Quality assurance (QA) testing is an essential part of the software development process. You cannot comfortably release a product without ensuring that it is user-friendly, secure, and as bug-free as possible without putting it through a rigorous testing process.
Many companies facilitate the process through QA outsourcing, often via offshore software testing. Doing so puts this crucial process under the purview of dedicated, experienced, and knowledgeable experts who work separately from the developers, giving them objectivity.
What are release criteria and why are they important?
While software QA testers will put the product through manual and automated testing to ensure that it is as bug-free as possible, they can’t guarantee that there are no errors in it. They can only identify bugs that do exist, not their absence.
Release criteria are essential for establishing when a project will sufficiently meet the requirements, such that, as the name implies, it is ready to be released. You can’t simply say it’s ready when there are no bugs — that’s not feasible. Instead, you need to define release criteria upfront — such as having zero critical defects and passing a certain number of tests without failure — so that the QA services you’ve employed know when the job is done.
Ideally, release criteria should be part of the contract between your organization and the software QA company, especially in the case of QA outsourcing. That way, you’ll both be on the same page about when the job is done and the product is ready to be released. Otherwise, you might continue testing long after the software has met the requirements — wasting money, time, and effort.
When defining your release criteria, pay attention to factors such as:
• Your minimum requirements, such as how quickly you want the product to perform
• The market needs you’re trying to meet — in other words, what you want the product to do for the consumer
• The product’s specifications, including its precise functions
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QA testing tools
Automated software testing can’t replace its manual counterpart — instead, it augments the software QA tester’s efforts and streamlines the process once he or she has set the parameters. Once you’ve established the release criteria for your product and have a team of testers in place, either in-house or via QA outsourcing, these tools can help facilitate the QA process.
1. Selenium
This free testing framework is one of the most popular QA testing tools, used largely for functional testing to assess how well web applications work. Software QA testers can use it in many languages, including C#, Groovy, Python, and Ruby. It’s available on major platforms including Linux, Mac, and Windows and is considered highly flexible. The only major drawback is that it requires advanced programming skills, although, through QA outsourcing, you should be able to find testers with this level of expertise.
2. Postman
QA services use Postman, available in open source and commercial versions, for API (application programming interface) testing. In addition to testing, users can document, monitor, publish, and share APIs. Users praise it for its reliability, user-friendly interface, consistency, and security.
3. Sahi
Sahi, a web application testing and automation tool, offers basic functions such as record and playback on all browsers, HTML playback reports, suites and batch run, and more. It’s available in both open source and commercial versions, with the latter version offering report customization parallel testing. Sahi is generally aimed at software QA testers without a programming background, so in the case of QA outsourcing to a test-only organization, it could be a good choice.
4. Jenkins
An open-source tool, Jenkins is a continuous integration (CI) program. CI enables the merging of different contributors’ code changes into a single repository. Written in Java, it was created in 2006 and has an extensive community and numerous plugins, given its age. It enables users to perform testing in real-time, as well as builds code continuously.
5. Ranorex
Ranorex offers a graphical user interface (GUI), record and playback, page object mapping, script generation, and more, making it an easy-to-use tool for the software QA tester. It’s a commercial platform that automates test cases for web, mobile, and desktop apps, available on most major browsers. Like Sahi, it doesn’t require extensive knowledge of programming to use and offers a wide array of user-friendly features.
6. UFT
A widely-used commercial testing tool, UFT (Unified Functional Testing), formerly known as QTP (QuickTest Professional), automates web, mobile, and desktop app testing for a variety of testing purposes, including functional, regression, and API. It was released in 2006 and has a large community. UFT’s user-friendly features include a visual diagram depiction of testing processes.
Even if you turn to QA outsourcing to help you ensure that you’re bringing a high-quality product to the market, you still need to be aware of the tools and processes the software QA company uses. This will guide you in making your decision about which service will enable you to deliver the best results. You also need to establish release criteria to ensure that you know upfront when your product is truly ready to be launched or updated. Ultimately, doing so will help you stay on top of your timeline and maintain a good working relationship with your QA services.
