Archive for the ‘Product announcements’ Category

Original Software Enhances TestDrive-Assist To Make the Manual Testing of Software Less… Manual

New Link-Checking, Spell Check and Markup Tracking Enhances Active Support Solution for Manual Software Testing

March, 27, 2008 – Checking links is a time consuming and frustrating proposition, especially for complex websites with constantly changing content, updates and external links. TestDrive-Assist not only checks and flags potential problems, but it creates an annotated list of many different types of link errors from “server not found” or “timed-Out” to “redirect,” which helps developers determine how to pinpoint and fix problems.

Spell Checking
Any application that is being monitored can also be optionally checked for spelling errors. This feature is currently available in four languages (UK English, US English, Spanish and Dutch) and includes a comprehensive dictionary which can accept user-defined words.

Automatic Markups
Manual testing involves many steps and inputs from QA staff which are rarely annotated with a clear record of the problems flagged or the corrections made. TestDrive-Assist now includes a powerful but easy-to-use Markup function that records and creates an annotated list of comments and details the corrected actions. Text, images and formatting changes can appear as MarkUps or highlights, or can be annotated in comment boxes, creating a clear picture of not only the changes made, but the rationale for these edits and corrections.

TestDrive-Assist is available as a dedicated manual testing support solution or can be incorporated with the Original Software’s TestDrive-Gold solution to allowing the user to benefit from automated regression testing, code-free scripting and self-healing scripts.

Original Demonstrates Latest Version of Intelligent Data Extraction for Oracle at Oracle OpenWorld

Only Software Testing Solution for Oracle to Analyze and Test Applications at both Database Level and Visual Layer

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11, 2007 – Original Software, a leader in software test automation, today demonstrated the latest version of its Intelligent Data Extraction solution which allows, for the first time, Oracle users to test applications at the database level as well as the visual layer. This new functionality for the Oracle market is part of the company’s flagship TestBench automated software testing solution which provides a Total Testing development and quality assurance solution.

The intelligent data extraction capability automates the creation and extraction of test data subsets from live databases, even from remote locations, with full reference integrity. This capability controls the state of the test data by taking checkpoints of the data set throughout the testing, while allowing developers to rollback the data to any prior checkpoint. This eliminates the need to build complex algorithms and external checks to make allowances for changes in the live data. It also protects data in the event of a program failure by restoring the data to its pre-test status.

These multiple data subsets can also be easily created for specific projects, reducing the size of data to a manageable volume and building test-beds based on highly targeted scenarios. The integrity of the data is automatically assured with upward and downward schema relationships. “TestBench tests both batch and interactive programs, and is the only software testing solution to allow total management and manipulation of the underlying database, as well as the visual layer of the application,” said Greg Sengpiel, general manager Americas for Original Software. “This capability is central to our “Total Testing” philosophy that covers all aspects of the application from screens and reports to the database and application performance.”

The company’s complete TestBench solution for Oracle delivers a depth of coverage and confidence in testing that has not been available to Oracle database users until now, and extends Original Software’s existing support for data-driven testing which includes table update visibility, data validation rules, environmental roll back and pair-wise input scenarios, all of which are important elements of Original Software’s Total Testing approach. Total Testing embraces every element of the test process from test data management, through automation of the visual layer, tracking server and database activity to audit-ready reporting.

The company is exhibiting at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld at Booth # 2603

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.

Original Software offers a helping hand to Manual Testers

New test automation software improves productivity in every testing situation. Implementation is painless and delivers major benefits that other testing solutions fail to offer.

February, 23, 2007 -With today’s introduction of TestDrive-Assist, Original Software continues to redefine software testing, and plans to prove it by showing the world that its ‘Crawl, Walk, Run’ solution strategy is the only practical methodology to address 100% of testing needs.

TestDrive-Assist is a key element of the ‘Crawl’ in the ‘Crawl, Walk, Run’ approach, and offers a totally new concept in testing in that it delivers active support for manual testing in a non-intrusive way, without forcing testers to change the way they work. When manually testing Web-based, GUI, or legacy green-screen applications, TestDrive-Assist guides you through a list of the steps needed to properly and thoroughly test applications. Then, it monitors and records your progress and documents all of your test results. Since TestDrive-Assist provides a full history of all of the test steps taken, it is much easier to recreate and isolate defects in software, thus speeding the time to resolution. Furthermore, documented test results can serve the growing number of audit and compliance requirements that businesses face. To improve workflow in the IT department, all results can be accessed and viewed by other team members and any problems simply re-created.

A Fast Start to Full Automation

Requiring minimal training, TestDrive-Assist is an ideal entry level product for those testers who may not yet need full automation but want some way of capturing their work and findings to improve their time to market.

As comfort or requirement levels grow, you can seamlessly incorporate extra automation by utilizing more of the TestDrive solution offered by Original Software, thus providing a first step on the ladder to full automation.

“TestDrive-Assist offers a significant helping hand to existing manual processes and testers have seen immediate benefits from its use,” says Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software. “TestDrive-Assist gives powerful tracking functions to testers that are non-intrusive and feel more natural. Developers can correct defects much faster, as the problem can be simply re-created, while the results can eventually be used to build fully automated tests. No one else does this.”

Original Software Unveils Intelligent Data Extraction for Oracle Users

Only Software Testing Solution for Oracle to Analyze and Test Applications at both Database Level and Visual Layer

January, 27, 2007 – Completing the total software testing cycle from “keystroke to database,” Original Software has unveiled its Intelligent Data Extraction capability which allows Oracle users for the first time test applications at the database level as well as the visual layer. This new functionality is part of the company’s flagship TestBench automated software testing solution.

The intelligent data extraction capability automates the creation and extraction of test data subsets from live databases, even from remote locations, with full reference integrity. This capability controls the state of the test data by taking checkpoints of the data set throughout the testing, whilst allowing developers to rollback the data to any prior checkpoint. This eliminates the need to build complex algorithms and external checks to make allowances for changes in the live data. It also protects data in the event of a program failure by restoring the data to its pre-test status.

These multiple data subsets can also be easily created for specific projects, reducing the size of data to a manageable volume and building test-beds based on highly targeted scenarios. The integrity of the data is automatically assured with upward and downward schema relationships.

The TestBench Suite – Total Testing

“TestBench tests both batch and interactive programs, and is the only software testing solutions to allow total management and manipulation of the underlying database, as well as the visual layer of the application,” said Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software. “This capability is central to our “Total Testing” philosophy that covers all aspects of the application from screens and reports to the database and application performance.”

The company’s complete TestBench solution for Oracle delivers a depth of coverage and confidence in testing that has not been available to Oracle database users until now, and extends Original Software’s existing support for data-driven testing which includes table update visibility, data validation rules, environmental roll back and pair-wise input scenarios, all of which are important elements of Original Software’s Total Testing approach. Total Testing embraces every element of the test process from test data management, through automation of the visual layer, tracking server and database activity to audit ready reporting.

Original Software total testing to Oracle Systems

New approach dramatically improves test automation for any application running over an Oracle Database.

September, 18, 2006 – For Oracle users, balancing risk, resources and cost while attempting to deliver quality applications within ever reducing timescales is one of today’s key business and IS challenges. Test automation has the potential to make a significant impact but only if it addresses the whole challenge rather than delivering a complex solution to only part of the puzzle. Total testing embraces every element of the test process from test data management, through automation of the visual layer, tracking server and database activity to audit ready reporting. From today Original Software can now deliver these capabilities for any application that uses an Oracle database.

“Total testing is more than a philosophy, it’s a must-have practice for software development teams,” says Colin Armitage, CEO, Original Software. “It empowers QA, testing and development staff to test from keystroke to database. Now Oracle database users have the ability to put this philosophy to practical approach. As database-driven applications continue to prove their worth as critical day-to-day business tools, glitches or bugs missed due to inadequate software testing can only create costly and prolonged downtime. TestBench for Oracle delivers a depth of coverage and confidence in testing that has not been available to Oracle database users until now.”

TestBench for Oracle is implemented as part of Original’s complete solution suite including TestDrive for the dynamic testing of the visual layer and TestPlan to provide the management and communication framework. The solutions can be used by everybody within the testing process and uniquely empowers the QA and UAT teams who have been disenfranchised by the existing tools. “We are very proud of the technology that underpins our solutions,” says Colin “but there is no reason why our customers should be exposed to it or require programming skills to use it.”

TestBench for Oracle allows Oracle development teams to quickly and accurately map all interactions from ‘key stroke’, through database request, while capturing the generated database and log activity. TestBench for Oracle also provides users with a wide range of data handling facilities never before available for Oracle-based application testing. This includes:

* Data protection: Ensures no data is put at risk during any testing function during the entire testing process and guarantees a consistent starting point for tests
* Rollbacks and reusability: Enables ‘do over’ testing functionality for streamlined testing
* Data scrambling: Scrambles all real data to adhere to compliance regulations that prevent customer data from being used for testing.

TestBench for Oracle can be used by software managers, quality or testing professionals or software developers.

Stress testing, other new features added to TestBench

Original Software has unveiled version 4.0 of its automated software testing solution, TestBench for iSeries, at its first US user conference.

October, 15, 2005 – New features in this major release include Stress Testing, Results Compare, Data Warping and many other powerful capabilities. Enhancements to existing functionality include greatly improved performance of its Native Record and Playback green screen application testing feature.

New stress testing capabilities in TestBench for iSeries can simulate over 100 concurrent users interactively accessing specified screens. In minutes, user screens can be individually tested to determine what end user response times will be like under heavy interactive loads. Individual response time reports expose problems caused by database locks and other issues. Users can synchronize and launch a large number of scripts at the same time, or stagger them to more closely to imitate real world system utilization trends.

According to Stuart Bishop, Product Development Manager, at Original Software’s UK headquarters, “It’s important to know how an application is going to work when a lot of users press the enter key at the same time. Fixing response time and record lock problems before an application goes into production can preserve an organization’s image and reduce losses.” With organizations opening their systems up to external users like suppliers, dealers, and customers, it is increasingly important to release zero defect software, adds Bishop.

The Results Compare feature validates tests and is also new to TestBench for iSeries. Results Compare flags variances in test results from multiple like tests to make the validation of tests easier and less time consuming. With Result Compare, users can derive and define a baseline of test results to prove the validity of future tests. Once a baseline is defined, users can have TestBench for iSeries automatically compare results from future tests to the baseline results.

Modifications made to TestBench for iSeries to facilitate stress testing have improved the products record and playback performance on an order of magnitude when running multiple scripts. “We are extremely pleased with the dramatically improved performance levels in Version 4. We are looking forward to getting feedback from our customers now,” says Bishop.

Prior to the release of TestBench version 4.0, Original Software received several requests from users for data warping, so a feature now included in the solution lets users warp data forward or backward in time to test programs for end of year, end of month, and similar date calculations. Data Warping eliminates the need for testers to change dates in databases to perform these types of tests.

Original Software unveils TestDrive-Gold

When thorough software testing is performed, the benefits can be in the millions

June, 26, 2005 – Colin Armitage, chief executive of testing tool specialist Original Software, parses few words when it comes to describing the state of automated testing tools. “Test automation, as it’s been for the last 15 years, has largely failed. It just doesn’t work,” he says. “A whole bunch of people have tried to do automated testing. They just failed.” The British company hopes to rekindle people’s interest in testing tools for Web and Windows front-ends with a new product unveiled today: TestDrive-Gold.

Armitage singled out several vendors that he says have failed to deliver on the promise of automated testing. Not only have the testing tools from Mercury Interactive, Compuware, and Segue Software failed to deliver the required level of automation, the CEO says, but they have made the problem worse.

The basic problem with these tools, according to Armitage, is they rely on scripting languages, and require Quality Assurance (QA) personnel to be programmers. “Where it all crashes down in a hideous heap, is these things are un-maintainable in a changing world. When the application changes, the scripts stop working. If you can’t crack that you’re doomed to fail,” he says.

Things are so bad, Armitage says, that people have given up on automating function and regression testing. “They just do it manually,” he says.

Armitage hopes to rekindle people’s interest in testing automation with TestDrive-Gold, a new suite of tools for testing Web and Windows front-ends. TestDrive-Gold is based largely on two existing tools, TestWEB and TestGUI, that Original’s iSeries-centric user base has been using to test the graphical front-ends for applications running on iSeries servers.

“It wasn’t a ground up re-write, but it [TestDrive-Gold] paid homage to the lessons we learned with TestGUI and TestWEB,” Armitage says, adding that Original hopes to “bring those same lessons and techniques to the wider marketplace.”

With TestDrive-Gold, Original hopes to provide solutions to three main problem areas. The first problem is extracting information and content from the screen without requiring a complex array of plug-ins (such as the 60 plug-ins provided through Mercury’s industry-leading Winrunner application, according to Armitage).

The second trouble area is playback rate. A back-end database will respond differently in a real-world scenario, where it may be serving a dozen other applications of various sizes, and testers must take this into account by adding timing delays into their scripts. The third trouble-spot is validating that the information is correct, he says. Armitage wants to take care of all three areas without resorting to programming and scripting languages, which he considers the bane of the test industry.

The key technology used to satisfy the first requirement are the Accessibility classes embedded into programming languages. Original discovered Microsoft’s Accessibility features, which were originally designed to provide people with disabilities a way to interact with computer programs, also made a great way for testing automation tools to interact with applications, specifically with Lotus Notes applications, which the company supported with its tools for the first time last May through TestGUI 4.0 (see “Original Debuts Tool for Testing Lotus Notes Apps”).

Now Original is espousing the benefits of Windows Accessibility tools for all forms of testing. “.NET we love, because it does have accessibly as a standard, whether it’s C# or VB.NET. Anything that appears in a browser, rendered in Java or HTML, we have no problem with,” Armitage says.

On the Java side of things, there is also a set of Java classes that support accessibility, through the Java Accessibility Grid, which provides a 98 percent match with Microsoft accessibility tools, Armitage says. “The key thing here is we have a technology-neutral way to extract information from an application,” he says.

Things aren’t as simple with AJAX, the increasingly popular development technique that stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, and which uses those technologies to provide users with a Web experience that closely resembles a full Windows application running locally.

“We have to be clever about AJAX applications. They don’t navigate in a normal way. It’s a one-page site,” Armitage says. This is largely due to the fact that AJAX applications don’t use the Document Object Model (DOM), which Original uses to receive notifications when errors on a screen occur. “You don’t get any DOM activity [with AJAX] so you have to get involved at a much lower level to support AJAX.”

The company has also borrowed from one of its iSeries products, TestLOAD, to set timing delays in test simulations using TestDrive-Gold. The product also ships with a set of predefined libraries for validation, and users can also create their own libraries for complex validation projects.

Users can store test scenarios generated by TestDrive-Gold on their choice of databases, including DB2/400, SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, or Access. As far as iSeries front-ends are concerned, Original’s Software works with practically anything, including Seagull Software’s JWALK and IBM’s HATS re-facing products, and any combination of Java, Java Server Pages (JSPs), Perl, Python, PHP, etc.

(courtesy of IT Jungle)

Data sensitivity issues and corporate compliance, where do companies stand?

Extractor Compliance Edition addresses compliance legislation requirements

March, 26, 2005 – Personal and private data usage by companies is strictly controlled by a host of regulatory constraints across the world. Examples are: the Data Protection Act in the UK, HIPAA and Gramm Leach Bliley in the US, PIPEDa in Canada etc. Any company that handles personal or potentially sensitive data is required to exercise extreme caution in the ways that such data is stored and handled.

In recognition of this, Original Software, global market leaders in software testing for the IBM iSeries, has released the Compliance Edition of its leading data extraction module, Extractor for iSeries. The new module is designed to address this key vulnerability by offering an effortless way to ‘desensitise’ personal data. The new Edition contains a data scrambling facility that enables users to automatically desensitise personal data – while still maintaining a structure that can be used sensibly for training or testing purposes.

Extractor for iSeries, part of Original’s market-leading TestBench suite of iSeries productivity solutions, is already well established as the iSeries data extraction module of choice. Its primary function is to create subsets of a live database that retain referential integrity and are therefore perfect miniature representations of the live environment. The new ‘data scrambling’ facility then vertically and logically scrambles the data to provide complete desensitivity protection – yet without corrupting the underlying data subset.

Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software say: “Regulatory controls are continuing to have an ever greater impact upon the ways that companies do business. The various data control measures all carry with them serious penalties, including fines and imprisonment. What we offer here is a fast and easy solution for iSeries users to ensure that they do not fall foul of such legislation – while leveraging all the other benefits of using the leading iSeries data extraction solution.”

Extractor Compliance Edition also includes as standard: database auto-analysis, automated data maintenance, data manipulation (updating, sampling, archiving), and extraction reports for auditing. Extractor will replicate the structure of the database and provide an exact reduced replica according to user-preset parameters. These combine to provide better quality test data, and avoid the disk space issues inherent in production database copies.

TestSmart module makes test data creation simple

Optimised Variable Data module from Original Software delivers productive testing

October, 18, 2004 - Original Software has advanced the state of Variable Data Technology and included this functionality in a new TestBENCH snap in module called TestSmart. Announced at its annual user conference in Chicago last week, TestSmart enables a single test script to replicate multiple business scenarios, which cuts down on testing time.

The challenge for testers is to develop scripts that can reflect the complexities of real world usage of the application under test – without creating an unmanageable workload. Variable Data is an enormous help in this respect, as it means that a single test script can be populated with different data on each test run, so that many different scenarios can be tested using just the one script. This is clearly much easier than building and maintaining dozens or even hundreds of separate scripts.

But now Variable Data has been taken to the next level. Original Software has introduced a new module to its market-leading TestBench suite, called TestSmart. TestSmart can automatically produce optimised Variable Data, which automatically ensures that the data used in test runs covers every available data pair combination in accordance with whatever rules that the user wishes to define. This means that data can be created automatically that will enable the maximum number of business scenarios to be replicated with the minimum amount of test data. This in turn ensures that an application is tested with the highest levels of both efficiency and thoroughness.

According to Stuart Bishop, Product Development Manager for Original Software, “The great thing about TestSmart is that it guarantees that the data you use to test an application is consistent and objective – something that is very hard to achieve using a testing team.” Referring to the inconsistencies prevalent in manual testing, Bishop adds, “With the best will in the world, different people will build different test cases to test the same application.”

TestSmart takes information about the application under test (such as field name and object content) then applies details of how the application is supposed to behave (in the form of business rules and requirements). It then automatically builds an optimised set of Variable Data, designed to cover the maximum number of possible scenarios with the minimum amount of data and number of test cases. “This guarantees that the application is tested in every conceivable scenario, thereby uncovering more defects – and increasing software quality,” comments Bishop.

TestSmart is available immediately from Original Software, on a concurrent user license basis.

World’s first dedicated test automation for Lotus Notes, Domino apps unveiled

TestDrive-Gold scores a first for out-of-the-box automated testing

September, 26, 2004 – Over the past twenty years Lotus Notes has grown one of the world’s largest user bases, supporting mission-critical applications for companies across the globe. But there has never been a dedicated resource for automated testing of these applications – until now. Original Software, Inc creators of some of the world’s most widely-used and innovative software testing solutions, has unveiled an enhanced version of TestDrive-Gold, a powerful automated testing solution that analyses Lotus Notes and Domino GUI screens at the object level and flags defects so developers can fix them before they confound end users.

‘Double-digit revenue growth’
Since it acquired Lotus Development Corporation in July of 1995, IBM put Notes on the map by turning 2 million users worldwide into 200 million. The Lotus Notes and Domino family of products now includes IBM Lotus Workflow, Domino Document Manager, Domino, Notes, Domino Web Access, Access for Microsoft Outlook, Designer, Enterprise Integrator and Domino Express. Since 2003, the number of business partners, developers of third-party applications, systems integrators, and consultants that focus on Lotus products has also increased dramatically.

“IBM Lotus Notes and Domino had a strong 2004 where we acquired many new customers and grew the business,” says Penny Scharfman, IBM Program Director for Lotus Domino Products. “We are not showing any signs of slowing down. We’ve just closed the books on the first quarter of 2005, in which Notes and Domino achieved double-digit revenue growth.”

Lotus Notes-developed collaborative business applications improve mission-critical workflow processes. Says Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software: “Loyalty to Notes applications runs high since they are often deeply rooted in daily business practices. Notes applications form the nucleus of many organizations. Yet prior to the release of TestGUI 4.0, no tool existed that was capable of genuinely testing these mission-critical applications ‘out-of-the-box.’”

New use for Accessibility controls
Microsoft’s Accessibility controls were originally developed to help people with disabilities interact with computers through the use of things such as screen readers, Colin Armitage, Original Software’s CEO, realised they had other uses, too.

“We discovered that it could be used to talk to the content of applications,” Armitage says of the Accessibility controls. “With .NET, there is now a standard for every form of visual control, whether it’s a text box or drop-down list box. Accessibility protects you from all that.”