Communicare Systems

Replacing Manual Testing With Automation

With today's healthcare stress on clinics across the globe, Communicare needed a testing solution that works as hard as they do, so they turned to TestComplete.

"In the beginning, most of our release processes were automated but at that time we could not automate the GUI testing. This meant that we could not make a release without going through manual testing the GUI. We had a release interval of at least 2 weeks and the manual testing of the GUI would take almost 1 day. Much of the manual testing was repetitive and time consuming. TestComplete allows us to do nightly GUI testing and has already been able to find unforeseen errors before a release. Our Communicare application has a relational database and often small changes in one area can have knock-on effects elsewhere that are not apparent until the product is used. Often we can build Communicare successfully but not find an access error until we test the interface logged on as a user with limited rights," said Steve White from Communicare.

Choosing TestComplete?

Steve explained how price and the need to handle Delphi applications was a requirement for their automation tool: "We tested four programs in total and we concluded that they all were about the same in functionality and power, but one of them did not handle Delphi applications very well and all were ten times the price of TestComplete."

"Users of our Communicare application are allocated different access rights based on their username. For example, system administrators have different rights in Communicare than those of doctors or healthworkers. Often, access to functions and data is restricted at the database level. Part of our testing was to log on as an administrator and perform various tasks. We would then log on as a user with fewer rights and attempt to do various tasks. We would expect this user to either be prevented from doing a particular task or to receive a polite message explaining why they could not do another task. TestComplete allows us to design routines that expect a particular response. Ugly error messages need to be intercepted so we can code these appropriately," said Steve.

More Time To Program

"TestComplete has made our GUI testing more consistent. Also, it can now be done overnight so that we can fix unforeseen errors. Our programmers now have more time for development and lead time for introducing a new feature in an interim release is reduced," said Steve.

"We want to be able to say to our customers: “You can have this morning’s fully tested release” at very short notice. TestComplete provides us this confidence and the confidence that we have not introduced a bug into the GUI the day before," said Steve.

Steve explained how TestComplete has reduced their manual testing efforts: "In a short amount of time we managed to reduce manual testing by one hour and it only cost us one day of scripting. We still need manual testing to be able to release but the goal is to be able to have a release every morning without having to perform manual testing."

"GUI testing was the last bit of testing we had to perform manually. Now, we are slowly automating it and have about 30 tests in total that run nightly. We used to only run tests about every two to three weeks, so as a whole, TestComplete has increased our testing and has given us more time for other tasks," said Steve.

"TestComplete's usability and cost are great and a less usable product or a more expensive product would never have been considered. For usability and cost TestComplete stands out above the rest," said Steve.

Conclusion

Buying TestComplete has allowed Communicare to automate their GUI testing, making it more consistent, increasing testing as a whole, and saving money while doing it.