Achala IT Solutions

The Customer

Achala IT Solutions provides best-in-class services to solve their clients’ toughest technical challenges. With nearly 200 experts in their ranks, they are a leader in several competitive markets including Application Services, Business Intelligence, and Quality Assurance. Their client list includes many of the world’s leading companies, spanning diverse industries such as automotive, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare.

The Environment

Achala supports a wide variety of applications across their various customer engagements, including Web apps, Mobile apps, and even API’s. Each client has unique needs, meaning there is the potential to integrate with any number of different tools. Additionally, many of the customers are working in restricted environments, which require more thought to security when thinking about the right testing solution.

The Vision

For Achala’s customers, shifting towards automated testing is critical to unlocking continuous integration. Furthermore, these automated tests need to run without any manual intervention, as part of the build process. Because of the diverse range of skill sets on the team, the selected testing tool also needs to be able to support both technical and non-technical users with best-in-class support.

The Challenge

Achala had begun the process of implementing test automation, using the popular open source tools, Selenium and Appium. While some individuals were able to have individual success, the sharing of assets and collaboration was difficult. Additionally, there were a variety of different approaches to use depending on whether the application under test was on web, mobile, or was API based. These open source tools catered well to the most technical users, but carried a steep learning curve for the most junior members on the team.

The Process

Srinivas Adur, QA Manager at Achala IT Solutions, kicked off a process to look into tools which could better support a collaborative approach to test automation. He began a search for tools in the market which would support Achala’s needs, especially focused on best-in-class support for mobile application testing. They considered a wealth of tools including MicroFocus (formerly HP) and Experitest. Also up for consideration was the possibility of making their own framework based on their existing open source tools, Selenium and Appium.

The Requirements

After discussing the benefits of various different testing approaches, Srinivas prioritized the major requirements they would look for in a new testing tool. Some of the main requirements highlighted in his research included: 

• Easy to learn and adopt, even for those early on in the automation journey
• Ability to support Web applications, API’s, and even Mobile applications
• Support for scripting tests using code (particularly in Java)
• Easy to understand reports on testing, with ability to share with key stakeholders
• Easy to use job scheduling and test execution
• Affordable, so the cost was feasible within their broader testing budget

After a list had been created, Srinivas would be able to narrow down the list of tools to those which support Achala’s test automation strategy over the years to come.

The Search

Srinivas embarked on a search for tools on the market, scouring online forums and testing sites to determine the leading tools on the market for consideration. He came across TestProject through his research, having seen the tool mentioned on various test automation sites in his search. When it eventually came down to a shortlist, the options considered were TestProject or more expensive tools. After consideration, TestProject became the favorite, due to some key considerations: 

• TestProject has best in class mobile support (for Android and iOS), as well as web and API’s in one interface
• TestProject provides an interface for those who wanted to script (via OpenSDK), as well as those who lacked technical skills
• Ability to reuse existing scripts written in Appium and Selenium, with easy import
• TestProject has built in job scheduling with support for running tests within TestProject or via trigger from CI/CD tools like Jenkins
• TestProject offers quick support via live chat as well as a thorough forum and documentation to ease onboarding
• TestProject is 100% free, including the platform, hosting, as well as live support

Now that the choice to implement TestProject had been made, Srinivas was ready to embark on the journey of implementing TestProject within Achala.

The Implementation

The process of getting TestProject up and running at Achala was relatively painless, with initial onboarding complete in a couple of weeks. Providing access to the team and creating projects with the relevant permissions was a breeze. With a UI that is easy to learn, even non-technical users were able to create tests within a matter of a couple of weeks. A majority of the existing Selenium and Appium tests have been imported into TestProject easily, by simply adding one line of code to include the TestProject SDK. TestProject is now being used across all of the testers within the organization.

The Results

With TestProject fully deployed, Srinivas has been able to see tremendous improvements to Achala’s automated testing, including: 

• Decrease in tester onboarding time, with a quick ramp to productivity for all resources
• Reduction in test maintenance effort, with most tests able to be repaired with just a click, or automatically using TestProject’s Self-Healing
• Cost savings on tooling infrastructure, with TestProject being 100% free
• Elimination of test framework customization, with time savings from the use of addons for automating complex scenarios 

Overall, the benefits of TestProject have been critical to supporting Achala’s shift to continuous integration and fast delivery for their clients.

The Advice

Overall, Srinivas recommends TestProject to friends and other organizations looking to tackle similar challenges around multi-platform test automation. His advice to ensure the best experience during implementation is as follows: 

1. Go after a simple solution first. Create value, communicate the results, then look to expand into more complex solutions and explore the deeper features in TestProject.
2. Stay organized. It is important to define a structure for organizing your results from the beginning, and have someone in charge of monitoring to make sure the structure is maintained as new users continue to onboard.
3. Reuse wherever possible. Leverage the features in TestProject that help to drive reuse (element repository, CSV files for data-driven testing, etc.).
4. Run your tests on a recurring basis for a consistent view of application quality. TestProject’s built in job scheduling makes it easy.
5. Don’t hesitate to reach out to an expert. TestProject’s support team is available at any time to help you work through complicated issues. Working with the TestProject team that has experience in a wide variety of customer scenarios will bring a solution to your issues very quickly.