Automated Test Activity for Software

Sammanfattning: Software producing companies want to increase their quality and efficiency. They often look at automated test tools as a part of a solution. Not many company's use test tools, the time it takes to evaluate which test tool that suites the company best costs much in both money and time. The development process within the IT world is so fast, this makes it difficult for any enterprise to put money in a test tool that may be useless within a few years. For a test tool to be valuable for a company it must be used during at least a few years. An automated test takes a lot of time to implement and introduce in the company. To get the whole picture when to automate test we have looked at different test methodologies. Step-by Step Method uses tables and lists to create the test document. Product Life Cycle Method (CPU) describes implementing of software test in the product life cycle. Well-developed test methods can save a lot of time and make it possibly for developers to work effectively. We have also investigated some general information about automated test like cost and when to automate. ATLM (Automated Test Life-Cycle Methodology) is a methodology that is used in order to take the correct decisions such as when to automate or not, (ATLM) is a structured methodology aiming toward ensuring a successful implementation. We have also described some methods of automated tools. The Record/Playback Method is a feature that executes the test manually while the test tool sits in the background and remembers what has happened. It generates a script that can re-execute the test. The Functional Decomposition Method and The Key-Word Driven Method are a data-driven automated testing methodology. That allows developing automated test scripts that are more "generic". It requires only that the input and the expected results have been updated. In this study we have examined automated test tools offered by Rational, Segue Software Inc and Mercury Interactive to survey the tools on the market. Segue Software Inc is aimed for e-business systems. Rational is a big company and has solutions for all parts in a software project. Mercury Interactive has several test solutions for testing and monitoring business- critical Web applications, and the WinRunner is most complex of the offered tools.