Software Testing from a Practical Perspective

In this lecture, I would like to welcome you to the course.

In this Course Landscape video, I'd like to briefly explain the following:

1. The Aim of the course

2. The Main core sections

3. The Goals of each section

You will witness a real world work scenario, where you will be able to:

• Understand what Soft & Hard- skills are needed for a software test professional to  learn

• Make a decision in a role playing scenario

• Familiarize yourself with a typical organization structure, departments and roles

• Appreciate how important to be a proactive & positive team player

In this lecture: You will have an exposure to a real world working scenario, where you will be able to:

• Cope and  adapt yourself where you turn awkward situation to your advantage

• Be determined, proactive and use your own initiative all the way through

• Develop and sharpen your skills to cope with unforeseen circumstances in the work environment

• Learn how to multi-task to cope with situation like lack  of resources, staff unavailability

• Be reliable, trustworthy and appreciated by your colleagues

What do we mean by Soft-skills?

You will familiarize yourself  with the mock  Organization, Structure, Departments, People and who does what.

In this lecture you will learn:

Learn how to employ your communication soft-skill  to introduce your self to other Colleagues 

• The difference between Functional & Non-Functional requirements

• What  type functional of non-functional test you should conduct

In this Section you will learn :

• How the Software Test Life Cycle is broken into 6 phases:

  Requirement Analysis - Test Planning - Test  Cases Development - Test Environment - Test Execution & Test Reporting

• What each phase involves.

• People Roles and Responsibilities

In this lecture through the slides presentation, you will have an overview of:

• Why Software testing is considered to be necessary to the quality of a software product.

In this lecture you will learn how to:

• Analyze the ATM project requirements

• Extract Functional requirements & Set Preconditions

• Link user event flows to Preconditions   

• Check system behavior with invalid user input   

• Check system behavior with valid user input   

• Differentiate between Defects and correct system behavior

In this lecture you learn from the TAM project example:

• how drive test cases from requirement which can modeled using UML use case diagram  or a simple word document.

• How to set test case preconditions

• How Extract functional requirement

• Know the difference between User Error or a program error

• How to adopt a structured design approach to :

  1. Write positive test cases and

  2. Negative test cases to challenge the Application/System under test.

In this challenge you are required to define and create a simple test case template to accommodate  all 16 items defined in green & red circles.  Ref1:  the PDF slide in the Resources section.

You can use Excel, Word document or download a free  Test Case Template see link in the  External Resources.

In this lecture you learn:

• How to create & complete the ATM Withdraw Test Case with all necessary steps & related columns

• Why columns such Release ID, Module, Requirement ID, Defect ID, Environment & Cycle are related to the Test Case.

• And how can help in recording test steps, measuring the performance of release & efforts, traceability, communications and reporting.

In this lecture you will be able to:

• Familiarize yourself with the difference between data and data set

• Understand the difference between Real client data and Dummy data

• Differentiate  between the usage  of Dummy test data  and  real client data

• Create your own test data and data  set for any given test case if needed

• Understand the importance of test data used in test cases during testing

• Appreciate why test data records have to be meaningful

• Appreciate how test data can uniquely identify a future defect in any application/system

In this lecture you will be able to learn importance of :

• linking test cases to requirement to ensure traceability and test coverage 

• linking  test cases to defects to improve the quality of the software under test

You will learn & familiarize yourself with :

• The Manual test execution steps

• Raising Defects during the Test Cycles

• Most important Test Phases/Types

• Manual Testing vs Automated Testing

• How  testing is organized within the overall Project Plan & Phases 

• How to organize your efforts during the allowed testing slot

In this Challenge No 2 you will be able to:

• Create your own report template using tools such Excel, Word, etc.

• Search the internet for a suitable Test Report template

• Compile a report and include information provided in the Resources section

The main responsibilities of the Test Management at the start-up firm

In this lecture you will learn how to use  Jira & X-Ray to perform the following:

1. Create a Story/Requirement

2. Create  a new Test Template to cover Story/Requirement

3. Link Test Template with the software Version & component

4. Create /Import Manual Test Steps from CSV file

5. Create Test Preconditions

6. Create a Defect/Bug

Gain insight on how confluence is used as a centralized collaboration tool for documents sharing  in organizations, teams and departments.

NB: Ref link in the External Resources section.

In this lecture, you will be introduced to:

• Relational Database Management System concept (RDBMs)

• Jira Query Language (JQL)

and, you will gain insight into how to modify and write JQL.

Does Jira allow copy & past test steps?

From this short lecture you will familiarize yourself with:

• different software development (SD)  frameworks such as: Waterfall & Agile.

• Jira is not only a defect management tool, it can be used to mange Agile projects.

In this lecture you will be familiar with the software development stages and frameworks.

• You will learn the difference between  Agile & Waterfall.

• Waterfall is sequential software development framework

• Agile  is incremental software development framework

• The quality attributes of Agile are as follows:

  
  

  1. Rapid Development.

  2. Continuous delivery.

  3. Increases People Interaction.

  4. Continuous communications between teams and business stakeholders.

  5. Constant Feedback is given between stages to improve the quality of the software deliverables.

  6.  An iteration is a  Sprint which contains a Tested and Shippable Product.

  7. How Agile will help the fictitious organization to speed up their software development delivery process.

In this lecture you will learn how to:

• Create a new project

• Delete an existing project

In this lecture you will learn how to:

• Create new sprints or move task to another one

• Add items (Stories, Epic,Task, etc) to project backlog

• Use Active Sprints to organize  tasks i.e.  "TO DO" to "IN PROGRESS"  and "DONE"

• Use the Report facility to report on current sprint status

In this lecture you will learn ho to prioritize project issues by performing the following:

• Edit & View issue's details

• Assign Priorities (Highest, High, Low, etc.)

• Identify workload and monitor Sprint Activities

• Organize and arrange Stories into Sprints/Epics.

• Estimate Story efforts in hrs, days & weeks

In this lecture you will be able to:

• Create & Save a filter with your selected criteria for any existing project

• Create Scrum Board based on the saved filter

• Edit filter settings and share it with Group, team or project members

• Make filter columns visible/invisible

• Use Star flag to favorite filters

In this lecture you will learn how to:

• Create release versions for a project

• Edit & Change existing release versions

• Create components for a project release

• Edit & Change existing components

In this lecture you will be able to:

• Create a Jira default Dashboard

• Create a customized Dashboard for your project with the all selected gadgets

In this lecture you will gain familiarity with the following:

• Use Confluence to create space for a project

• Configure space settings such as Permissions, Content tools, look & feel & integration with other external plug-ins

• Create How to Article page

In this lecture you will be able to generate several X-Ray reports and change the report criteria if needed.

Example of such reports:

1. Test Coverage Report

2. Traceability Report

3. Tests List

4. And more...

Also you will be able to export X-Reports to CSV file format and use the  Test Case importer to import CSV file format.

Waterfall & Agile

Issue, Sprint, Epic, Task,  Defect, Bug, Task

In this lecture you will gain insight into:

· Other software testing jobs in demand for 2019

· Common Know-how with testing jobs

· Skills & Tools needed for QA/Test Engineer & Automated Tester

· Find skills wanted by job advertisers

· Examples of High-Level Programming Languages used & wanted by companies & businesses

· Pick the skill and do search on Udemy or other plat form to up skill your self

Please note: Udemy platform is closely to this lecture only for educational purposes. 

This lecture introduces useful tools to familiarize yourself with as they are nice to learn and have on your CV,

these tools are as follows:

1. Jira, X-Ray & Confluence (cloud or server) - Free trial

2. Katalon - API Web Mobile Automation Tests - Free

3. Ranorex - Test Automation Tool - Free trial

4. REST & SOAPUI - Testing tools - Paid + Free 

5. Selenium Standalone Server and IDE & Selenium IDE - Web Browser based testing - Free

6. Notepad plus - Free Text Editor with several file type formats including XML - Free

The lecture contained the following Abbreviations: ETL and DWH.

Can you explain what they are and how they are related to software testing jobs.

In this lecture you:

Will learn:

1. Educating yourself  is one the most important tools you can use to empower yourself.

2. University degree is not the main criteria to get a job as a Software Tester.

3. Up- skill yourself by ongoing learning and  get certified is the most practical way to improve yourself and your performance at work. 

Gain insight into:

• Information regarding ISTQB - BCS Certified tester Foundation level

• Exam Questions and Pass rate

• Sample exams

In this lecture you will learn to:

• Search for software testing jobs using website job portals like Indeed, Google, Dice, etc.

• Carefully read and analyze job Ads you are searching for

• Select the best job match relevant to your capabilities

• Gather information about the companies you are applying via their websites

• Search and prepare and come up with a good Resume/CV

• Prepare work references and motivation letter

• Keep your CV relevant, up to date & publish it on professional social media & register it with job agencies

  Also, you will know that other candidates, may apply for the same job including more qualified candidates than yourself

  
  

In this lecture you will learn:

•   How to be well prepared before the job interview

•   How to preempt all possible questions that might pop-up in the interview

•   Not to rely on positive vibes or hints from the interviewer during the interview

•   Not to show any weakness relevant to the job you are applying for (turn your weakness into strength if applicable)

•   How leadership, personal quality, soft-skills and integration are equally important as well as doing the job

In this lecture you will gain insight into

• Software testing jobs in the UK as a contractor with an Agency, Permanent or start your own LTD Company

• Software testing job salaries

• The difference between Umbrella & Own LTD company

Access the following resources in the Resources section:

1. Umbrella company guide for contractors

2. IR35 affects all contractors

3. Contractor Calculators

4. Contractor UK main Site

What Salary are looking for?

In this lecture  you will learn how to take up a challenge given by your test manger to:

• Search & assess various automated test tools & Plug-ins

• Come up with comparison & conclusion to decide if Manual or Automated test procedures or both are best suited for the Firm's upcoming Web, Mobile devices and E-commerce projects.

In this lecture you will learn:

The difference between Selenium & Katalon plug-ins

How they behave when you test them using the same test case

Take you own initiative to find out how to install these plug-ins

This is the final part of the challenge where you are going learn how to:

Gather your findings and decide which Automated test tool would help you  better to test

the Firm's upcoming Web, Mobile devices and E-commerce projects.

In this section you will find free educational  hints and tips from external resources on software testing trends for 2019.

Please note:  The links in the External Resources are Free but you are required to Sign-up to join as a tester

In this lecture you will be able to:

• Register in any of the sites in the External Resources section

• Follow their instructions and guidance on how to become a tester

• Choose your level of test expertise

• Undertake given project assignments

• Earn Money from home testing websites, applications as per completed assignment as instructed

In this lecture you will find links to ISTQB foundation level training, certification and Exams.