See Also

Reporting Center

Business challenges

Smartech QA team was asked to performed full complex of testing Reporting Center software. The application had several inconsistencies reported by customers, some customers had performance issues, user authentication problems were reported by several particular customers as well. QA process did not have any appropriate documentation and was not automated as well.

Software description

Reporting Center is a powerful report generation system for creating statistics and information reports based on data stored in database and displaying various summaries in diagram representation. User access to the generated reports is integrated to windows and SQL security, supporting both local and domain users. It is ASP.NET application implemented on C#. Data for reports generation is stored in MS SQL Server 2000 or higher databases.

Testing approaches

Since the application is web based, generates reports from potentially huge amount of data and may be hosted to be accessed from Internet, the following testing approaches were used to test the application:
  • Functional testing included validation of all features supported by the application, such as accurate report generation, correct diagram displaying, correct report export to email and printable formats, user accounts management. Smart redirection (in case of link misprints) was checked as well.
  • UI testing was made to verify that all controls are drawn properly in reports, email and printable formats match the requirements, UI design meets common standards.
  • Load and stress testing included automated simulation of simultaneous numerous user activities targeting at expected potential application bottleneck – report generation process.
  • Performance testing included assurance that the application meets performance requirements when generating reports based on huge data size and helped to make up system requirements for host system.
  • Security analysis was made to check site protection from unauthorized access, granting access based on account permissions level and protection from SQL injection attacks.

Summary

During testing Reporting Center Smartech QA team posted over 400 bugs and enhancements, identified and described in detail performance and security issues and validated fixes of all found problems. Testing of general application functionality was automated. The entire testing process was documented and report templates were created.

Tools used for testing

  • TrackIt and Aqdevteam bug trackers;
  • TestComplete automated testing tool;
  • Perfmon and monitoring tools from SysInternals.