Strtup note-for novice testers

Novice testers have many questions about software testing and the actual work that they are going to perform.  As novice testers, you should be aware of certain facts in the software testing profession.  The tips below will certainly help to advance you in your software-testing career.  These ‘testing truths’ are applicable to and helpful for experienced testing professionals as well.  Apply each and every testing truth mentioned below in your career and you will never regret what you do.
Know Your Application
Don’t start testing without understanding the requirements.  If you test without knowledge of the requirements, you will not be able to determine if a program is functioning as designed and you will not be able to tell if required functionality is missing.  Clear knowledge of requirements, before starting testing, is a must for any tester.
Know Your Domain
As I have said many times, you should acquire a thorough knowledge of the domain on which you are working.  Knowing the domain will help you suggest good bug solutions.  Your test manager will appreciate your suggestions, if you have valid points to make.  Don’t stop by only logging the bug.  Provide solutions as well.  Good domain knowledge will also help you to design better test cases with maximum test coverage.  For more guidance on acquiring domain knowledge, read this post.
No Assumptions In Testing
Don’t start testing with the assumption that there will be no errors.  As a tester, you should always be looking for errors.
Learn New Technologies
No doubt, old testing techniques still play a vital role in day-to-day testing, but try to introduce new testing procedures that work for you.  Don’t rely on book knowledge.  Be practical. Your new testing ideas may work amazingly for you.
You Can’t Guarantee a Bug Free Application
No matter how much testing you perform, you can’t guarantee a 100% bug free application.  There are some constraints that may force your team to advance a product to the next level, knowing some common or low priority issues remain. Try to explore as many bugs as you can, but prioritize your efforts on basic and crucial functions.  Put your best efforts doing good work.
Think Like An End User
This is my top piece of advice.  Don’t think only like a technical guy.  Think like customers or end users.  Also, always think beyond your end users.  Test your application as an end user.  Think how an end user will be using your application.  Technical plus end user thinking will assure that your application is user friendly and will pass acceptance tests easily.  This was the first advice to me from my test manager when I was a novice tester.
100% Test Coverage Is Not Possible
Don’t obsess about 100% test coverage.  There are millions of inputs and test combinations that are simply impossible to cover.  Use techniques like boundary value analysis and equivalence partitioning testing to limit your test cases to manageable sizes.
Build Good Relations With Developers
As a tester, you communicate with many other team members, especially developers. There are many situations where tester and developer may not agree on certain points.  It will take your skill to handle such situations without harming a good relationship with the developer.  If you are wrong, admit it.  If you are right, be diplomatic.  Don’t take it personally.  After all, it is a profession, and you both want a good product.
Learn From Mistakes
As a novice, you will make mistakes.  If you don’t make mistakes, you are not testing hard enough!  You will learn things as you get experience.  Use these mistakes as your learning experience.  Try not to repeat the same mistakes.  It hurts when the client files any bug in an application tested by you.  It is definitely an embracing situation for you and cannot be avoided.  However, don’t beat yourself up.  Find the root cause of the failure. Try to find out why you didn’t find that bug, and avoid the same mistake in the future.  If required, change some testing procedures you are following.
Don’t Underestimate Yourself if Some of Your bugs Are Not Fixed
Some testers have assumptions that all bugs logged by them should get fixed.  It is a good point to a certain level but you must be flexible according to the situation.  All bugs may or may not be fixed.  Management can defer bugs to fix later as some bugs have low priority, low severity or no time to fix.  Over time you will also learn which bugs can be deferred until the next release.  Read article on ‘How to get all your bugs resolved‘.
Over To You:
If you are an experienced tester, what advice do you like to give to novice testers?

Top 10 test cases for web application cookie testing

The first obvious test case is to test if your application is writing cookies properly on disk. You can use the Cookie Tester application also if you don’t have any web application to test but you want to understand the cookie concept for testing.

Test cases: 

1) As a Cookie privacy policy make sure from your design documents that no personal or sensitive data is stored in the cookie.

2) If you have no option than saving sensitive data in cookie make sure data stored in cookie is stored in encrypted format.

3) Make sure that there is no overuse of cookies on your site under test. Overuse of cookies will annoy users if browser is prompting for cookies more often and this could result in loss of site traffic and eventually loss of business.

4) Disable the cookies from your browser settings: If you are using cookies on your site, your sites major functionality will not work by disabling the cookies. Then try to access the web site under test. Navigate through the site. See if appropriate messages are displayed to user like “For smooth functioning of this site make sure that cookies are enabled on your browser”. There should not be any page crash due to disabling the cookies. (Please make sure that you close all browsers, delete all previously written cookies before performing this test)

5) Accepts/Reject some cookies: The best way to check web site functionality is, not to accept all cookies. If you are writing 10 cookies in your web application then randomly accept some cookies say accept 5 and reject 5 cookies. For executing this test case you can set browser options to prompt whenever cookie is being written to disk. On this prompt window you can either accept or reject cookie. Try to access major functionality of web site. See if pages are getting crashed or data is getting corrupted.

6) Delete cookie: Allow site to write the cookies and then close all browsers and manually delete all cookies for web site under test. Access the web pages and check the behavior of the pages.

7) Corrupt the cookies: Corrupting cookie is easy. You know where cookies are stored. Manually edit the cookie in notepad and change the parameters to some vague values. Like alter the cookie content, Name of the cookie or expiry date of the cookie and see the site functionality. In some cases corrupted cookies allow to read the data inside it for any other domain. This should not happen in case of your web site cookies. Note that the cookies written by one domain say rediff.com can’t be accessed by other domain say yahoo.com unless and until the cookies are corrupted and someone trying to hack the cookie data.

8 ) Checking the deletion of cookies from your web application page: Some times cookie written by domain say rediff.com may be deleted by same domain but by different page under that domain. This is the general case if you are testing some ‘action tracking’ web portal. Action tracking or purchase tracking pixel is placed on the action web page and when any action or purchase occurs by user the cookie written on disk get deleted to avoid multiple action logging from same cookie. Check if reaching to your action or purchase page deletes the cookie properly and no more invalid actions or purchase get logged from same user.

9) Cookie Testing on Multiple browsers: This is the important case to check if your web application page is writing the cookies properly on different browsers as intended and site works properly using these cookies. You can test your web application on Major used browsers like Internet explorer (Various versions), Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, Opera etc.

10) If your web application is using cookies to maintain the logging state of any user then log in to your web application using some username and password. In many cases you can see the logged in user ID parameter directly in browser address bar. Change this parameter to different value say if previous user ID is 100 then make it 101 and press enter. The proper access message should be displayed to user and user should not be able to see other users account.

These are some Major test cases to be considered while testing website cookies. You can write multiple test cases from these test cases by performing various combinations. If you have some different application scenario, you can mention your test cases in comments below.

Website Cookie Testing

We will first focus on what exactly cookies are and how they work. It would be easy for you to understand the test cases for testing cookies when you have clear understanding of how cookies work? How cookies stored on hard drive? And how can we edit cookie settings?
What is Cookie?
Cookie is small information stored in text file on user’s hard drive by web server. This information is later used by web browser to retrieve information from that machine. Generally cookie contains personalized user data or information that is used to communicate between different web pages.
Why Cookies are used?
Cookies are nothing but the user’s identity and used to track where the user navigated throughout the web site pages. The communication between web browser and web server is stateless.
For example if you are accessing domain http://www.example.com/1.html then web browser will simply query to example.com web server for the page 1.html. Next time if you type page as http://www.example.com/2.html then new request is send to example.com web server for sending 2.html page and web server don’t know anything about to whom the previous page 1.html served.
What if you want the previous history of this user communication with the web server? You need to maintain the user state and interaction between web browser and web server somewhere. This is where cookie comes into picture. Cookies serve the purpose of maintaining the user interactions with web server.
How cookies work?
The HTTP protocol used to exchange information files on the web is used to maintain the cookies. There are two types of HTTP protocol. Stateless HTTP and Stateful HTTP protocol. Stateless HTTP protocol does not keep any record of previously accessed web page history. While Stateful HTTP protocol do keep some history of previous web browser and web server interactions and this protocol is used by cookies to maintain the user interactions.
Whenever user visits the site or page that is using cookie, small code inside that HTML page (Generally a call to some language script to write the cookie like cookies in JAVAScript, PHP, Perl) writes a text file on users machine called cookie.
Here is one example of the code that is used to write cookie and can be placed inside any HTML page:
Set-Cookie: NAME=VALUE; expires=DATE; path=PATH; domain=DOMAIN_NAME;
When user visits the same page or domain later time this cookie is read from disk and used to identify the second visit of the same user on that domain. Expiration time is set while writing the cookie. This time is decided by the application that is going to use the cookie.
Generally two types of cookies are written on user machine.
1) Session cookies: This cookie is active till the browser that invoked the cookie is open. When we close the browser this session cookie gets deleted. Some time session of say 20 minutes can be set to expire the cookie.
2) Persistent cookies: The cookies that are written permanently on user machine and lasts for months or years.

Where cookies are stored?
When any web page application writes cookie it get saved in a text file on user hard disk drive. The path where the cookies get stored depends on the browser. Different browsers store cookie in different paths. E.g. Internet explorer store cookies on path “C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Cookies”
Here the “Default User” can be replaced by the current user you logged in as. Like “Administrator”, or user name like “Vijay” etc.
The cookie path can be easily found by navigating through the browser options. In Mozilla Firefox browser you can even see the cookies in browser options itself. Open the Mozila browser, click on Tools->Options->Privacy and then “Show cookies” button.
How cookies are stored?
Lets take example of cookie written by rediff.com on Mozilla Firefox browser:
On Mozilla Firefox browser when you open the page rediff.com or login to your rediffmail account, a cookie will get written on your Hard disk. To view this cookie simply click on “Show cookies” button mentioned on above path. Click on Rediff.com site under this cookie list. You can see different cookies written by rediff domain with different names.
Site: Rediff.com Cookie name: RMID
Name: RMID (Name of the cookie)
Content: 1d11c8ec44bf49e0… (Encrypted content)
Domain: .rediff.com
Path: / (Any path after the domain name)
Send For: Any type of connection
Expires: Thursday, December 31, 2020 11:59:59 PM

Applications where cookies can be used:

1) To implement shopping cart:
Cookies are used for maintaining online ordering system. Cookies remember what user wants to buy. What if user adds some products in their shopping cart and if due to some reason user don’t want to buy those products this time and closes the browser window? When next time same user visits the purchase page he can see all the products he added in shopping cart in his last visit.
2) Personalized sites:
When user visits certain pages they are asked which pages they don’t want to visit or display. User options are get stored in cookie and till the user is online, those pages are not shown to him.
3) User tracking:
To track number of unique visitors online at particular time.
4) Marketing:
Some companies use cookies to display advertisements on user machines. Cookies control these advertisements. When and which advertisement should be shown? What is the interest of the user? Which keywords he searches on the site? All these things can be maintained using cookies.
5) User sessions:
Cookies can track user sessions to particular domain using user ID and password.

Drawbacks of cookies:
1) Even writing Cookie is a great way to maintain user interaction, if user has set browser options to warn before writing any cookie or disabled the cookies completely then site containing cookie will be completely disabled and can not perform any operation resulting in loss of site traffic.
2) Too many Cookies:
If you are writing too many cookies on every page navigation and if user has turned on option to warn before writing cookie, this could turn away user from your site.
3) Security issues:
Some times users personal information is stored in cookies and if someone hack the cookie then hacker can get access to your personal information. Even corrupted cookies can be read by different domains and lead to security issues.
4) Sensitive information:
Some sites may write and store your sensitive information in cookies, which should not be allowed due to privacy concerns.

Automated Regression Testing Challenges in Agile Environment

In this article Author J.B. Rajkumar is sharing his experience in Implementing Automated Regression Testing in the Agile Environment. 
Abstract
Recently, when I wanted to start my new Automated Testing Project with four resources, I thought of applying any one of the Agile methodologies. But I was not able to continue because, a series of questions were raised inside my mind. The questions are like “Is it possible to use Agile methodologies in Automated Testing?”, “Can I use traditional tools”, “Should I have to go for open-source tools”, “What are the challenges I have to face if I am implementing automation in Agile Environment”. In this article let us analyze some of challenges we face while implementing Automation with Agile methodologies. Automated testing in the Agile environment stands a risk of becoming chaotic, unstructured and uncontrolled.
Agile Projects present their own challenges to the Automation team; Unclear project scope, Multiple iterations, Minimal documentation, early and frequent Automation needs and active stakeholder involvement all demand lot of challenges from the Automation Team. Some of these challenges are:
Challenge 1: Requirement Phase
Test Automation developer captures requirements in the form of “user stories”, which are brief descriptions of customer-relevant functionality.
Each requirement has to be prioritized as follows:
High: These are mission critical requirements that absolutely have to be done in the first release
Medium: These are requirements that are important but can be worked around until implemented.
Low: These are requirements that are nice-to-have but not critical to the operation of the software.
Once priories are established, the release “iterations” are planned. Normally, each Agile release iteration takes between 1 to 3 months to deliver. Customers/software folks take liberty to make too many changes to the requirements. Sometimes, these changes are so volatile that the iterations are bumped off. These changes are greater challenges in implementing Agile Automation testing process.
Challenge 2: Selecting the Right Tools
Traditional, test-last tools with record-and-playback-features force teams to wait until after the software is done. More over, traditional test automation tools don’t work for an Agile context because they solve traditional problems, and those are different from the challenges facing Agile Automation teams. Automation in the early stages of an agile project is usually very tough, but as the system grows and evolves, some aspects settle and it becomes appropriate to deploy automation. So the choice of testing tools becomes critical for reaping the efficiency and quality benefits of agile.
Challenge 3: Script Development Phase
The Automation testers, developers, business analysts and project stakeholders all contribute to kick-off meetings where “user-stories” are selected to next sprint. Once the “user-stories” are selected for the sprint, they are used as the basis for a set of tests.
As functionality grows with each iteration, regression testing must be performed to ensure that existing functionality has not been impacted by the introduction of new functionality in each iteration cycle. The scale of the regression testing grows with each sprint and ensures that this remains a manageable task the test team use the test automation for the regression suite.
Challenge 4: Resource Management
The Agile approach requires a mixture of testing skills, that is, test resource will be required to define unclear scenarios and test cases, conduct manual testing alongside developers, write automated regression tests and execute the automated regression packages. As the project progresses, specialist skills will also be required to cover further test areas that might include integration and performance testing. There should be an appropriate mix of domain specialist who plan and gather requirements. The challenging part in the Resource management is to find out test resources with multiple skills and
allocate them.
Challenge 5: Communication
Good communication must exist among Automation testing team, developers, business analysts and stake holders. There must be highly collaborative interaction between client and the delivery teams. More client involvement implies more suggestions or changes from the client. It implies more bandwidth for communication. The key challenge is that the process should be able to capture and effectively implement all the changes and data integrity needs to be retained. In traditional testing, developers and testers are like oil and water, but in agile environment, the challenging task is that they both must work together to achieve the target.
Challenge 6: Daily Scrum Meeting
Daily Scrum Meeting is one of the key activities in Agile Process. Teams do meet for 15 minutes stand up sessions. What is the effectiveness of these meetings? How far these meetings help Automation practice Developers?
Challenge 7: Release Phase
The aim of Agile project is to deliver a basic working product as quickly as possible and then to go through a process of continual improvement. This means that there is no single release phase for a product. The challenging part lies in integration testing and acceptance testing of the product.
If we can meet these challenges in a well optimized manner, then Automated Regression Testing in Agile environment is an excellent opportunity for QA to take leadership of the agile processes. It is better placed to bridge the gap between users and developers, understand both what is required, how it can be achieved and how it can be assured prior to deployment. Automation practice should have a vested interest in both the how and the result, as well as continuing to assure that the whole evolving system meets business objectives and is fit for purpose.

Smoke testing Vs Sanity testing

Despite of hundreds of web articles on Smoke and sanity testing, many people still have confusion between these terms and keep on asking to me. Here is a simple and understandable difference that can clear your confusion between smoke testing and sanity testing.

Here are the differences you can see:
SMOKE TESTING:

• Smoke testing originated in the hardware testing practice of turning on a new piece of hardware for the first time and considering it a success if it does not catch fire and smoke. In software industry, smoke testing is a shallow and wide approach whereby all areas of the application without getting into too deep, is tested.
• A smoke test is scripted, either using a written set of tests or an automated test
• A Smoke test is designed to touch every part of the application in a cursory way. It’s shallow and wide.
• Smoke testing is conducted to ensure whether the most crucial functions of a program are working, but not bothering with finer details. (Such as build verification).
• Smoke testing is normal health check up to a build of an application before taking it to testing in depth.

SANITY TESTING:

• A sanity test is a narrow regression test that focuses on one or a few areas of functionality. Sanity testing is usually narrow and deep.
• A sanity test is usually unscripted.
• A Sanity test is used to determine a small section of the application is still working after a minor change.
• Sanity testing is a cursory testing, it is performed whenever a cursory testing is sufficient to prove the application is functioning according to specifications. This level of testing is a subset of regression testing.
• Sanity testing is to verify whether requirements are met or not, checking all features breadth-first.

Hope these points will help you to clearly understand the Smoke and sanity tests and will help to remove any confusion.


If you have more points on smoke and sanity testing to elaborate on, please comment below.

Ranorex:

Ranorex is a popular UI test automation framework with open architecture. The core functionality is an API which is built on the Dot Net framework. This framework tests many different application types including Web 2.0, WPF, Flash/Flex, Silverlight, Qt, .NET and Java. It is one of the most versatile tools of its kind since it covers a wide variety of operating systems and programming environment platforms(C#, VB.NET, IronPython). In Windows it runs on number of browser environments such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Ranorex provides accurate recognition and unique identification of UI elements.  Object identification can be done using XPATH (QTP 11 also has this feature) Ranorex spy: Ranorex spy is a standalone tool used for identifying elements in the AUT (Application Under Test). It identifies all the elements by their DOM structure. Depending on the type of the selected element, Ranorex Spy provides all available information in the info tabs i.e. ‘Overview’, ‘Detail’ and ‘Screenshot’

Ranorex Recorder: Ranorex Recorder is the best tool to record and playback user actions, It can generate scripts in different languages provides powerful editing and customizing capabilities. In addition the Recorder can validate current states, properties like ‘Text’ or ‘Visibility’ and images of UI elements Ranorex Object Repository: Ranorex Object Repository is used for maintenance of UI elements. Properties of the UI elements can also be changed without any change in the code.

Ranorex studio: Ranorex studio provides common IDE features like syntax highlighting, code completion, debugger, watch monitor etc. It brings all of the Ranorex tools together by integrating Ranorex Spy, Ranorex Recorder, Ranorex Object Repository and a powerful Ranorex Library in one professional environment. Ranorex Studio supports test implementation with C#, VB.NET and IronPython. Regardless which language you use, the integrated Ranorex Recorder and Ranorex Object Repository tools automatically generate the right source code for your selected language.

QA Vs QC

Quality Assurance:
1.Concentrates on the process of producing the products.
2.Defect prevention oriented.
3.Usually done through  out the life cycle.
4.This is usually a staff function.
5.Examples-Reviews and Audits.

Quality Control:
1.Concentrates on specific products.
2.Defect-detection and correction oriented.
3.Usually done after the product is built.
4.This is usually a line product.
5.Example-S/W testing at various levels.


QA is process oriented and QC is product oriented.
QC comes after QA.
QA is defined as a set of activities designed to ensure the
development and maintenance state is adequate and to ensure
that the system will meet its requirements..
QC is defined as a set of activities designed to evaluate
the development of a working product.