Archive for the ‘Customer announcements’ Category

Reliance IT team reduces testing bottleneck by 80% and wins back business confidence

June, 26, 2008 – Reliance Security Services, an established market leader in the provision of manpower and electronic security solutions, has utilized Original Software’s end-to-end testing solution to enable its IT team to respond to the increasing demands of the business, re-build confidence in IT and deliver projects on time and on budget.

Since implementation, Reliance has seen the productivity of its programmers increase by 20%, and general test cycles reduce by 80%, whilst enabling a greater breadth of testing, reducing errors and improving user confidence in IT. It has also reduced the cost of back-filling user testing resources.

Tim Aitkinson, CIO of Reliance Security Services agrees: “The IT and business are now more closely aligned and working as a partnership to drive the business forward. The Original Software team are very approachable, understand our needs and are knowledgeable about how to get the most out of an improved test process – it has been a good partnership.”

Confidence in IT had been at a low within the company following a lengthy project to re-engineer large parts of its bespoke system. “We had a business critical development with a hard deadline. It was a large project with a lot of manual testing. The testing was a painful experience lasting over a year” said Chris Thompson, System Development Manager. The experience had made business users cautious about how IT could assist them in future challenges, Thompson explained: “We found that even small fixes were a big effort, so how could we improve the delay in software changes and win back the confidence of the business whenever we had to change a system?”

In order to respond to business needs, the Reliance IT team wanted a solution that would help them improve the quality and speed of application changes. Chris Thompson said: “We knew that we needed better change control and more efficient testing. We already knew Original Software as we’d had previous success with their TestBench solution. They clearly had the technology lead.” Reliance chose to implement TestDrive and TestPlan to sit alongside TestBench and create an end-to-end solution, to bring business critical projects in, on time and on budget.

TestPlan immediately freed up one day per month of Thompson’s already stretched schedule and is proving fundamental in co-ordinating all the testing activities and managing the handovers from development, to system test, to acceptance test. As different people are involved at each stage of the project, one group is easily able to review the tasks and results conducted by another group and can re-use test scripts.

Thompson’s strategy has been to address as many areas of testing as possible. By implementing the Original Software solution, he is now able to test over the entire Application Development Lifecycle from Unit Testing to User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and everything in between, at the database level as well as the visual layer. TestBench has been deployed in the development team allowing database effects to be isolated and checked, thus speeding up the programmer’s analysis of whether their program is working correctly or not. This has increased the programmer’s productivity by 20%, whilst also improving the quality deliverable.

The system functionality is now tested to a greater depth before being handed over to UAT, reducing the number of errors detected, speeding up the delivery of the modifications and improving user confidence in IT. This process enables the projects to be delivered on schedule and makes better use of the testers’ time. “Use of TestBench and TestDrive for System Testing helped to relieve a key bottleneck that had added months of delays to system improvements in the past within Reliance. It also reduced the cost of back-filling user testing resources,” said Thompson.

A key benefit was that the technology does not rely on code-driven scripts and so can be adopted for user testing. This was important for Reliance as UAT was a key part of the delivery strategy. Using TestBench and TestDrive-Gold, Reliance found that a test cycle which previously took one to two days for environment set up and data population, and five days to complete a full cycle (which was repeated 3 times), would now take only one day per test cycle, saving them 80% on time spent testing.

Thompson said: “This could not have been possible without the Original Software suite. The whole process is condensed into a manageable timeframe. I think the fact that non-IT people have been able to use the solution is extremely beneficial.”

Retailer Anna’s Linens Selects Original Software

Automated Software Testing Helps Retailer More Quickly and Accurately Test its Merchandise Management and Financial Applications

November, 4, 2007 – Home fashion retailer Anna’s Linens has turned to Original Software, a leader in software test automation, to provide a complete quality assurance and testing solution to help the national retailer streamline application updates and enhancements of their merchandise management and financials applications.

The California-based retailer, with 225 250 stores in 17 20 states, recently purchased Original Software’s TestBench solution to more thoroughly test applications from both a visual and data perspective. Anna’s Linens was attracted to the accuracy and automated features of the Original Software solutions as well as the products’ ability to manage the test data.

“By integrating Original Software’s automated solutions with our existing change management application, Anna’s Linens now has a comprehensive environment to develop and distribute business critical applications” said Scott Gladstone, COO of Anna’s Linens. “The TestBench product will enable us to accelerate the time to production, which has become increasingly important as our business environment expands and grows.”

“By using Original Software automated solutions, Anna’s Linens can ensure that it is testing its critical business applications accurately, quickly and cost effectively,” said Gregory M. Sengpiel, General Manager, Americas, for Original Software. “Testing constitutes upwards of 40- to 50-percent of application development life-cycle. Consequently, this was a critical issue for Anna’s Linens. Anna’s was interested in reducing time to market through use of Original Software applications.”

About Anna’s Linens
Anna’s Linens, headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, is a rapidly growing specialty retailer of quality, value priced domestics and home furnishings. The company was founded in 1987 by its current president and chief executive officer, Alan Gladstone. Anna’s Linens operates 225 250 stores in 17 20 states and has more than 2,000 employees. For additional information, visit the Anna’s Linens website at www.AnnasLinens.com.

Stations Casinos Selects Original Software

Automated Software Testing Helps Leading Gaming corporation Improve Application Quality and Compliance

September, 14, 2007 – Gaming and entertainment company, Station Casinos Inc., has turned to Original Software (www.origsoft.com), a leader in software test automation, to provide a quality assurance and testing solution that will enable them to reduce risk, improve time to market and improve the quality of their application developments.

The Nevada-based gaming and entertainment company, with their numerous restaurants and entertainment venues, recently purchased a range of solutions from Original Software, including TestBench Advanced, which tests all server-side and database transactions; TestDrive Gold, a GUI and Web testing solution; Extractor, an analysis tool that extracts and manages data in a secure test environment; and TestDrive-Assist, which supplies active support for manual testing.

Station Casinos selected Original Software’s products to more thoroughly test applications from both a visual and data perspective, as well as being able to obfuscate their player records for security and compliance purposes. They were attracted to the accuracy and automated features of the Original Software solutions as well as the products’ capacity to manage the test data.

“By using Original Software automated solutions, Station Casinos can ensure that it is testing its critical business applications more accurately, efficiently and cost effectively, than they were able to previously” said Gregory M. Sengpiel, general manager, Americas, for Original Software.

About Station Casinos, Inc
Station Casinos, Inc. is a leading provider of gaming and entertainment in Nevada. Station’s properties are regional entertainment destinations and include various amenities, including numerous restaurants, entertainment venues, movie theaters, bowling and convention/banquet space, as well as traditional casino gaming offerings such as video poker, slot machines, table games, bingo and race and sports wagering. For additional information, visit their website at www.stationcasinos.com.

About Original Software
Original Software offers automated software testing and quality assurance solutions that deliver tangible benefits across a wide range of IT and application environments. As a recognized innovator, Original Software’s goal is to reduce business risk and improve application time to market for IT departments through the development of class leading automated solutions.

Over the last 10 years, more than 400 organizations operating in 25 countries have come to depend on Original Software for their software testing solutions. Current users range from small software development shops to major multinationals, including Cargill Global Financial Solutions, Circuit City Stores, Pfizer Pharmaceutical (Ireland), DHL, Coca-Cola, Skandia and hundreds of others.

Original Software operates central offices near Chicago and London. Their solutions can be obtained through these offices or through a network of qualified and knowledgeable business partners throughout Europe, the Middle East, Australasia and the Americas.