Siebel: Testing Challenges And Siebel Test Automation Tool

Siebel: Testing Challenges & Siebel Test Automation Tool

By Pratham Kailash

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term applied to processes implemented by a company to handle their contact with their customers. CRM software is used to support these processes, storing information on customers and prospective customers. Information in the system can be accessed and entered by employees in different departments, such as sales, marketing, customer service, training, professional development, performance management, human resource development, and compensation. Details on any customer contacts can also be stored in the system. The rationale behind this approach is to improve services provided directly to customers and to use the information in the system for targeted marketing and sales purposes.
Oracle’s Siebel CRM product suite of applications is market leader in CRM software domain, which enables organizations to transform the customer experience. With solutions tailored to more than 20 industries, Siebel CRM delivers:
• Comprehensive CRM capabilities
• Tailored industry solutions
• Role-based customer intelligence and pre-built integration
It helps organizations in successfully managing their important needs like:
• Sales
• Marketing
• Contact Center Infrastructure and Service
• Customer Data Integration
• Quote, Order and Billing
• Partner Relationship Management
• Business Intelligence Applications
• Price Management
Oracle’s Siebel CRM technology provides the server framework to support Siebel applications. It delivers solutions for:
• Development
• Deployment
• Diagnostic
• Integration
• Productivity
• Mobile services
Quality Assurance challenges and testing tool for Siebel CRM applications
Any organization that relies on CRM application(s) to serve the needs of internal clients or customers recognizes that application quality is a prerequisite for success, not an option. A crucial ingredient for this success is an efficient, disciplined testing process to verify that applications have achieved a level of fitness that either meets or exceeds project expectations. Slipping schedules, frequently changing application user interfaces, and recurrent feature regression introduce variables that ad-hoc testing practices are unable to handle.
IBM Rational Functional Tester Extension for Siebel Test Automation is one of the tools built to address these issues. Rational Functional Tester Extension for Siebel Test Automation records user interactions with Siebel 7.7 applications, creating a test script that - when executed - reproduces those actions. During recording, the user can insert verification points that extract specified data or properties from the application under test. During playback, these verification points are used to compare recorded information with live information to ensure consistency. Following any test recording activity, testers have the option of adding custom code to the test script to perform an unlimited array of tasks, including the data manipulation and environment configuration activities that are often necessary to ensure the test lab is properly constituted for the test run. Following test execution, Rational Functional Tester Extension for Siebel Test Automation generates a report listing the results of the verification point comparisons. With Rational Functional Tester Extension for Siebel Test Automation, teams are able to more reliably and efficiently expose problems in Siebel 7.7 applications, increasing the opportunity for defect capture and repair before product deployment.
Features and benefits of IBM Rational Functional Tester Extension for Siebel Test Automation:
• Supports Siebel controls for GUI automated testing
Siebel 7.7 delivers a rich UI comprised of standard and complex controls. Rational Functional Tester Extension for Siebel integrates with Siebel Test Automation interfaces to provide robust automation support for this rich environment. By supporting standard web controls in addition to Siebel Standard-Interactivity and High-Interactivity controls Functional Tester Extension for Siebel generates scripts consisting of advanced UI control recognition and readability.

• Support for testing of Java, Web and Visual Studio .NET WinForm-based applications
Test teams are often required to assess applications built upon more than one technology base. IBM Rational Functional Tester provides equally robust automation support for applications constructed using Java, HTML/DHTML and Visual Studio .NET WinForm technologies.

• Choice of language - Java or Visual Basic .NET - for test script customization
Test script customization is mandatory in order to perform anything but the most basic tests Functional Tester for Siebel gives you a choice of powerful, mainstream scripting languages to make this possible. Choose between either Java or Visual Basic .NET - both options can be used with all the supported user interface technologies. By working with Functional Tester for Siebel, testers quickly learn to work with basic language constructs and acquire programming skills that facilitate more productive communication with developers.

• Native Java and Visual Basic .NET editor and debugger for advanced testers
Test script editing is important, but it can be difficult without a good editor and debugger. Functional Tester for Siebel delivers industrial-strength options to address this concern. Testers using Java can work in the Eclipse Java Development Toolkit (JDT), and those using Visual Basic .NET can work in Visual Studio .NET. Both integrated development environments offer a host of options to simplify test enhancement, including a helpful code-complete feature that suggests code to accelerate editing. GUI developers will find this feature particularly useful, as they can access it within the IDE they use to build the user interface.

• ScriptAssure technology to accommodate frequent UI modifications
Frequent changes to an application’s user interface can break tests, which embody assumptions about how to identify the interface’s objects during playback. Functional Tester for Siebel introduces an advanced ScriptAssure™ technology to accommodate these changes and avoid increases in maintenance overhead. ScriptAssure uses configurable algorithms to locate objects during test execution, even if the objects have changed since test creation.

• Automated data correlation and data-driven testing eliminate need for manual coding
Functional tests typically need to vary data during playback to properly simulate true users. Functional Tester for Siebel can automatically detect data entered during test recording and prepare the test for data-driven testing. Using a spreadsheet-like data editor, you can then create customized data sets to be inserted into the script during playback. In this way, you can produce highly personalized tests without manual coding.

• Multiple verification points with regular expression pattern matching support
Verification points help to ensure there is no regression from one build of the application under test to the next. Functional Tester for Siebel provides a wide range of verification points to test various aspects of your application, and it includes pattern matching support for tests in which you cannot predict the exact data response.

• Advanced object map maintenance capabilities
Functional Tester for Siebel uses an object map to store information used during test execution to locate user interface objects. It also provides maintenance capabilities to update this object map automatically whenever changes are made to the application’s user interface.

• Ships with IBM Rational Manual Tester
For teams not yet prepared to automate all of their testing efforts; IBM Rational Manual Tester is included in the Functional Tester for Siebel product box. Rational Manual Tester brings control and organization to manual testing efforts, introducing a novel test step reuse technology to improve the resiliency of manual tests despite changes made to the applications under test.

• Ships with IBM Rational ClearCase LT for automated version control
Typically, more than one version of an application is deployed within an organization, and testers must therefore maintain groups of tests for each version. Without the help of automated version control, this can be extremely difficult. Functional Tester for Siebel is designed to support automated version control, which not only provides a mechanism to maintain multiple test sets, but also enables parallel development and supports geographically dispersed teams, To help teams take advantage of this support, a full version of IBM Rational ClearCase LT, an entry-level version control tool designed for small project workgroups, is included in the product box. Rational Functional Tester users also have the option of upgrading to the standard version of IBM Rational ClearCase.


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