Set your project up for success, before you even start

Have you encountered a surprise software bug or unexpected downtime of an application? Have you ever wished for help proactively identifying issues before they bubble up and cause problems? The ITS Quality Assurance (QA) & Testing team is here to help with incorporating QA Testing into your process.

The QA & Testing team helps create products and services that meet end-user’s needs by implementing high-quality, standards-based testing, increasing efficiency while reducing risk, cost, and cycle times. The team focuses on delivering consistent results through standards and procedures that prevent product defects before they arise. Engaged in all areas of testing, including functional, performance, Application Programming Interface (API), database, and automation, the QA & Testing team applies a combination of technical knowledge and an end-user perspective to assess the expected output. The team also leverages industry-standard QA practices, tools, and metrics as part of the development lifecycle process.

The challenges

Bound by time constraints, the NGN Program team needed to test 80+ standard applications on multiple operating systems and browser types as they deployed the NGN network in each building. This effort would require significant coordination and repetitive manual testing efforts by the application teams as each building transitioned.

The University COVID Response Project was also looking for ways to ensure data integrity and increasing service reliability. Because of the rapidly shifting landscape, the team supporting this application often needs to make improvements with high urgency. The first request to the testing team involved ensuring that this information did not revert once the daily process updated the COVID information. The second involved an increase in higher quality delivery with a more formal validation process in place.

Using Yale’s IT services to solve the problem

The QA & Testing team collaborated with both project teams to understand the scope and their needs. The testing team developed testing strategies that included introducing automation testing, end-to-end testing, and other tests. As part of Automation testing, the team first met with all the application owners to understand the application’s underlying build technology and set up access and test accounts. Next, the QA team developed a proof of concept to review with the Project teams before creating subsequent tests. As an ongoing effort, the team continuously incorporates testing standards and shared QA practices as part of the existing process.

The results

Today, automated tests have increased the confidence level of the applications that we test. These efforts helped reduce the testing cycle time while improving the quality and service reliability of the applications. The project teams benefit from a cost savings perspective as well due to an effective defect prevention approach. And incorporating the testing standards and shared practices has allowed the processes to be more streamlined and efficient.

To learn more about the QA & Testing Services, view the QA & Testing page or contact netal.patel@yale.edu.