Case Study:

Utility Client – Test Automation

The nation’s largest Fortune 200 utility company, serving 10.5 million customers, was actively working on a new digital product that handles customer requests for new or updated energy service. During development of the product, the core teams had a start on an automation regression suite. However, they quickly determined they did not have the in-house automation expertise necessary to realize a substantial ROI in test automation. The company wanted to continue rapid feature development cycles, but also ensure that they delivered a superior user experience.

QAsis Labs was commissioned to expand test automation coverage, providing the development team with greater confidence in their high velocity feature development. First steps included determining business criticality that would drive test automation priority. The team then started refactoring of the existing script library and quickly moved onto new feature coverage. Build and pipeline integration then allowed the team to execute automated test scripts that would test all core functionality, on a daily basis, in less than two hours.

Challenges

  • Test automation scripts were not being run at all creating substantial risk of a poor customer experience.
  • Not enough time to maintain the current library of scripts nor build out of additional scripts to increase automation coverage.
  • General lack of knowledge in automation best practices for new development, maintenance and execution.

Solution Profile

  • Review and refactor the existing script library, and build out new test automation scripts for added coverage and stability, based on test automation best practices.
  • Integrate test automation script library into build pipelines to allow daily script execution providing immediate feedback on development updates.
  • Document test automation best practices in the development team knowledge base, including project specific details and metrics.

Results

  • 67% increase in test coverage from 147 test scripts to 219 after an additional 72 new scripts were added ensuring full tests coverage.
  • Daily feedback cycles on the entire application provided much needed quick response to all development builds allowing the team to quickly triage issues.
  • Dedicated & documented knowledge base was provided as part of project closure to ensure continued support for running, troubleshooting and new script development.