27.6.07
iPhone QA Articles and Posts
The Apple iPhone is here! I looked some interesting links to QA posts about the iPhone. Here they are:
http://www.pqdvd.com/blog/iphone/iphone-release-date/iphone-quality-problems-may-delay-launch/
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=2CEC1A8F-BE25-426E-87D2-0633D146A64C
http://www.smarthousenews.com.au/Communication/Mobile_Phones?Article=/Communication/Mobile%20Phones/N2H6V3J7
http://www.pqdvd.com/blog/iphone/iphone-release-date/iphone-quality-problems-may-delay-launch/
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=2CEC1A8F-BE25-426E-87D2-0633D146A64C
http://www.smarthousenews.com.au/Communication/Mobile_Phones?Article=/Communication/Mobile%20Phones/N2H6V3J7
15.2.07
HP Mercury Quality Center Enterprise Test Projects
Many Quality Center (QC) sites start building projects for each enterprise project that they have on the release timetable at any given time. This leads to siloed projects from a testing perspective and the Dashboard doesn't usually solve the problem of looking at an overall status of testing. Enter the custom report. I've built many spreadsheets that run cross project queries to get the status of test sets and defects. The problem is that each time I do this I have to deal odd ball customizations.
When is it time to move all those tiny projects into a new large project? How do you decide what to do with the customizations that cake up onto each project like barnacles on boat? The answer is take the time and hash out the best common design with liasons to each team when you decide to merge projects. Then schedule about 12 hours outage time to move projects together. More or less time can be taken depending on how large the projects are. I recommend documenting the process (ie. all the SQL queries involved and custom fields to be created) and have a dress rehearsal.
The question of when to merge projects can be answered pretty easily. Do it if:
1. You need to have defects tracked in one place
2. You need to bring multiple projects closer to each other because future collaboration is mission critical.
3. You need a good reason to redesign defect dialogs
It will take about 2 months to do the whole project depending on the availability of people involved.
When is it time to move all those tiny projects into a new large project? How do you decide what to do with the customizations that cake up onto each project like barnacles on boat? The answer is take the time and hash out the best common design with liasons to each team when you decide to merge projects. Then schedule about 12 hours outage time to move projects together. More or less time can be taken depending on how large the projects are. I recommend documenting the process (ie. all the SQL queries involved and custom fields to be created) and have a dress rehearsal.
The question of when to merge projects can be answered pretty easily. Do it if:
1. You need to have defects tracked in one place
2. You need to bring multiple projects closer to each other because future collaboration is mission critical.
3. You need a good reason to redesign defect dialogs
It will take about 2 months to do the whole project depending on the availability of people involved.
13.2.07
Exploratory Testing
I recently listened to a very good podcast on exploratory testing, also called ad-hoc testing, by James Bach.
Here is the link from www.qapodcast.com
James brings up some interesting points such as:
Here is the link from www.qapodcast.com
James brings up some interesting points such as:
- More defects can be found and reconciled when testers are properly trained
- The defects that are found usually would not have been caught in a scripted test
- Testers need to be trained to be investigative if exploratory testing can be succesful
- Exploratory testing does not replace scripted testing
8.2.07
Custom Permissions for Test Lab Folder Creation
Do you need to restrict access to folder creation in test lab without using permissions? Do you need to show your users a custom message that will help them? You can use the code I wrote in my spare time below. It will pop up a message to tell users the access is restricted and then you can allow only the TDAdmin group access. You can add to the message to tell users who to call if they need to ahve a folder created.
Function TestLab_ActionCanExecute(ActionName)
On Error Resume Next
if ActionName = "AddFolderAct" then
Dim sMess
sMess = "Folder creation is currently restricted."
MsgBox sMess
if User.IsInGroup("TDAdmin") then
MsgBox "QAGroup access permited"
TestLab_ActionCanExecute = True
else
TestLab_ActionCanExecute = False
end if
else
TestLab_ActionCanExecute = Project_DefaultRes
end if
End Function
Function TestLab_ActionCanExecute(ActionName)
On Error Resume Next
if ActionName = "AddFolderAct" then
Dim sMess
sMess = "Folder creation is currently restricted."
MsgBox sMess
if User.IsInGroup("TDAdmin") then
MsgBox "QAGroup access permited"
TestLab_ActionCanExecute = True
else
TestLab_ActionCanExecute = False
end if
else
TestLab_ActionCanExecute = Project_DefaultRes
end if
End Function
7.2.07
Mercury Quality Center 9.0 Workflow
I've been working with Quality Center workflow scripting for a long time now. One thing that has always bugged me is the lack of event handling in the Test Lab. There are a number of nice event handlers but very few of them allow you to cancel an event. Most of the event control is handled through security and that doesn't allow for much customization.
The nature of Test Lab dictates event handling that is very different from Defects, where event handling is strong. One problem I recently ran into was the need to default specific fields to set values when tests were added to a test set. The workflow code I wrote had to do three messy things I would have rather avoided.
Could we please have object based security? The ability to lock down individual Test Sets would me most useful, too :-)
The nature of Test Lab dictates event handling that is very different from Defects, where event handling is strong. One problem I recently ran into was the need to default specific fields to set values when tests were added to a test set. The workflow code I wrote had to do three messy things I would have rather avoided.
- I had to use global variables because there was no mechanism for defaults and state could change.
- I had to populate those globals in one function and check if they were populated in another and then do something if they were.
- I had to run SQL against the DB rather than use OTA functions. I could have used the OTA functions but then the code gets really ugly and slows down performance.
Could we please have object based security? The ability to lock down individual Test Sets would me most useful, too :-)
QA Articles
Here are a few links to some meaty quality assurance articles. These are fairly short reads:
Project Quality Planning
A good soup to nuts guide on deliverables to ensure optimal quality.
The High Cost of Low Quality
Boston U. article on the cost benefit of designing for quality.
Exploratory Testing
We used to called it ad-hoc testing until now.
Project Quality Planning
A good soup to nuts guide on deliverables to ensure optimal quality.
The High Cost of Low Quality
Boston U. article on the cost benefit of designing for quality.
Exploratory Testing
We used to called it ad-hoc testing until now.
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