ROQ’s Test Automation saves time and money for leading online platform provider

The Client 

This Client is the second largest pure-play online retailer and one of the largest credit providers in the UK. 

Roq has been providing software testing services for several years and have worked on many different projects for this Client throughout this period, most notably the implementation of a test automation framework to accelerate the functional testing of their digital platform migration. On completion of the project, the test automation framework created by Roq was executing more than 300,000 assertions each evening – the same level of test coverage previously requiring 13 testers and a duration of 8 weeks. 

Roq’s Solution

More recently, Roq has been involved in testing a wide variety of applications – including big data projects – and is currently involved in testing the implementation of a new credit platform to provide competitive finance tailored to their customers’ circumstances. 

The scope of this project included: 

• Functionally testing the implementation of a new credit platform – using Test Automation – to test both the user interface (UI) and the integration layers (micro-services environment) of the web-based application 

• Following an Agile delivery methodology – using the Scrum framework for managing tasks – with teams split into Squads and Tribes 

• Actively participating in all meetings, e.g. daily stand-ups, sprint planning, and retrospectives 

• Driving out acceptance criteria from user requirements in a behaviour-driven development (BDD) syntax using Jira Behave and underpinned with test automation tools – Gherkin/Cucumber, Groovy and Selenium WebDriver 

• Development of a test automation framework supporting a Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline, using Jenkins 

• Validating that retail transactions created through the user interface (UI) have been recorded successfully in the underlying datastore 

• Integration testing using SoapUI to test the micro-services supporting the new credit platform, e.g. account fraud referrals, in isolation for contract testing 

• Working with cloud-hosted test environments using Amazon AWS and, where appropriate, mocks and/or stubs using service virtualisation tools 

• Source code management using Tortoise SVN (this is now transitioning to Git and Bitbucket); and 

• Creating and updating documentation using Jira Confluence. 

The Outcome  

• For each change delivered, a critical test pack of approximately 100 end-to-end automated test cases is executed in parallel, providing rapid feedback to the development teams on the quality of the features developed (20 mins for a full regression cycle) Smaller test packs were also created for smaller, isolated feature testing 

• Eliminating the time and effort spent on regression testing, which saved the client c. £250,000 per release 

• Achieving full test coverage of the critical test pack – providing confidence to the project team that no adverse changes to core business functionality had been introduced 

• Providing training on the use of test automation tools and approaches to the project team and to the wider testing community; and 

• Support from the Roq Test Automation Architect and Test Engineer community to overcome technical challenges – reaching back into the organisation and utilising Roq’s wider knowledge pool. 

If you’d like to find out more about how Roq can support your business, please email us at ask@roq.co.uk.