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 are requirements for Cleanroom Software Engineering? What is the need for CSE?

The process got its name from the term cleanroom which is part of the process that fabricates the semiconductors. The basic ideology behind the cleanroom software engineering process is that it is more focused up on avoiding the defects rather than removing them.  It makes use of a combination software quality methods and formal methods. Cleanroom software engineering has shifted the individual craftsmanship to peer reviewed process, from sequential development to incremental one, from informal designing to discipline specification and designing, from informal coverage to statistical usage testing and so on.

Cleanroom software engineering is actually an integration of the following three practices:

1. Program verification
2. Software engineering modeling
3. Statistical software quality assurance

The correctness of the design specifications is verified via mathematically based proof solutions. The role of the statistical usage testing here is to dig out the high impact errors. 

The following the stages through the incremental development:

1.   Establishing the requirements

2.   Formal specifications

3.   Development of the increment

4.   Delivery of the software

5.   Requirements change request

Why Cleanroom Software Enginnering is required?

- Cleanroom software engineering is required to develop software systems and application with zero defects. 

- Though it takes a lot of time to be implemented but the payoff is quite high and both quality and productivity are increased. 

- The actual cleanroom process begins after the formal specification has been done. 

- The focus then shifts towards building a more explicit design. 

- Next, the design is verified as per the specifications. 

- Two things namely statistical and mathematical reasoning are combined and used together by the cleanroom approach for test generation and testing as well. 

- Cleanroom software engineering has proven to be the first practical attempt for developing the software with statistical quality control and delivering the software product with a known MTTF.

Requirements of Cleanroom Software Engineering

- The key requirements of cleanroom approach are nothing but specifications, requirements and verification methods.

- These formal specifications and verifications are used for developing software of high quality and with a minimum of errors. 

- Statistical usage testing is also required for the evaluation of the reliability of the software product. 

Cleanroom software engineering is followed by a number of benefits:

1. Zero failures: This is the objective itself and the software is developed with a minimum number of errors if zero not possible.
2. Short development cycles: These are the resultant of the incremental process. The rework is avoided and therefore new teams get a chance to experience productivity increase that has increased by two folds.
3. Longer product life: The product life is kept longer with the help of a usage model and investments detailed specifications.

- It is also a fact that the cleanroom techniques are not much used since some people believe them to be too mathematical, theoretical, radical etc. to be used in the real development processes. 

- Also, these techniques rely heavily on the statistical quality control and correctness verification rather than relying on unit testing. 

- This means that there is a large deviation from the traditional software development approach. 

- Proving the program is always there in the option list but it requires a lot of intensive sophisticate mathematical work. 

- Therefore, in place of this, cleanroom uses an alternative.

- A team code inspection is structured in terms of verification conditions and program functions.

-  Then an informal review is carried out which confirms whether or not all the verification conditions have been satisfied. 

How does story board testing in IBM Rational Functional Tester work?

IBM’s rational functional tester is counted among the best functional testing tools available till date. The functional testing capabilities can further be extended with the help of the SDK proxy. This can be done either manually or with the assistance of the Proxy SDK wizards. 

Introduction of the rational functional tester in the field of software testing has given a new significant direction to the functional testing. The following are the updates that were made then:

1. The visual test representation for the creation of no code test was enhanced via the following two ways:

a)   Dragging and dropping the controls in to the test scripts.

b)   Story board test representation.

2. The integration with the following was updated:

a)   IBM rational quality manager express edition and

b)  IBM rational quality manager standard edition v2.0 and v1.0.1.

Support for multiple project area was extended in the execution adapter and IBM rational quality manager was provided with the support for keywords.

3. New integration were made with the IBM rational team concert:

a)   Assets were bound to be managed within the SCM.

b)   IBM rational team concert V2.0 was added as an optional feature to the rational functional tester.

4. Packaged applications as well as environment support were expanded.

What is Story board testing in IBM Rational Functional Tester?

- Story board testing has been introduced as a completely new and visual approach to the automation of the actions performed by the test scripts.

- The story board testing comes with a three pane view which provides the following:

1. Description of the test actions in a natural language.
2. Screenshots of the screen that is currently being tested. Also if the control is to be used further then it is highlighted.
3. Script flow is displayed in the story board view which shows all the thumbnails of the all the screens that were accessed during the course of the test in an order of sequence.

- This testing approach gives a significant simplification of the test script editing and authoring. 

- The natural language is used all along the testing process along with the screen shots so as to provide the testers an easy way for understanding the flow of the test. 

- The test can be edited from this view as well. 

- You can carry out the following things in the story board testing:

1. Insert verification
2. Execute data driven commands
3. Insert java code

- The feature of story board testing in IBM rational functional testing does not come at the expense of the traditional testing approaches. 

- This testing approach can be considered to be a mere overlay of the java test script like it has always been known to have existed.  

- Users who are very well familiar and understand the IBM rational functional tester can go on with the story board testing as they used to do directly with the test script. 

- Story board testing approach has been accelerating the test creation by keeping it quite simple to read and edit the tests and open the test automation. 

- The story board testing approach was first introduced in the version 8.1 of the IBM rational functional tester.

- This approach did play a big role in enabling the testers in editing the test scripts by playing against the screen shots of the application captured by the rational functional tester. 

- Before this feature was included in the rational functional tester, the scripts were edited by the testers just by modifying it.

TestLink is a Free, open source test case management tool? - Explain?

Testlink is a free open source test case management tool! It means that it can be freely redistributed and accessed. These kind of open source tools have been invented so to support the new environment created by the issues like:

                                            1.  Licensing

                            2.  Copyright

3                          3. Domain issues

4                          4.  Consumer issues

    

      

Concepts of Open Source Models

 -The open source models employ the concept of different agendas but concurrent with different approaches in  production. 

      - The whole open source concept works on the principle of the peer production.

      - Peer production means collaborating and bartering with the end documentation, source material, blue prints and product which are available for free to the public.

    - The source code of the testlink is made publicly available and the public is given full right for modifying, copying and redistributing it at no cost. 

   - It has evolved through the community operation which is comprised of many individual software programmers from large companies. 

       

What purposes are facilitated by Test Link?

       Testlink is an open source test management tool and provides the facilitation for purposes like:

1                                          1. Test specification

                                            2. Test planning

                                            3. Test reporting

                                            4. Tracking of the requirements

                                            5. Collaborating with the well known bug trackers

     

         

 Features of TestLink

      1.  Set urgent tests

            2.  Custom.css

            3.  Gives an option for creating new test cases and requirements.

            4.   Offers the possibility to do a quick DIFF of the 2 test case versions.

            5.   Fully supports the internet explorer 9 via ExtJS 3.4.0.

            6.  Direct links to each and every requirement can be generated.

            7.  Table ruler

            8.  The requirement versions are well supported by the internal links.

            9.  After editing the requirements and specifications, the tree can be refreshed.

          10.  The states of the tree can be stored and restored in a very reliable way.

          11.  Test result matrix facilitates the filtering by status.

          12.  Requirement revisioning.

          13.  Test case and new requirement comparison method.

          14.  PHPMAILER

          15.  Collapse and expand buttons for trees

          16.  Log messages for the history of the requirements.

          17.  MSSQL support

          18.  IE8 based event viewer

          19.  Query metrics

          20.  Improved minor usability

          21.  Improved tables via EXT- JS

          22.  Improved filters

    23. At the build level, test case execution assignment has been provided.

In spite of all such great features, currently there are two features lurking out:

               1. The debug messages interfere with the working of the reports.

               2. There are troubles going on with the updating of the test case executions. 

       

       

Benefits of TestLink

 

      1. Using the testlink, one can easily integrate one’s test scripts to get the results. 

     2. It is a test management tool that is completely independent and is very effective in managing testing cycle    in a short period of time. 

     3. It helps in cutting down the management, development and maintenance cost of your project, thus making the whole project quite affordable and feasible for you.

     4. It helps in simplifying and accelerating the whole testing process and reporting by:

                 -  Collecting and organizing all of your test cases in a dynamic way.

                 -  Tracking the metrics and the results in association with the test execution.

                 -  Capturing and reporting the details.

                 -  Customizing itself to fit your processes and requirements.

5. It overall assists you in conducting an efficient and thorough testing process and makes best use of the experience it has achieved over 100s of implementations for the clients around the world. 

6. The redistribution of this tool is governed by the GNU general public license.

What is the entry and exit criterion for integration testing?

Integration testing as we know is the second main software testing methodology in the software testing life cycle or STLC after unit testing. It is succeeded by the system testing and system integration testing substantially.

Like for every other testing methodology, a software system or application can undergo testing only after passing some pre- defined entry criteria and for exiting the testing phase also it needs to pass some pre- defined exit criteria in integration.

This article is focussed up on the entry and exit criterion for the integration testing. But, let us brief up ourselves with the concepts of integration testing so that it becomes easy for us to define with the entry and exit criteria defined for integration testing.

About Integration Testing

- Integration testing is sometimes abbreviated as I & T i.e., integration and testing.

- Integration testing has been named so because it involves the integration of the software system or application modules before carrying out the testing on them.

- Thus, we can say that the it is contrary to the unit testing since here it involves the testing of the system modules as groups of two or more modules rather than carrying out testing on them as individual modules like in the case of unit testing.

- Integration testing is often carried out after the unit testing but before the validation testing.

- Only those individual system modules which have passed the unit testing with successful grades can be considered as a valid input for the test cases created for the integration testing.

- Though, in some cases there might be some exception if error present in any individual module can only be rectified in the later stages of the testing cycle.

- When the groups or aggregates of the modules pass the integration testing, then only they can be moved further for the system testing and system integration testing.

- The reliability requirements, performance requirements and the functional requirements that have been specified for the major design items are what are tested by the integration testing.

- By major design items, here we mean the group of units or modules or assemblages.

- These assemblages or groups of units are put together via their interfaces by implementing the black box testing techniques and the faults and errors are simulated according to the proper defined parameters and the input data values.

- The inter process communication occurring as a result of the integration between the several unit groups is also tested apart from just testing the above mentioned requirements.

- The implementation of these small sub systems takes place through the interface of the input.

- A verified base is prepared on which the various assemblages are placed which is then used as a support to the integration testing test cases for the testing of the other assemblages.

- This approach has been termed as the “building block approach”. Integration testing can be implemented via any of the below mentioned approaches:
1. Big bang approach
2. Usage model testing
3. Top down approach
4. Bottom up approach
5. Sandwich testing

Entry criteria for Integration testing

- The system units or modules needed for the integration must be ready to be integrated.
- Unit testing must have been completed and closed.
- All the issues discovered during the unit testing must have been addressed and closed.
- The test scripts for the integration testing should be ready.
- The testing should be commenced as per the schedule and the plan.
- The test environment should be ready.

Exit criteria for Integration testing

- Issues discovered during the integration testing must be addressed, fixed and closed..
- 10 percent of the benchmark as decided by the QA people is supposed to be allowed for the issues that outstand.
- All the test cases must be executed and passed.
- Transition meeting should be signed off.

What are different types of integration testing?

Most of us are familiar with the concept of the integration testing but, still let use brief up ourselves before we move on to the types of the integration testing. Integration testing is nothing but to integrate first and then test. It is often abbreviated to I&T. There are 3 primary phases in any software testing process:


1. 1st phase: Unit testing
2. 2nd phase: Integration testing
3. 3rd phase: Validation testing

About Integration Testing

- Integration testing is carried out after the completion of 1st phase i.e., unit testing.

- Integration testing involves the integration of the various software modules together and then subjecting them to testing.

- Each of the modules integrated in a group during the integration have passed the unit testing successfully.

- The modules which don’t pass the unit testing cannot be further processed for the integration testing.

- After the modules pass even the integration testing, they are carried forward for the system testing and later to system integration testing.

- The integration testing aims at the verification of the features, functionalities, reliability, performance and requirements specified for the assemblages or design items of that particular software system or application that is currently under the test.

- The exercising of these assemblages is done with the help of the black box testing techniques.

- Any error or bug occurring during the integration process is simulated using the proper input data values or parameters.

- Apart from testing just the integration of the software modules, the inter- process communication and the sub systems are also tested via their interface.

- Special test cases are designed to carry out the integration testing.

- The integration testing follows the approach of the “building block”.

Different Types of Integration Testing

Now let us see what all are the different types of integration testing.

1. Non incremental integration testing or Big bang integration testing

- This approach to integration testing involves the coupling of the individual developed modules so as to form a proper and complete component of a software system or application.

- After this the integrated component is subjected to the integration testing.

- Among all the types of integration testing, the big bang integration testing methodology proves to be the most effective methodology for saving one’s precious time.

- But, the condition here is that the test cases must be well developed without any errors and their outcomes must be recorded without any mistakes.

- If any discrepancy or error leaks in the results of the test cases, then the whole integration process can turn out to be more complex rather than becoming easy.

- This in turn will act as a hindrance in the way of achieving the goals.

- Big bang type integration testing has got another type called “usage model testing”. This has an added advantage that it can be used for the hardware also rather than juts for software integration testing.

2. Incremental Integration Testing

This type is further divided in to three sub- types:

(a) Bottom up integration testing

- This approach involves the testing of the components at the lowest levels first and then succeeding to the higher level components.
- This process continues till the all the higher level components have been tested.
- This approach is effective when it comes to rooting out the bugs.

(b) Top down Integration Testing

- This approach involves the testing of the integrated modules at the top of the hierarchy model and then the lower level components are tested.
- This approach is effective when it comings to find a missing branch.

(c) Sandwich Integration Testing
- This approach is the resultant of the combination of both the top down and bottom approaches of the integration testing.