Automated Testing

gerber1

I'm to the point that I am considering building some automated testing to keep the application healthy.

I'm talking about a robot that can control the application and create, replay and evaluate the outcome of test cases. I saw the sample app that included some testing, but there is much more complexity than is addressed by just running the Processes. Plus I want a professional tester to be able to construct test cases without modifying the BSV.

Has anyone explored script-based, recorder-based or any other automated testing with Aware IM applications?

I can poke around in the EXT world if that's what I have to do.

Thanks,

nlarson

My experience is that Automation is a major investment of time and money. Record and play is very limited in value., there is always a fair amount of scripting which needs to be coded. Writing test cases, scripts, and keeping recorded session libraries, etc takes a huge amount of time to keep up to date.

I can't speak to how the tools would interact with Aware IM, but at Satuit (.net shop) we hit 4 full-time manual QA resources before we even considered automation. We started a program of automation last year and it costs us about 250K/year in salaries and software for the automation program we have in place. It is rather limited in value and I'm not convinced we are getting return on investment vs manual regression.

Just my experience, I'm sure others feel differently.

gerber1

Thanks for the input. Anyone differing greatly from your position has probably not done it before. I was Chief Architect on a team of about 215 players, and we went FAR down the automation path (not my call) to the point that the weight of maintaining the automation began to exceed the combined cost of new development and support... Delivery is severely compromised when you get to that place.

I'm just looking to automate some key business cases as a final check before publishing a new release. A recorder/playback system combined with a way to evaluate the results might do what I need if I can find a good one that works with AwareIM.

Watir (Ruby based) seems to hold the most promise, so I may give it a try.

Thanks again.

Question to Support: Do you use any automation to test the AwareIM product itself?