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An Overview of the Software Testing Intricacies for Different Business Entities

by admin | Nov 8, 2021 | Software Testing, Blog, Latest Post | 0 comments

Knowing each entity in depth is very important when it comes to testing banking applications that deal with corporate customers. Corporate Customers are the ones who are neither individuals nor micro-enterprises. With years of experience in providing the best software testing services to our clients, we are well-worse with everything a team will need to know about entities. So in this blog, we will be seeing an overview of entities on the whole as we will be learning what is an entity, exploring the Different Business Entities, and will also be covering how to test its intricacies.

What is an Entity?

An entity is a registered organization that processes and provides certain services to end consumers. It has its own goals & missions and a separate existence like humans. There are key representatives called the key principles of the organization who govern the entity. Now let’s take a look at the list of the different types of entities and explore them one by one.

The Different Business Entities:

• Public Limited Company
• Private Limited Company
• Partnership
• Sole proprietorship
• HUF
• Religious Establishment
• LLC
• Statutory Corporation
• Holding Company
• Trust
• Funds
• Non Profit Organizations
• Investment Vehicles
• State-Owned Entity
• Charitable Organizations
• Central Bank
• Sovereign Wealth Funds
• Clubs and Societies

Public Limited Company:

A public limited company offers shares of their stock to the general public by listing it on the stock exchange. The stakeholders are the owners of a PLC. It is referred to as PLC in the United Kingdom, as Inc in the United States, and as Ltd. In India. PLC requires a minimum number of 7 members, and there is no upper limit. It should also have at least 3 directors.

Private Limited Company:

A Private Limited Company can be listed in the stock exchange or need not be. Even if they hold shares, they cannot be sold to the general public. It requires a minimum of 2 members to start the company and it should have 2 or more directors. It is called LLC in the United States, PVT in the United Kingdom, and Pvt. Ltd in India.

Partnership:

A Partnership is a formal agreement between 2 or more parties to manage the business and share its profit or loss. Unlike Private Limited companies, partnership firms are not separate entities. A change in the partners leads to the formation of a new partnership firm while the old partnership firm would get dissolved. There should be a minimum of 2 partners, but the number should also not exceed 50.

Sole proprietorship:

When a company is owned and managed by a single owner, it is called a sole proprietorship. It is unincorporated by nature, meaning this company has no separate existence by itself. It is easy and inexpensive to establish when compared to the other entities as it has fewer regulations. The biggest challenge would be raising the required capital for the business from external sources. Small business owners mostly prefer sole proprietorships.

HUF

HUF is a family business that lends a way of saving taxes by clubbing the assets owned by the members of a family. Though it is an option available only in India, we wanted to be thorough in our proceedings. The senior-most member in the family will most probably be the head of their HUF. It is governed by Hindu Law. So the death of the senior member does not affect the existence of the business, the next senior-most male member becomes head.

Religious Establishment:

Temples, Churches, and Mosques are places of worship that can be termed as religious establishments. There are a lot of regulatory laws that help prevent the misuse of religious institutions as an unauthorized way of gaining money.

LLC (Limited Liability Company:

An LLC is a Legal Entity that helps its owners avoid personal responsibility for its debt and liabilities. LLCs do not pay tax as the profit or loss is passed to the owners who show it as their personal gain or loss. It is mostly incorporated, meaning the entity has a separate existence, unlike Sole Proprietary.

Statutory Corporation:

Statutory Corporations are companies owned by a government with the presence of other stakeholders. It is a cumbersome task to start such an entity as a lot of approvals are required. Once the policies governing this entity have been created, it is nearly impossible to change. So they are prone to wastage of capital & assets and inefficiency in operations compared to private establishments. It also suffers from political interference.

Holding Companies:

When multiple businesses are owned by a single person or by a group of people, they create a holding company which is called the ‘Parent Company’ to keep track of its subsidiaries. This holding company doesn’t usually perform any business activities, its primary purpose is to monitor the subsidiary businesses. So when the subsidiaries grow, their parent companies also grow in tandem. It receives dividends from its subsidiaries. The holding company either owns 100% of its subsidiary or at least 51% of its subsidiary to maintain control over it. This helps them to protect the interest of its subsidiary and helps to protect it from the creditors of the subsidiary to control the assets by investing less money.

Trust:

Trusts are owned by Banks or Financial Institutions and act as custodian for asset management, beneficial ownership registration, and so on. It acts on behalf of its client or beneficiary to make investment-related decisions.

Funds:

Funds are investment companies that focus on investing in securities. They employ portfolio managers to help manage the investment options offered by the firm.

Non Profit Organizations:

A non-profit organization can be a trust, a corporation, an association, a Limited Liability Company, or unincorporated. Since they are mainly created to serve a social cause, they will have tax exemption benefits.

To create a Non-Profit Organization, first, we have to decide if creating it as a non-profit is the right choice, create a mission statement, develop a business plan, build a board, and then file for the tax-exempt status.

Investment Vehicle:

An investment vehicle is a type of company that helps the investor grow their money by issuing bonds or investing in stocks or investing in real estate. Any mutual fund company that helps its investors diversify their portfolios is an example of an Investment Vehicle.

There is a special type of Investment Vehicle called the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). It is created by the parent company for the main purpose of undertaking some risky projects.

State-Owned Entity:

It is a company owned by the Government with the sole purpose of generating profits or helping the Government with certain activities that are vital to them.

Charitable Organizations:

It is a type of organization created with the sole purpose of aiding a social cause. It can be set up with the objective of safeguarding animals, protecting the environment, aiding in disaster recovery, and so on. The major difference between a charitable organization and an NGO is that it can run for profit. They accept funds from the general public for their survival.

Central Bank:

Central Bank is an entity that can be seen in every country and is called the Bank of Banks. They are responsible for the formulation of monetary policies and supervising or governing the other banks. It holds the privilege to issue currency notes for the nation. It eases or tightens the supply of money based on the demand to keep a nation’s economy on the positive side. It can be a lender when any financial institutions are in trouble.

Sovereign Wealth Funds:

It is an enterprise created by the Government to invest its surplus funds from any trade or budgeting. The sovereign wealth funds then invest that money in local industries to generate the return.

Clubs and Societies:

Based on the nature of Clubs and societies, it could be a non-profit or a profit-based entity whose profits go to the owner or can be saved by the club for a rainy day. Clubs can be established for fun & recreational activities, for people with similar interests, or even for social causes. They can grow to the extent of sponsoring an event or conducting a competition.

Testing Intricacies for the Different Business Entities:

Each entity type has its own intricacies based on its purpose and objective. We have mentioned the various testing considerations below.

Setting up an entity or type of Business

• Business rules pertaining to each of the entity types
• Nature of the business
• The process to add or modify the key owners or stakeholders of the entity.
• The type of registration that is required.
• Documentation requirements for setting up the entity.
• The workflow process for the approval or verification of an entity.
• Consider the variations in the country in which the setup is made based on and the country’s risk exposure as well.
• The economic condition of the country and its impact on the setup of the entity.
• Risk definition and approval mechanisms.
• The political influence and exposure of the business. (Could be added as a part of the Business Rules)

Below are the scenarios in which Testing should be mandated:

• When we need to create or set up an entity in a system, we are required to be aware of all the above areas and it has got its own influence on the setup. The primary focus area is on the Business Rules for each type of Entity.
• When we modify an entity type, we should again be careful to test all the above areas as business rules, country exposure, etc. might have different levels of impact.
• When there is new criteria or business rule imposed by a country, we need to do a round of post regression testing as the entity level rules change.
• When Risk exposure on a firm / Country / Region changes, we have to do another round of testing.

Since these entity setups mostly require multiple levels of approval and review, most of the applications will be standard workflow products like PEGA, IBM-BPM, TIBCO Business Studio, Appian, etc.

Conclusion

We hope you have found this blog to be informative and now have a clear picture of what an entity is, what the different types of entities are, and the intricacies you’ll have to know. As a leading QA company, we will be exploring such niche topics. So make sure to follow us on our social media handles to be updated with our blogs.

The Must Read User Acceptance Testing Tutorial for Beginners

by admin | Oct 21, 2021 | Software Testing, Blog, Latest Post | 0 comments

User Acceptance Testing is one of the last phases of testing in the software development lifecycle that involves the product being used by the end-user to see if it meets the business requirements and if it can handle real-world scenarios. So it goes without saying that intricate planning and disciplined execution are required as it assures the stakeholders that the software is ready for rollout. As one of the best software testing companies in India, we have vast experience when it comes to performing user acceptance testing. So in this User Acceptance Testing Tutorial, we will be explaining the important factors to consider when performing User Acceptance Tests.

Prerequisites

There are various reasons why user acceptance testing happens at the very end. For starters, we can start only when the application code has been fully developed without any major errors. To ensure that there are no major errors, we should have completed unit testing, system testing, integrated testing, and regression testing as well. The only acceptable errors are cosmetic errors as they don’t affect further processing of the application. The business requirements should also be available to design the test cases accurately. Apart from that, the environment for performing UAT should also be ready. Now that we have covered all the prerequisites, let’s explore how to get the job done.

The Stages of User Acceptance Testing

For an easier understanding of how to efficiently execute UAT, we have split the main process into different stages to indicate the purpose.

Strategic Planning

As in every process, we should start by coming up with a plan to perform UAT. To develop the most effective plan for your project, you should analyze the business requirements and define the main objectives of UAT. This is when you will also be defining the exit criteria for UAT. An exit criterion is nothing but the minimum goals that should be achieved when performing the planned User Acceptance Tests. Exit criteria can be defined by combining the system requirements along with user stories.

Designing effective Test Cases

Once the plan is ready, you will have a clear vision as to what has to be achieved for the business. So we will be using that to design test cases that cover all the functions that needed to be tested in real-world scenarios. You also have to be crystal clear about the expected result of each test and define the steps that have to be followed to get that result. This step doesn’t end here as you will also be needed to prepare the required test data required to perform such tests.

Choosing the right team

There are primarily two ways to go about UAT. Either you can have end-users sign up to beta test your application by making it available to them or you can create your own team. You can either execute it using an in-house team or you can also employ outsourcing software testing options. Irrespective of which way you choose, you have to make sure the right people are on the task. If you are choosing people for your beta program, then make sure they are people from the same demographic as the targeted users of the application. Make sure to check their knowledge of the business and ability to detect bugs as well.

User Acceptance Testing

All the groundwork has been laid for you to start with the tests. So in this part of the User Acceptance Testing Tutorial, we will be focusing on how to perform UAT. Make sure to follow all the steps from your test cases without any deviation. If you wish to test something else in a random manner, do it separately and not while performing a particular test case. Once you start, you will also have to create meticulous records of the results, remarks, and so on from each test. Then only it will be possible for the development team to fix all the bugs and issues that were discovered during the process. Once the bugs are fixed, you can rerun those tests to see if the changes have been made without any issues.

Sign-Off

This step is the final step and the name makes it self-explanatory as well. So once you have verified that the application meets all the business requirements, you can indicate to the team that the software is ready for rollout by sending a sign-off email.

General Tip: Using the right pools is also pivotal in yielding the best results. As a leading software testing services company, we use the best tools to make the process more efficient. Test data management can become a nightmare if you don’t monitor and feed the test data in a frequent manner. We use data management tools to feed all the required test data and remove the hassle from this process. Similarly, we also use bug reporting systems to keep track of all the bugs that were discovered and make sure everything is resolved in the most efficient manner.

Conclusion

We hope that our User Acceptance Testing Tutorial has helped you get a clear picture of the UAT process. Based on your specific project demands, you could make some tweaks to this process. Also, make sure to choose the appropriate tools to get the best results.

The Best QA Testing Certifications To Boost Your Career Growth

by admin | Oct 7, 2021 | Software Testing, Blog, Latest Post | 0 comments

Since software testing is an integral part of the software development lifecycle, the need for talented QAs is constantly on the rise. There are also many out there who aspire to become a software tester by setting them apart from the overwhelming competition that has a bachelor’s degree in computer science. Certifications are a great way to accomplish just that, but there is a catch as not all certifications will be worth the effort and resources. So in this blog, we will be taking a look at the best QA testing certifications that will help a QA either kickstart their career or move higher in their career.

ISTQB – Foundation Level

The International Software Testing Qualifications Board is one of the most renowned and globally acclaimed QA testing certifications in the industry. The primary reason we are starting with this certification is that it can help you get a perfect start to your software testing career. It will help you understand all the fundamentals of software testing that are needed to fit into the various software testing roles such as test automation engineer, mobile-app tester, user-acceptance tester, and so on. The syllabi that they follow are constantly improved to keep up with the growing business needs. But the primary advantage that their syllabi have is that they are open to the public and you can go through their material before deciding to attend the exam that will cost you $229.

The foundation level certification isn’t the only one offered by ISTQB and we will be exploring the rest as we progress.

CAST – Certified Associate In Software Testing

CAST is yet another apt choice for the ones looking to start their software testing career. It is a foundation-level QA testing certification like the ISTQB certification we saw earlier and it will help you learn the important principles and best practices you would need to know. Let’s take a look at the prerequisites for this certification,

• Have a 3 or 4-year degree from an accredited college-level institution.
• If you have a 2-year degree at the same level, then a year of experience in testing will make you eligible.
• You could do the certification without a relevant degree if you have at least 3 years of experience in testing.

So it is evident here that you have the option to get this high-value QA testing certification just with your degree. So like ISTQB, it is a great option for freshers, and also a viable option for people with experience to certify themselves. CAST would cost you $100 to attempt and you should make sure that you attend the examination within 1 year of payment and get 70% to clear it.

CSTE — Certified Software Test Engineer

Now that we have seen two entry-level QA testing certifications to get started with, let’s move on to the next level. CSTE is more of a professional-level certification that helps you establish your competence and achieve better visibility in your team. So you will be able to present yourself as someone who can take up some additional responsibility and take a step forward in their career. The prerequisites also change accordingly,

• Must have a 4-year degree from an accredited college-level institution and 2 years of experience in testing.
  So if you have a 3-year degree, you will need 3 years of experience in testing.
• Similarly, if you have a 2-year degree, then you will need 4 years of experience in testing.
• If you don’t have an appropriate degree, then you could compensate for that with 6 years of experience in testing.

Similar to CAST, you would have to score 70% to pass the test and it would cost you around $350 to $420.

CTM — Certified Test Manager

If CSTE was the first step towards a management role, CTM is the one that helps you get better at it. As the name suggests, this QA testing certification is targeted towards improving your management skills. It is a great option if you are currently in a leadership role as it can help you better your skills. You will be learning about various skills like how to manage test processes & test projects, how to measure a test process so that you can work on improving it, risk management, and so much more. Since it is management-level certification, you would also require experience in any leadership role.

The prerequisite is that you should have 3 years of experience in testing that includes 1 year of experience in a leadership role that is relevant to software testing. This has to be met with by the time the CTM will be granted. You would require a lot of supporting documents for this one. So make sure to check over the complete procedure on their website. Make sure you familiarise yourself with the Test Management Body of Knowledge book as it is the key to this certification.

CSSBB — Six Sigma Black Belt Certification

Another option to sharpen up your management skills is the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) certified CSSBB. Like ISTQB, there are other belts available as well, but the black belt certification helps you understand the team dynamics and assign roles & responsibilities accordingly. You will be able to use the Six Sigma principles to optimize the DMAIC (Design, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) model. In addition to that, you will also be equipped with the basics of lean management and how to identify non-value elements. The prerequisites are,

• You would require a minimum of 3 years of experience in one or more areas of the CSSBB Body of Knowledge.
• You would require a minimum of 1 or 2 completed projects with signed affidavits.

The exam would cost you $538 and would be an open-book test. If you are an ASQ member, then you would get a discount of $100 in the cost.

ISTQB – Advanced & Expert Level

The Advanced level of ISTQB is on par with the CTM certification that we saw earlier and the expert level is the one with the highest recognition. So starting with the foundation level certification, you should work yourself up the ladder and complete the advanced level first and then follow it up with the expert level. The expert level is the epitome of all these QA testing certifications as in addition to the in-depth concepts you will be learning about, you will also be handling practical exercises and discussions for almost half of the entire time. The prerequisites would also be very high for this certification.

• One must have at least 5 years of practical testing experience in testing.
• In that 5 years, at least 2 years should be industry experience in the specific topic that you are looking to become an expert in.

Conclusion

As one of the top software testing companies in Chennai, we always concentrate on getting our employees certified with ISTQB. We are currently a Silver-level partner with ISTQB and on a path to become a Platinum-level partner in the near future. We are aware of how valuable these ISTQB certifications are, and that is why we have started and ended the list with them. So we hope you have found this list of our top QA testing certifications to be useful. Make sure to pick the courses best for you and also remember that even though certifications are important, it is the knowledge you build that matters. So pour your heart and soul into it and be on a path of continuous learning.

Want to Achieve Continuous Delivery? These are the Key Capabilities To Focus on

by admin | Oct 5, 2021 | Software Testing, Blog, Latest Post | 0 comments

Achieving Continuous Delivery is no child’s play as your team should be equipped with certain technical capabilities because deploying the code into production on demand throughout the software delivery cycle is not easy in any way. It is also important to acknowledge that it’s not just the technical practices that will help you achieve Continuous Delivery. It has to be coupled along with good management practices as well. So as a first step, we will be focusing on the key technical capabilities that drive Continuous Delivery in this blog.

Version Control

Keeping the application code in version control alone will not help you achieve Continuous Delivery as you would have to do all the deployments manually when both the system and application configurations stay out of version control. Since manual tasks stall continuous delivery (CD), you have to automate the delivery pipeline to achieve CD.

Test Automation

Automated unit & acceptance tests should be kicked off as soon as developers commit the code in version control. The simple underlying logic here is that if the developers are provided with faster feedback, they will be able to work on the changes and fix the issues instantaneously. This advantage alone doesn’t make test automation a vital component in the Continuous Delivery pipeline. It is also very reliable in ensuring that only high-quality software gets delivered to the end-users.

But that doesn’t mean you can just use flaky test automation scripts as they would only produce false positives and negatives and not add any value to the Continuous Delivery pipeline. So if you want your software to be more reliable and resilient, writing and adding robust automation scripts to the pipeline is the best way to go about it. If at all you find any of the scripts to be unstable, you can move them to a quarantine suite and run them independently until it becomes stable

Test Data Management (TDM)

As mentioned earlier, manual works delay continuous delivery. But at the same time, if your automated test scripts have to be manually fed with test data at frequent intervals, it will cause delays in the delivery. This is a clear sign that your automated test suites are not fulfilling their purpose. You can overcome this roadblock by creating a test data management (TDM) tool to which you can upload all the adequate data required for automated script execution. So, your scripts will call the TDM API to get the required data instead of getting it from an Excel or a YAML file.

In addition to that, once the TDM tool reaches its threshold, it should be able to pull and allocate more data automatically from the system DB. As an automation testing services company, we have a TDM for automation testing alone. We feed the data to it once every month and as a result, the automation test scripts no longer have to wait for the test data to be fed since the adequate data has already been allocated.

Trunk-Based Development

A long-lived branch leads your team towards reworking and merging issues that can’t be fixed immediately. So developers should make sure to create a feature branch, commit the changes within 24 hours into the trunk, and kill the feature branch. If a commit makes a build unstable, everyone on the team should jump in to resolve the issue and not push any changes into the trunk until the merge is fixed.

When a developer pushes the changes from a short-lived branch, your team will resolve the merge issues quickly as the push will be considered a small batch. Trunk-based development is a key enabler for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. So, if the developers commit the changes into the trunk multiple times a day, and fix the merge issues then & there, then the trunk will be release-able.

Information Security

The information security process should not be carried out after releasing the software. Rather, it should be incorporated from the very beginning. Since fixing security-related issues is a time-consuming effort, integrating information security-related practices into the daily work plan of your teams will be instrumental in achieving Continuous Delivery.

Conclusion

Technical and Management practices are crucial for enabling Continuous Delivery. As a software testing company, we use these technical practices with our development team that works on developing automation testing tools. Following such practices alone is not a game-changer. Your team needs to learn and improve the process continuously. Continuous Improvement is pivotal in building a solid development pipeline for Continuous Delivery.