wipro for Certify testing and development, but our experience with them is not so good.
Wipro was our testing vendor for manual test cases before we brought on Certify. My guess is that they did not want to lose our business because they told us that they knew how to work with autotest cases, and they didn't. They told us they knew Worksoft Certify, and they didn't. They were given a second chance and hired some Worksoft certified people, but it was a really big headache.
For deployment, we have two people from Worksoft and five or six Wipro people. The Worksoft people are far more productive, since they know the tool better than anyone, but they are more expensive as well. The Worksoft people are sharp. They notice things in our testing and point things out. Their understanding of test cases is off the charts. They picked up our systems very quickly. Wipro has been a bit more of a drag. It is because they're learning Worksoft Certify and don't really know the tool. We also have one or two business people involved who are not developing test cases, but they're project managing.
We are still building test cases, but we are running the testbed that we have, which is a few hundred test cases. However, we only need one person from Worksoft to maintain this.
What was our ROI?
What autotesting has helped us do is consolidate our test cases because our company departments were testing in their own individual silos, running their own test cases manually. Now, with autotesting, we have been able to eliminate duplication of test cases across those departmental areas. This has helped us knock down our number of test cases. Our test cases are also running more optimally. Therefore, it has very much helped in that sense, so we were able to eliminate a lot of test cases and get out of manual silos by running on autotesting, which is more efficient.
Autotesting can runs overnight. It can run faster than someone doing it manually. The assumption is the system is not making any errors, but someone who is manually doing all the testing could miss something, get tired, etc. Be human, basically. Consequently, the autotesting eliminates some of those types of errors. Put all that together, and we are able to run autotesting and get our whole testing cycle done along with regression testing for an upcoming release, which is being done on these agile four to six-week sprints.
Overall testing has gone from six weeks down to pushing a button on a Friday. We may come in a couple days later, and the testing is done. At the moment, it takes less than a week for the testing, as opposed to six weeks in the past.
We haven't really seen the cost saving come in yet.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is in line with everyone else's in the market. They are not cheaper nor more expensive than anyone else who was in our RFP.
There is a cost involved to doing it, but once you get over the initial cost, then you'll start reaping the benefits and seeing that testing is getting done more quickly and efficiently. We are still early on with it, but the expectation and what we're seeing is that we will start seeing some savings coming out on the back-end once we have this done.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked into TCS and Cognizant.
What other advice do I have?
There is an initial mountain to climb, where you have to get all your test cases in order and have the data ready. This will make it a much smoother setup when it comes to having Certify people coming in. I recommend hiring Certify people who really know the software. Once you get it humming, this is where you will see everything you are dreaming of, where you start a testbed one day and within a week your whole testbed is running, then you have figured out all the issues and can rerun it again. This is where you start seeing the benefits of autotesting.
We have the Capture tool, but I don't know the version that we have.
We are not doing web UI testing for modern applications, as we have SAP ERP, SAP Hybris, and Revitas CARS.
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