Automation of Installation testing - Case Study

Case Study Snapshot

Company profile

The client is a leading provider of language-learning software. Their revolutionary language learning software program teaches people from 150 countries worldwide in over 30 different languages. The language learning software has various training modules for most of the widely spoken languages across the world. The solutions are used by public as well for special purposes such as Military, Government, and Education.

Business situation

The client offers their language learning software across the world through many sales channels. The Company ships its products in CDs as well as makes it available online for download.

The client regularly adds new languages. With every addition, there is an increase in the complexity of the product. This leads to repeated testing of the product setup to ensure that it is installed and un-installed without any errors. This existing procedure is labor intensive, highly repetitive and time consuming.

Technical situation

The Client setup a test lab to test each release before product shipment. With multiple product variants getting released and to catch-up with time-to-market, working at high speed became the necessity of the day. With more and more releases the company had to go for additional work shifts to cope with the volume of work and to ensure tests are completed on time. High cost employees were used to conduct the manual tests thus not utilizing the full potential of these persons.

Solution

• The client short-listed an Test Automation tool called 'Eggplant' and wanted Lister to further analyze and recommend its fitness of purpose. Lister analyzed the client's requirements, the proposed automation and the test automation tool. After the tool was analyzed and a few sample test cases were automated, Lister found the tool suitable for the client's purpose.
• Lister set up the System Under Test (SUT) offshore and accessed the client's application and other testing assets like manual test cases, test management and tracking system via VPN. FTP was used as a medium to send scripts and environment set up details.
• The scope of automation involved installation & un-installation of data, on-line and off-line activation, User Management and Registration.
• Lister automated testing of the entire installation procedure using Eggplant Test Automation tool.

Benefits

Setting-up a manual test lab is a cumbersome process and requires continuous maintenance. By automating the tests, the environment is simulated by saving investments in the hardware setup. Some of the automated test scripts were re-usable which was beneficial for the client for future enhancements.

The client experienced reduced cost, effort and time-to-market, after setting up the automated test lab. The automation resulted in considerably reducing the test cycle, thus reaching out to customers faster. It also has resulted in freeing client's employees who were tied-up with manual testing. Automation helped in achieving consistency in the test process and addressed the repeatability problems for the client.