Continuous deployment and manual testing

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We regularly share interesting cases that we encounter in our daily contacts with testing professionals. Sharing practical cases and best practices in the field of software testing contributes to the mission of the Testersuite Team. This mission aims to reduce the chance of risks and errors in software by testing smarter, better and easier. This blog is about testing in continuous deployment.  

Continuous deployment

In a conversation with a test professional, the increasing dependence on SaaS solutions came up. This is an interesting development in itself. But it does mean that you have to look critically at the way in which SaaS solutions dictate how you organise your business processes.

The test professional:If you use cloud solutions, the principle of continuous deployment will only increase. As a customer, you then have to wait and see which functionalities will become available and when. Because of this, you have to make sure that continuous deployment does not mean you have to change your work process.

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As a user, we really need to manually test the changed and new functionalities of a cloud application before we use it.

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But doesn't continuous deployment involve permanent automated testing? We asked our interlocutor. His answer was enlightening: From the developer's side, i.e. the suppliers' side, yes. But these are mainly technical tests. As a user, we really have to manually test the changed and new functionalities of a cloud application before we use it.

Agreements with suppliers

So far it was clear to us what the problem of this test professional is. The question that follows is, how do you deal with this as a user (customer) of a SaaS tool? The test professional: As a customer you will have to make clear agreements with suppliers. In addition, you must perform a good impact analysis when a new version of the SaaS tool arrives. Based on this analysis, it becomes clear which processes are affected and what needs to be tested. It is important to safeguard this way of testing and bringing new versions into use within your organisation.

How do you guarantee the quality of cloud applications?

So the conversation with this test professional brings up a number of things to think about when dealing with continuous deployment:

• What requirements do you set for suppliers with regard to the roll-out of new versions?
• How do you organise the lifecycle management of your application landscape?
• Where in the organisation is the quality assurance of cloud applications?
• Who in the organisation has the ownership for testing cloud applications?
• What is the mandate of the cloud application tester?
• How do you get end users to participate in the testing of new functionalities?

What does the Testersuite Team think?

Within the Testersuite Team, the opinion prevails that the deployment of cloud applications does not absolve you from manual testing. Not even when there is automated testing like continuous deployment. Automated testing is an important addition to existing testing activities.

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The deployment of cloud applications does not relieve you of manual testing.

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However, automated testing is nothing more than checking what already exists. In a stable environment, you check what is already there, over and over again in the same way. Exploratory testing is something else and will, as long as there is no artificial intelligence, always remain human work. If you want to organise this well, a test management tool is indispensable.

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