Explain Jubula - Web Functional/Regression Test Tool

Today we have around 100 tools available for functional and regression testing of the web based applications. Jubula is one among such tools and will be discussed here in detail. 

About Jubala

- This is an open source tool that is available both as a standalone application and as a part of the eclipse package.  

- The former comes with an installer that is quite easy to use and the latter one can be downloaded from an update site. 

- Jubula client can be used for viewing the actual and the expected results and also it can be used for viewing the current as well as the previous results. 

- Here, you can easily the automatic screenshots whenever an error occurs. 

- Jubula supports many applications such as:

1. Html
2. Swing
3. SWT/ RCP/ GEF and so on.

- Some features of Jubula tool have been listed below:

1. Heuristic object recognition
2. Command line client
3. Context sensitive help in client
4. Multi – user database for storing projects
5. Portability
6. Version control

- Command line has been included in this tool so as to facilitate continuous integration.

- Version control is achieved via the exports in XML format. 

- The contribution in this regard was made by BREDEX GmbH (also the developer of GUI dancer). 

- The GUIdancer was actually built up on the lines of Jubula core and offer some more features. 

- Jubula is not dependent on any platform windows, unix, linux or MAC. 

- A project by the name of ‘jubula functional testing tool’ was created as an open source project. 

- This project was a part of the eclipse technology project. 

- Other functional testing tools work up on the thing that the saving and management of the scripts is done through coding. 

Now depending up on the testing approach you are following, your test automation process may involve steps like recording, generation or straightaway writing of the code. 

What differentiates Jubala from other testing tools?

- It considers the importance of the automated acceptance tests as same as that of the project code. 

- According to Jubula, same best practices (reusability, modularity, readability etc.) should be used for creating these tests as well without requirement of any extra code. 

- Thus, the power of testing is given in the hands of the software testers and at the same time for the customers the access improves for monitoring the tests. 

- This results in a code free approach that minimizes the need for test maintenance, thus allowing the users to write the tests from their perspective. 

- If the team focuses on the software from the viewpoint of the user, it can gains a whole lot of quality info which often goes un-utilized when only JUnit tests are run.

- Jubula comes with a library of actions which is used for creating the tests. 

- You can combine the actions contained in the library using drag and drop.

- This library contains all the necessary actions that one may require for writing the tests. 

- This library is also independent of platform and application which implies that you can start writing the tests before the software is actually made available to you. 

- When you work with Jubula, you save on time since as soon as the code is committed the tests can be executed. 

- The time between the introduction of an error and catching it is reduced.

Objectives of Jubala

Jubula has got the following objectives:

1. Providing tooling for carrying out automated GUI testing on html and java based applications.
2. Specifying and maintaining a model specifications and requirements of the tests.
3. Providing API for projects so that the test scenarios can be generated, test can be executed and results can be obtained. 

Explain Telerik TeamPulse?

About Telerik TeamPulse

- Telerik TeamPulse has been developed by Telerik as an agile project management tool in the year of 2010. 

- One of the characteristic features of the TeamPulse is that it can be integrated as well as hosted as local Microsoft team foundation server 2008, 10 and 12 services. 

- However, it cannot be integrated with the Microsoft visual studio.

- This Telerik product is available under commercial license. 

- The features of TeamPulse have been mentioned below:

1. Bug tracking
2. Integration with the telerik’s web UI test studio
3. Time tracking
4. Backlog management
5. E – mail notifications
6. Cross – project dashboard known as xView and developed with html5.
7. Task board
8. Storyboard with WP limits
9. TeamPulse can be integrated with Microsoft TFS (team foundation server) 2008, 2010 and 2012.
10. Requirements manager
11. Best practices analyzer

- The extension provided with the Telerik TeamPulse is the TeamPulse ideas and feedback portal which is based on html and is compatible with html5.

- Since TeamPulse is commercial software, it is not available for a hosted solution but it is to be used only on premise. 

- When you add TeamPulse to TFS the planning, tracking and collaboration improves automatically.

- With the real time project intelligence of Telerik TeamPulse you can improve decision making power. 

- It provides you with up-to-date views of the status of the project. 

- By using TeamPulse, you bridge the boundaries between the team members and their geographical location i.e., the communication is improved. 

- This tool has been exclusively designed for scrum and kanban teams i.e., any of these either kanban or scrum or scrumban can be used.

- It has been designed to reduce the delivery time, eliminate the waste and improve the work flow. 

- It also provides you a convenient way for collecting and managing the customer feedback. 

- It lets you create products that your customer actually needs. 

- TeamPulse lets you manage project well with the following:

1. Work burn down
2. Velocity
3. Cycle time
4. Iteration delta
5. Agile best practices and a number of other reports. 

- Telerik TeamPulse favors most of the agile projects.

- It lets one plan, manage and monitor the results thus improving the overall process. 

- TeamPulse has got a rich interface with in–context guidance making the integration with TFS faster. 

- Its other features include:

1. Automatic notifications
2. Bug tracking
3. Gantt charts
4. Interactive gantt charts
5. Privacy settings
6. Project templates
7. Reporting
8. Scheduling
9. Task feedback
10. Workload
11. Dashboard
12. Email integration
13. Issue tracking
14. Messaging or IM
15. RSS feed
16. Collaborative
17. Issue tracking system
18. Risk management capabilities
19. Web application

- The tool has not got any remote capability features. It comes with the following resource management features:

1. Time sheets
2. Compare project
3. Management software

- Teampulse has been developed with the view that all the clients, scenario and environment differ from each other.

- Large enterprises require a tool that is capable of scaling their workload. 

- Teampulse fits every scenario even though if you require some time to master it. 

- Firstly, you need to set up the project info, template, iterations. 

- Then you need to create your team and lastly take a view of the summary of your project. - It is recommended by the system to start with the stories.

- Being an enterprise tool, it has got many features which might make you feel like it might be quite complex to use. 

- But it is quite user friendly. 

What is IBM Rational Method Composer product?

One the major products of IBM is the Rational Method Composer or RMC. 

About Rational Method Composer

- This product has proved to be quite reliable in increasing the effectiveness as well as the agility of the software system or application.

- It provides platform that is quite flexible for process management. 

- This IBM product is equipped with the most comprehensive tooling of the software industry. 

- It also comes with the richest process library so as to provide assistance to the companies in the implementation of the effective processes so that they can come up with many successful IT and software projects. 

Characteristics of Rational Method Composer

1. The rational method composer have some very new practices that will surely improve the performance of many of the leading process experience as well as expertise in the following areas:

Ø  Agile development

Ø  Governance and compliance

Ø  Requirements management

Ø  Quality management

Ø  Change management

Ø  Release management

2. It helps greatly in the identification of the improvements that are needed by the mapping practices. The improvements identified by the rational method composer can be adopted in increments and improved also as per the business objectives of the project.
3. The rational method composer offers a choice of over 100 process guidance that are both select-able and customizable and are inclusive of the IBM rational unified process. This guidance can help you in solving common management, business and development problems. 
4. The facility of providing the corrective action and measured results is what makes the rational method composer more user friendly. Such measure let you harness the effectiveness of the practice adoption.
5. With Rational Method Composer you get the privileges for managing, authoring, measuring, evolving as well as deploying the effective processes that are tailor made for your software system or application project needs since it is the leading the eclipse – based tool of the software industry.
6. The rational method composer maintains consistency in driving the results across the whole project with the help of the best practices which have been proven and have been integrated with the following:

Ø  Measurements

Ø  Agile

Ø  Reporting

Ø  Project management tools and

Ø  Services

7. A quantum leap forward is represented by the rational method composer and provides process solutions to IBM for the development of the software systems and applications, agile practices and service management.
8. Rational method composer assists in capturing and maintaining the individuals’ own practices and further combines them with the practices and processes of IBM for achieving maximum result. 

One similarity that we can find in each and every project is that there is always a need to minimize the risk, ensuring the predictable results, delivering the high – quality results on time and so on.

Benefits of Rational Method Composer

- The practices provided by the rational method composer can be re-used for composing the process that is right – sized enough for meeting the specific requirements of the software systems and applications.

- The libraries of the rational method composer consist of the most robust practices.

- These practices are guidance for the software development, governance and management and can be very well applied to domains as well as the processes. 

- The following two libraries are shipped along with the rational method composer:

1. The IBM rational unified process 
2. The IBM practice Library

Transition Phase - One of the phase of Rational Unified Process

There are 4 phases which together constitute the rational unified process namely:

1. Inception phase
2. Elaboration phase
3. Construction phase
4. Transition phase

The above mentioned phases are responsible for the representation of the rational unified process at the highest level in the way which is similar to waterfall model representation but the difference is that the key for the rational unified process lies in the development iterations which form an integral part of all the phases of the rational unified process. 

Also, each of the four phases of the rational unified process are characterized by two things namely the objective and the milestone. The objective drives the whole phase from the beginning to the end and the milestone concludes the end of it. 

The phase is said to be complete with successful result if and only if it passes the milestone since this only marks the conclusion of the phase. All of the phases of the rational unified process are visualized in the form of a chart called the RUP hump chart which is drawn over the course of the whole process. 

In this article we shall discuss exclusively about the fourth phase of the rational unified process i.e., the transition phase. 

Objective of Transition Phase

- The primary objective with which the transition phase is driven is “to transit the software system or application” from the phase of development in to the actual phase of production. 

- This also extends the availability of the software system or application to the end user in such a form that it is understandable by the end user. 

- This phase involves the below mentioned activities:

1. Training the end users
2. Training the maintainers as well.
3. Carrying out beta testing on the software system or application for validating it against the expectations of the end users.
4. Checking the software product against the quality level that was set in the inception phase.

- When all the objectives are said to be accomplished, the software system or application is said to reach the ‘product release milestone’ and the development cycle is said to be concluded.

- This fourth phase of the rational unified process does the fine tuning of the software product.

- It is based on the feedback from the user and the software product is made ready for the release. 

- The transition phase is basically focused on the availability of the software system or application to the end users.

- The transition phase often involves the spanning of the several iterations. 

- The software product is tested in order to prepare it for the release and also minor adjustments are made as per the feedback provided by the end users. 

- When this point in the software development life cycle is reached, it is required that the feedback from the end user should be majorly focused up on the following issues:

1. Fine tuning of the software system or the application.
2. Configuration of the product
3. Installation issues
4. Usability issues

- By this time, almost all the major issues of the product structure should have been worked out in the earlier phases of the software development life cycle. 

- The product release milestone can be defined as a point where it is decided that all the objectives of the project have been met and whether or not another development cycle is required. 

- The basic and majority of the evaluation as well as the refinement of the software system or application is done based up on the feedback from the user.

- This can be considered to be a kind of fine tuning exercise for the software system since the system has already met the requirements of the users as it is driven by the use cases. 

- At the end, a final evaluation is done and accordingly the project is released to the public or is considered for another development cycle. 

Construction Phase - One of the phase of Rational Unified Process

There are 4 phases which together constitute the rational unified process namely:

1. Inception phase
2. Elaboration phase
3. Construction phase
4. Transition phase

For representing the process at a high level, it is necessary that all of the above mentioned four phases should work together just as it is done for the water fall styled model. But here the key difference is that the primary key to the process is nothing but the development iterations that are involved in each of the development phase. Each of the above mentioned phases is driven by the objective and ended by milestone. The RUP hump chart gives the visualization for all the above 4 phases. 

Here we shall talk about the third phase i.e., the construction phase. 

About Construction Phase of Rational Unified Process

- The construction phase is driven by the primary objective for building the software system or application. 

- The primary focus of the construction phase is taken up by the components development as well as the development of the other features of the software system or application. 

- A bulk of coding is carried out in this phase only. 

- For developing a large project, it is required that several construction iterations are carried out in order to make an effort for dividing the use cases in to the segments that are manageable and that can be used in the production of the demonstrable prototypes. 

- The software version that is released in this phase is its first external release.

- The elaboration phase is concluded with the initial operational capability milestone. 

- The major thing with which the construction phase is concerned is moving the executable architecture that was created in the elaboration phase to the operational system. 

- Therefore, a beta version of the software system or application is ready to be evaluated by the project team. 

- In the elaboration phase the software product resides on the architectural baseline.

- Here, it is moved to a system that is so complete enough that it can make transition to the end users’ community. 

- The architectural baseline is grown enough to become the completed operational system via the refining of the designing in to the code. 

- This phase acquires the largest part of the whole rational unified process. 

- The remaining part of the software system or application is built on the foundation that was laid earlier in the elaboration phase. 

- Short and time boxed iterations help towards the implementation of the features of the system where an executable release of the system or application is released at the end of each iteration. 

- In this phase, writing the full test use cases becomes customary where each one marks the beginning of a new iteration. 

- The elaboration phase makes use of certain UML (unified modelling language) diagrams which are mentioned below:

1. Activity
2. Sequence
3. Collaboration
4. State i.e., transition and
5.  Interaction overview diagrams

- The purpose of the rational unified process is to provide the industry tested practices for the development, implementation and delivery of the software system or application. 

- It also provides a comprehensive frame work for the effective project management. 

- This process is actually one of the many other processes which are contained within the rational process library of the IBM RMC (rational method composer). - This makes it easy to make selection and deploy the only components that you need for your process. 

- The rational unified process is adopted for 1000s of the projects nowadays worldwide. 

- It lessens the burden of inventing a new thing again and again rather it focuses on re-usability. 

Elaboration Phase - One of the phase of Rational Unified Process

The life cycle for a project under the context of the rational unified process is known to consist of the following four phases:

1. Inception phase

2. Elaboration phase

3. Construction phase

4. Transition phase

Here we shall discuss about the second phase of the unified process i.e., the elaboration phase. In Rational Unified Process, the four phases represent the process at a high level although the iterations that are carried out in every phase of development are the key to the process. 

Each phase here is provided with an objective and a milestone. It is necessary to have a milestone for each so that it could be decided that when and where a particular phase is ending and the next one is starting. All the above phases as well as the process disciplines are visualized in to what is called an “RUP hump chart”. 

About Elaboration Phase in Rational Unified Process

- The primary objective of the elaboration phase is defined as the mitigation of the key risk items whose identification is done by the analyzation of the whole phase from the beginning till the end. 

- It is here in the elaboration phase where the project starts taking the shape. - In elaboration the following 2 basic things take place:

1. The analyzation of the problem domain is done.

2. Basic form is given to architecture. 

- The following are the outcomes of the elaboration phase:

1. A use case is obtained in which both the actors and use cases have been identified. This use – model consists of most of the developed use – case descriptions. It is required that this use – case model should be at least 80 percent complete. 

2. A description concerning the architecture of the software system in a development process. 

3. An architecture that is executable and realizes the use cases which have an architectural significance. 

4. A revised risk list.

5. A revised business case.

6. A plan for the overall development of the project. 

7. Prototypes which give a demonstration on the mitigation of the identification of the technical risks. 

8. An optional preliminary user manual.

- There is a milestone criteria called the life cycle architecture milestone which involves answering the following questions:

1. Stability of the architecture?

2. Stability of the vision of the product?

3. Have the major risk elements been addressed and resolved and has been indicated by the executable demonstration?

4. Has the sufficient detailing has been done for the construction phase plan and is it accurate?

5. Have all the stakeholders agreed for achieving the current vision using the current plan under the current architectural context?

6. Is the expenditure of planned resource vs. actual resource acceptable?

- It is important that the project should pass this milestone and if it doesn’t there are 2 possibilities:

1. It can either be redesigned or

2. It can be cancelled.

- However, when the project leaves this phase, the project is transitioned in to an operation that involves high – risk i.e., to say here the changes are quite detrimental as well difficult to be made. 

- The system architecture serves as the key domain analysis for the elaboration phase. 

- The basic thing here is addressing of the major technical risks threatening the project. 

- Another thing is to have a bare system which provides answers to all of the major technical questions. 

- Once all the questions have been answered by the end, the development team will know whether a working system can be successfully built or not. 

Inception Phase - One of the phase of Rational Unified Process

There are 4 phases which together constitute the rational unified process namely:

1. Inception phase
2. Elaboration phase
3. Construction phase
4. Transition phase

This article is dedicated entirely to the first phase of the unified process i.e., the inception phase. The major development takes place in the iterations of development which are carried out within each phase. All of the above four phases have their unique key objective as well as milestones.

The accomplishment of the objective is denoted by the milestone. An RUP hump chart is used for the visualization of all the four phases of the rational unified disciplines and phases over the time. 

Objective of Inception Phase

- The primary objective of the inception phase provide adequate scope to the software system or application as a basis on which the validation of the budgets and initial costing could be done.

- The inception phase involves the establishment of a business case which is inclusive of the following:

1. Business context
2. Success factors such as the market recognition, expected revenue and so on.
3. Financial forecast

- In order to complement the business case, the following things are generated:

1. A basic use case model
2. Project plan
3. Initial risk assessment
4. Project description which in turn includes the following:

    a)   Key features

    b)   Constraints and

    c)   The core project requirements

- Once the generation of the above mentioned sources is complete, the verification of the project begins against the following criteria:

1. Stake holder concurrence on the following:

  a)   Cost estimates

  b)   Schedule estimates and

  c)   Scope definition

2. Understanding of the requirements as per the evidence obtained by the fidelity of the use cases.
3. Credibility of the following:

  a)   Cost and schedule estimates

  b)   Priorities

  c)   Development process and

  d)   Risks involved

4. The depth and breadth that was developed for any architectural prototype.
5. Establishment of a base line using which the planned expenditures and actual expenditures can be compared.

- If for one or the other reason the project is unable to pass the milestone (commonly termed as the life cycle objective mile stone) then there are only two possibilities after redesigning the program (for meeting the criteria in a better way) as mentioned below:

1. It can be cancelled or
2. It can be repeated

- This phase is involved with launching the project. 

- A proper business case can be developed for the project. 

- It is by the end of the inception that the development team comes to whether to carry on with the project or not. 

- In inception phase, one can see a core idea being developed in to a vision for a product. 

- In this phase may reviews, discussions, etc. are carried out regarding the business case involved in the project. 

- The scope of the project is delimited in the inception phase and also the product feasibility is established. 

- This is perhaps the smallest of all the phases of a project and also according to its ideal nature it should be short. 

- If the duration of the inception phase is too long it indicates that there has been an excessive up – front specification (even though this goes against the spirit of the rational unified process.).

What are the default test plans attributes? How to define new test plan attributes?

Test plan is one of the important aspects of the silk test and is often characterized by some default attributes called the default test plan attributes. Well, the default test plan attributes are what we are going to talk about in this article. We shall also discuss how new test plan attributes can be defined. 

What is a Test Plan?

- A test plan forms the basis of the primary document that lays down the foundation for the testing that is to be carried out in a manner that is well organized. 

- Test plan is very important for the project managers as it is the document using which the testing projects can be managed well. 

- A badly drawn test plan is just same as not having any test plan.

- On the other hand, an intelligently drawn plan helps in smooth execution of the test cases and analysis of the other testing activities. 

- It would not be wrong to say that the test plan is actually a kind of dynamic document. 

- It acts especially in the spiral environments which have a tendency to change constantly. 

- The test plan is said to be a dynamic document since it changes according to the changes that occur in the software system or application. 

- Basically, a frame work is provided by the test plan which consists of a majority of the considerations that are made while planning. 

Attributes of Test Plan

Below mentioned are some of the attributes of a good test plan:

1. It stands a greater probability of catching majority of the defects of an application under test or AUT.
2. It provides greater test coverage for covering most of the test code.
3. It stays quite flexible throughout the testing process.
4. It is easy to be executed over and again automatically.
5. It properly defines the tests that are to be performed.
6. It lists out the expected results as clearly as possible.
7. It helps in reconciliation of the defects whenever a defect is found.
8. It helps in defining the objectives of testing.
9. It helps in defining the testing strategy in definite terms.
10. It helps in defining the criteria of test exit.
11. It always stays meaningful.
12. It never becomes become redundant.
13. It helps in identification of the risks
14. It helps in defining the test requirements as clearly as possible.
15. It helps in describing the test deliverable as clearly as possible.

Every test plan created is concluded with the following 3 steps:

1. Defining metrics
2. Conducting periodic audits as well as scheduling them
3. Approving the test plan

In the test plan view window, there is a tab titled “attributes” clicking on which will enable you to see all the project attributes that have been assigned to that particular test. Attributes can be thought of as an administrator created characteristics that are quite applicable to the tests. 

An attribute is defined as follows:

- item	Description
- Attribute	Name of the attribute
- value	Value that has been assigned to the attribute
- Type	Attribute type
- Inheritance	Whether or not the attribute is inherited

- The concept of inheritance in attributes is somewhat similar to what we have regarding the inheritance of success conditions and properties. 

- Attributes that are inherited throughout all the child test definitions and sub folders are assigned to a parent node. 

- To define an attribute follow the steps:

1. Open the test project.
2. Click define attributes menu
3. Click new button.
4. Enter the name for the new attribute.
5. Select the attribute type.
6. Click ok.