Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS) Test Automation

It is challenging to setup automation for IVR systems because of the complexity of setting up test systems, Synchronization of calls generated with call flow being used, the ability of the automation framework to simulate all supported actions of the call flow and large volume of calls to be generated.

I wanted to share my experience in setting up test environments for automation testing when testing IVR systems with DTMF functionality. At the end of this blog, I have outlined how the same approach can be used for automated testing of Speech enabled IVR systems.

Can 100% test automation be achieved?

Some of the challenges commonly seen with automation are:

1.When the first build comes out in a sprint/iteration, it will have defects. These defects may be blocking and may not allow for automation script development to proceed. The most critical issue is to find defects and report so developers can fix them quickly and complete the functionality.

Test Automation – Do you have the business case?

Test Automation is increasingly becoming a key phase in the testing life cycle. Driven significantly by the time, cost and quality components, companies have recognized the benefits it offers. Faster time-to-market, reduced testing cycle time, lower testing costs and maximized test coverage are a few benefits that companies look for from test automation.

Application Performance Management

Performance management in general is about optimizing effort and maximizing returns. In the context of software performance management the effort and returns are reflected in the software scalability, speed and stability aspects. Performance issues around response times, downtimes and post production crashes, infrastructure bottlenecks and under/ over utilization of resources impact the ROI on the IT investments. Cost implications apart, such performance failures may damage corporate brand leading to loss of business and revenues.

Risk Based Testing

Before understanding risk based testing, we must understand the importance of risk based testing by answering following questions.

1)Can we achieve 100% test coverage always?Do we always have enough time to do full regression testing? How much of regression testing has been automated or can be automated?

2)How much % of compatibility testing (browsers, databases, OSs, application servers, networks, hardware platforms) is typically covered during regression testing?

From Code Coverage to Quality

Code Coverage and Quality - Are these directly proportional?

There are different views on this and since this blog is not geared towards evangelizing any specific tool, the emphasis is more on the fact that including this as a best practice in software engineering will do more good than harm from a Quality perspective. The audience is both development and test teams but primarily geared towards the test discipline.

Performance Testing - Approach

• Need for Performance Testing
  Too often, the software applications performance and stability is either an afterthought or not even a thought at all, and yet the consequences are often severe, if not catastrophic.The numbers of websites and software applications today are more than likely in the millions and they are rapidly increasing on a daily basis. It is very easy way to be an entrepreneur and start sites and develop applications for usage. 
  
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Finding Useful Use Cases

Submitted by sgamare on January 25, 2010 - 1:50am.

Have you ever been struck with a question when defining use cases - how can I find useful use cases ?

There are various aspects you can work with, however few I remember from a UML reference book are pretty straight forward. To identify if any application requirement can be identified at a useful level ask your self the following questions.

1. BOSS Test

A necessary task but which may not be valuable just by itself.

Example: "Log in to the system" without doing anything meaningful does not make your boss happy.

2. Elementary Business Process Test

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• agile UML application development

Testing Requirements for Ambiguities

Submitted by rpokkuluri on January 21, 2010 - 6:04am.

In my previous blog Requirements and Ambiguities, we have seen the necessity to clean out the ambiguities to have qualitative requirements. In this blog let us to talk about how to conduct an ambiguity review.

Dictionary meaning of Ambiguity is as follows:

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• Ambiguities
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• requirements

Requirements and Ambiguities

Submitted by rpokkuluri on December 24, 2009 - 6:15am.

A leap into quality

An idea is born. It is expressed as a desire. The desire is captured as a requirement. The requirement is translated and a technical specification is created, a plan is made, and resources are mobilized and informed about this requirement. A prototype is built and demonstrated. User experience is documented. Ideas then change. The requirements are refined again. The specifications are enhanced. The prototype is expanded into a system. The user still is not satisfied.

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• ambiguity
• requirement testing
• requirements
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