Quintiq Technical ThoughtWorthSharing 

Quality assurance by the use of automated testing is a hot topic in software development and for good reason. Automatic testing on different levels (unit, integration, system and acceptance testing) is the best way to find and resolve problems at a very early stage. It is for this reason that automated testing is a cornerstone of the DELMIA Quintiq Continuous Integration (DQ-CI) system.

Though the value of automated regression testing to ensure the quality of a solution is clear, it does not come for free. Typically significant effort is needed to realize sufficient coverage and this then can be a big hurdle for implementing it.

To take away this hurdle, the Brand Services Technical Excellence Team has developed the Functional Test Framework (FTF) to accelerate the creation of automated testcases. Recently a new accelerator has been added to test framework family: the Integration Test Framework (ITF). ITF addresses one of the big challenges in the development: how de we ensure the quality of implemented integration features during a development project.

To test integration features, typically an environment is needed that simulates receiving or sending systems and that typically requires quite some configuration. ITF has solved this problem in a way that does not depend on other systems and thus makes it possible to run integration tests in a non-integrated environment such as DQ-CI.

ITF uses a similar concept as FTF: create testcases by recording the input and output of an execution and then use this data to define the assertions of the testcase. Using ITF, integration tests can be created in 5 simple steps as indicated in the diagram below:

1. Install ITF and setup new interface

2. Trigger interface and record inbound or outbound  data

3. Configure what to validate

4. Generate the automated test

5. Execute the test

Several pilots have demonstrated a reduction in development effort of 60-70%! and this shows the accelerating power of ITF. ITF is therefore adopted by various implementation projects and becoming a standard practice in DELMIA Quintiq implementation projects.

With ITF there is really no excuse anymore to skip test automation. Want to learn about ITF and its features? Contact me (@RVN2) to find out more!