Everyone loves a bundle deal. As a user or consumer, getting more for your value is always on the forefront of thought when making a purchase. From Home health and Auto insurance, too half off peanut butter and Jelly at the supermarket, getting multiple related items for a discount is a quality marketing approach which also provides great consumer offerings. In the realm of testing there are two offerings that are often required for optimal QA. As functional testing monitors user interface and experience, performance testing monitors the application’s integrity and accessibility, in action, with varying constraints. Both of which complement each other for comprehensive testing. Today’s feature Friday is brought to you by Linto and Milton who will discuss performance profiling for Web, and how this feature accompanies functional testing to provide a powerful bundle enhancing test building efficiency and overall test case coverage.
Tell us more performance profiling for Web offered by Qyrus, its use cases, and impact on testing and QA processes?
Milton: Performance profiling allows users to observe all performance-based metrics within the reports of executed functional tests. WebPerformance information is vital for client web applications and provides network speeds, page load time, and other accessibility and performance related metrics while toggling stress and traffic. Performance profiling is also essential as it defines how smoothly an application runs which directly determines user experience.
Linto: To be a little more specific, a user has a test suite with many test scripts. After execution, the user looks at the performance tab and can see which tests failed and passed. User can then go view and failed test and go back to fix them. User also can see how their website reacts to the test’s inputs. User can also stress test their website to check how the website handles traffic across a range of unique scenarios.
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Linto: That’s a great question, and though there are multiple solutions for performance testing and profiling in the market, users would have to download, deploy, and maintain multiple software’s or solutions to run web performance tests. This would require a functional testing and performance testing solution.
Milton: Exactly, if end-to-end testing was required there would be a multiple solution approach, that requires a testing infrastructure rather than a single solution answer. Qyrus differentiates itself by placing both performance and functional testing into a single integrated solution placing all testing requirements in arms reach.
What is the overall impact of performance profiling on the testing process?
Milton: Web performance testing allows for insight on application functionality across a range of different levels of usage. The ability to monitor the number of users accessing a webpage then analyze application performance in relation gives insights on application functionality and accessibility while simulating live settings.
Linto: And this data is then formulated into graphs and visual reports that can be downloaded and shared across teams for collaborative purposes. The ability to reuse functional tests for performance also gives you all of these testing advantages with little overhead or resource consumption.
How might performance profiling for Web help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Linto: Testers often use the full length of the features capabilities in converting a range of their functional tests into performance tests as well. In doing so they can test webpage ability across scenarios and traffic analyzing the metrics and graphical reporting provided by Qyrus.
Milton: The developer is able to, alongside testing functionality, check the load times against users simulating high and low intensity scenarios allowing them to optimize their web applications run times and loading speeds. Furthermore, testing responsivity of the web application at the page level.
Linto: With graphical and visual reporting business analysts are able to build and execute functional and UI tests with performance metrics as well. In turn, analyzing exactly which pages and locations within the application are slow. Furthermore, accompanying this data with user analytics and general traffic metrics business analysts can further assist in the testing and QA process enabling high quality application development.
How do you see performance profiling for web impacting day-to-day operations across organization?
Milton: Day-to-day operations is actually where we see the most impact with this feature. As test suites are built and new tests constantly created, the daily overhead of not having to build and maintain performance tests next to your functional tests becomes substantial. As one of Qyrus’ fundamentals is reusability, functional tests are now converted for performance analytics minimizing that overhead across all required test cases.
Linto: Not to mention, performance testing itself is vital in the Quality Assurance process. As load and traffic increase web applications can begin to slow down, and any lag or timeout errors experienced by the users could lead to less user retention. But being able to test traffic patterns and simulate these flows while doing functional testing increases coverage and testing efficiency.
Bundling is no lost concept and getting multiple solutions or services for your money is always a better option. In the realm of testing both functional and performance testing are required to have the best test coverage and promote quality application development. Qyrus’ Performance Profiling for web, allows for performance testing in line with functional. No need to recreate steps, spin up instances or environments, reuse functional tests for performance testing purposes. Coupled with visual and graphical reporting, this essential feature is further enhanced to provide optimal testing experience. That’s all for this week’s Feature Friday, join us next week as we explore every corner of the Qyrus testing platform.
Think about when your car is being serviced, the dreaded moment, but in turn you receive a rental vehicle which stands as a usable alternative until your desired vehicle is available. This is similar to service virtualization with regards to API testing. In this case instead of a car users have the ability to mock API’s. Customizing returns and responses, these act as placeholders to mitigate bottlenecks and developmental halts. But this week’s Feature Friday is not about just service virtualization but the unique ability to dynamically generate API responses simplifying and streamlining API testing and service virtualization capabilities, we interviewed Tim and Dan to learn more.
Tell us more about manual and dynamic service virtualization offered by Qyrus and its use cases.
Tim: Well, we’ve talked about service virtualization before, but that was purely manual. As a brief recap, service virtualization allows users to mock 3rd party APIs or APIs that are still in development. This helps them continue the testing process without delay. And, manual service virtualization specifically targets testers who need to mock APIs with specific request and response pairs.
Dan: For example, let’s say I want this specific response and a status code 200 when I provide these path or query parameters. But, if they’re just looking to get some data back from an API for testing purposes, then they can dynamically generate these API responses using our dynamic service virtualization.
Tim: You can generate the data of an API response and use this data in testing and for testing purposes. You can even go as far as to modify the schema of the data that’s being generated in the API response. That’s the added benefit of using the dynamic service virtualization.
What is this feature’s overall impact on the testing process?
Tim: This feature predominantly impacts test building and execution. Overall, since we have improved and updated service virtualization as a whole, it’s become more versatile. Things have become easier because we no longer have to manually input long API body responses. Things can be generated now.
Dan: Overall, it can help to improve test coverage and testing speed. And because of the added effort reduction we can see an overall cost benefit, as well. Processes become more streamlined.
The various ways that this tool can be used can enable faster, more efficient test automation. The great thing about Qyrus is that it is codeless and easy to use for testers of various degrees of knowledge and experience.
How might this feature help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Dan: Testers might utilize more of the manual service virtualization as they might be looking for specific request and response pairs. This is to allow them to test happy/sad paths in their test processes. However, they might enjoy the added functionality that the dynamic service virtualized APIs can bring.
Tim: For developers, it can be addressed in multiple ways. Front-end developers would no longer have to wait for APIs to be finished with development in order to continue with certain front-end tasks, they can just mock them. When it comes to developing the back-end, developers would not have to rely on 3rd party APIs for testing and instead can just mockup and dynamically generate all of the data they are looking for.
Dan: And lastly, a business technologist might utilize the dynamic service visualization feature, but probably not the manual. Overall, these features are more tester and developer focused.
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Tim: Some competitors have service virtualization capabilities, but don’t have the ability to dynamically generate these API responses and requests like we have been discussing here. It’s a unique feature to Qyrus.
Dan: Prior to using Qyrus whatsoever, testers would have to build their own mock server in order to achieve the same functionality. It’s not the hardest thing to do, but getting all of the data is where things become tricky. Returning the variety of data that we do and coding that can be much more time consuming. Otherwise, testers would have to pay extra to utilize 3rd party APIs for testing, as most of the time you have a set limit of calls per month.
The improvement made on Service Virtualization brings testing on Qyrus forward by leaps and bounds. Now, more comprehensive testing can take place without any requirements for setup or manually inputting data.
How do you see this feature impacting day-to-day operations across organizations?
Tim: Well, overall, it frees the testing and dev teams up from dependencies on 3rd party APIs for doing testing. And additionally, it frees testers up from dependencies on the dev team, such as finishing development of APIs just so testing can occur. Sometimes, things get backed up, we’ve all been there.
Dan: On top of that, this feature can help take some load off of testers since it promotes reusability. These virtualized APIs can be reused across multiple API tests, including Component tests.
While it is impossible to replace the required API for any given application service virtualization, and specifically dynamic service virtualization offer the ability to continue development and testing while resources, or in this case API’s, are unavailable. This not only allows for steadfast development but also streamlines the testing process. Join us again next week for Feature Friday where we further delve into the corners and cusps of Qyrus’ and how they revolutionize testing.
As the days become that much longer and the sun shines that much brighter, working can become that much more difficult. Efficiency can slowly fade into simplicity and we find ourselves more lost in the beauty of Chicago than immersed in the weekly workflow. But as we all know, efficiency is important, especially within the QA and development lifecycle. This week’s Feature Friday covers reusability, a common trope throughout the Qyrus platform. This week’s Feature Friday is brought to you by Anush and Adhi who will be discussing the simplicity and efficiency behind Qyrus’ ability to reuse functional API tests for performance testing.
Tell us more about the reusability of functional API tests for performance testing offered by Qyrus, and its use cases.
Anush: Qyrus provides the ability to reuse the same test scripts without the need to change any attributes, data, or values. This helps the customer understand how their application performs when there is a high load number of customers using the application.
Adhi: Exactly, save time and increase efficiency as this feature helps you to use the same test script from functional testing and use it to conduct performance testing. Use cases are comprehensive including anytime a customer wants to check if their application can respond and recover from a large load. Within minutes, take all functional tests, import them into performance testing, and see how well your APIs perform as you increase the number of concurrent users.
Small features are developed every day to simplify the testing lifecycle, but it is always important to cover the highest level of testing. The question at hand is, does this feature stand to impact the testing process?
What is the overall impact this feature has on the testing process?
Anush: Well, you get to do both functional and performance on the same script without having to set up infrastructure, write code or analyze the pattern. This saves both time and resources making a direct and positive impact on the testing process.
Adhi: Instead of having to rebuild the same script multiple times, you can simply import and execute using already established tests within the same service. As an overall impact the feature is both simple to use and integral to the testing and QA lifecycle.
Less work is always important, but what is even more important is understanding who this feature is for and how this technology can make an impact on the day-to-day work for those using it. There are plenty of personas across QA teams, how exactly will this feature impact each individual niche and what is the value of that impact?
How might this reusability feature help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Anush: As a tester, you are the primary one building these scripts. This feature is aimed to help testers save time and energy, while providing valuable data on API performance. Testers can generate a huge load and check response and execution times accordingly. Quick and simple access to this data enables testers to be more effective and efficient. This, in turn, makes their lives easier.
Adhi: Developers use the tool in a similar fashion to understand the performance and establish the functionality of their overall application. Furthermore, as a developer would be able to already utilize previously created API tests, there is minimal additional effort required to setup. The feature provides detailed reports on the API performance including both response time and status codes for each thread accessing the resource.
Anush: And as these visual reports are built into viewable graphs and charts, business analysts can get back to their expertise and analyze functionality without the required knowledge of functional API testing, performance analysis, and charting. Simply run the execution and view already populated visual reports for swift and simple testing.
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Adhi: Before test reusability, the answer was simple. If you wanted to run a performance test you would have to build out the test. But as requirements grow, performance testing can become an overwhelming and often overlooked task leaving releases and applications vulnerable. Qyrus addresses this issue by placing performance testing one click away from functional. With quick imports and all located within one SaaS service.
Anush: Though other competitors do offer performance testing, the purely codeless, import ready, functional to performance testing feature is an offering unique to Qyrus. This enables users to test more and be better prepared, whilst also simplifying and streamlining the testing and QA process.
How do you see this feature impacting day-to-day operations across organizations?
Anush: The reusability aspect of this feature alongside the simplicity of importing and speed to results make it an outlier in terms of impact. An impact that isn’t as grandiose as other features, this feature’s impact is seen on the day-to-day level.
Adhi: Exactly, placing performance testing a click or two away allows for comprehensive testing. Furthermore, placing it simply one button away allows for more consistent performance testing.
As we welcome picnics, the beachfront, and the warm summer breeze, it’s always important to both consider and also simplify our daily requirements. This feature is built to do exactly that by combining performance testing and functional testing, ultimately enabling a more efficient and robust testing process. That’s all for this week’s Feature Friday! As quickly as summer has started, it’ll end before we know it; go out and enjoy it while you can! Happy Friday!
Leaving the clothes in the washer all night, forgetting to turn the hose off, leaving the kitchen light on, forgetting to take the garbage out, mistakes happen all the time and as work and life blends to create busy schedules with overlaying tasks, expecting perfection can be naïve. The same can be said about testing and specifically the test building process. As tests continue to grow in requirements developing them flawlessly is almost impossible. If only it were possible to pause the washer in stride and make sure the clothes are still fresh, or for the case of this week’s Feature Friday, create versions of your test scripts during development that can be returned in case of script break or failure for any reason. Brought to you by Joyal and Suraj, this week’s feature Friday discusses Versioning and restore points a Qyrus test building feature.
Tell us more about versioning and restore points offered by Qyrus, their use cases, and impact on testing and QA processes?
Joyal: Versioning and restore points though simple to understand is a critical feature in the test building process. The feature allows you to save versions of a given script during the test building process. Throughout the script building process if at any point the script goes awry, the user has the ability to restore the script to the previously saved version.
Suraj: The use cases for this feature are actually very expansive as it is a general test building feature. At any point across any given web test, during development versions of scripts can be saved. The restore points are then automatically generated and can be restored at any point throughout the process. Automated tests can get long and expansive, and this Qyrus feature targets and enhances the test building process.
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Suraj: Not that we are aware of. Obviously there is the option to save a copy of a given test script throughout development, but as applications develop, and features increase we often see these saved files become libraries which add to the list of required maintenance and overhead.
Joyal: The differentiating factor really comes within the script. These versions are all saved to the desired script requiring no other maintenance or overhead. Once a version is saved the restore point is created and can be accessed at all times.
What is the overall impact of versioning and creating restore points on the testing process?
Joyal: Versioning and restore points simplify the test building process. Test building is a complex process and as tests become larger, building them out correctly using best practices becomes essential. Creating versions throughout test building acts as checkpoints within the process, that can be returned at any point in time to reference a functional portion of the test script and continue rebuilding. Furthermore, as the versions sit right within the same script, there is no maintenance or management required, simply save a version and continue.
Suraj: Exactly, there is no need to rebuild test scripts and the troubleshooting process becomes much simpler. Just jump back to a previously functional version of the test script and continue test building. This feature truly makes the overall testing process faster, and provides a range of checkpoints for complex test case assistance mitigating costly rebuilding saving both resources and time.
How might versioning and restore points help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Suraj: Tester would use this feature exactly for what it is. When developing scripts that range from tens to hundreds of steps, we see testers creating incremental restore points as they continue to develop and test their use cases. Because there is minimal maintenance required building out these restore points would be a few clicks within the test building process but an extra layer of security in case of test break.
Joyal: Developers would also use this feature significantly. As different versions of applications are released the versions of the scripts also develop accordingly. Therefore, if a single feature is broken the script for that given feature has its previous three release versions and can be restored and tested accordingly. The ability to execute base level versions of tests and toggle back to execute fully developed versions gives developers true coverage across an application and its previous versions.
Suraj: Business analysts can also assist developers and testers in the test building process. We often see teams now working on test building where restore points will be created before a team member starts to work on further developing a complex case so previously functional work is not destroyed. And with all of these processes behind a low code no code testing solution, business analysts can impact the quality assurance and testing process.
How do you see versioning and creating restore points impacting day-to-day operations across an organization?
Suraj: Versioning and restore points are built into day-to-day operations. Whether its handing off the test building process across team members and increasing the collaborative nature of testing, or acting as a checking system to maintain working test flows as they grow and develop, this is a daily use feature that directly decreases test building time, and maintenance efforts while simplifying troubleshooting and complex test case creation.
Joyal: Exactly, consider it a “control/command + Z” function for comprehensive tests. With no limit to the amount of restore points available, and the easy ability to delete them as they are no longer required the feature truly is comprehensive in nature.
Being able to coordinate versions and create accessible restore points allows for testers to build with ease and promotes an exploratory testing environment. One that fosters complex test cases and makes test building safe and steadfast. Using the feature in a collaborative sense or a functional sense the feature can be found throughout day to day testing activities compiling a major impact across the testing and Quality assurance lifecycle. Join us next week as we continue to discuss how Qyrus’ automated testing solution has a range of features and functionalities to streamline QA and testing.
What is it that’s so appealing about a Friday night? Is it because it’s the start of the weekend? Is it the smell of pizza and popcorn while watching a movie on the sofa, or is it the time that we get to spend with our families? However one might choose to spend it, we wait all week long just for the sweet release of the weekend. We here at Qyrus choose to kick it off with you all by sharing a bit more about our platform! Feature Friday wouldn’t be complete without a feature to present. So, without further ado, we’re going to pass it over to Adhiraj and Seema from our Qyrus team to share some info on our Qyrus PDF-generated reports for testing.
Tell us more about generating PDF reports on Qyrus and its use cases.
Adhiraj: Reporting in Qyrus is of great importance. Often times, we’ve found that although some clients may not have issues with automation itself, they often do have issues when it comes to the reporting. One specific feature request that came up often was the ability to make these reports into PDFs that can then be downloaded and shared with others.
Seema: Looking at these reports, we see a detailed step-by-step view of the test with pass/fail indicators as well as screenshots embedded into the report. It gives a great summarization of the health of your test. The PDF also allows people who might be on mobile devices to view the report in an easy-to-read manner. It also allows you to share results with those who don’t have access to Qyrus.
A simple feature, one that helps improve the reporting of test executions. But don’t let its small stature fool you, it’s definitely a heavy hitter! However, small features collated together prove for a robust platform that can handle just about any use case or scenario.
What is the overall impact on the testing process, and are there any potential improvements we can expect coming to this feature?
Seema: I mean, overall, it just has an impact on the reporting aspect of testing. However, collaboration goes a long way, and colleagues who are on the same page about a topic work much more efficiently and effectively. One of the major driving points of Qyrus is to promote collaboration among colleagues.
Adhiraj: Currently we are looking at a few improvements to PDF reporting, but nothing too major. Specifically, it only exists for the Web testing services. One future improvement would be to expand it to our other services like mobility, API, and component testing.
How might this feature help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Seema: Well, for testers and developers, it allows them to be much more collaborative with each other. If there is a bug detected by the tester, they can download a PDF version of the report and send it to the developer. Again, these reports are very in-depth, giving step-by-step analysis.
Adhiraj: And with regards to business technologists, they have a much easier way to view the health of the application. The report provides screenshots for every step. We’ve seen some clients take advantage of these when it comes to auditing their testing. Additionally, this makes testing consumable to anyone in an organization – even a CFO, COO, or CEO.
As simple as this feature is, it brings a lot of value to the organization overall. It can significantly improve the collaboration between different departments ranging from the testing team to the development team and the management in between.
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Adhiraj: Well, firstly, prior to Qyrus, a considerable knowledge of some programming language would be required to set up reporting similar to this. But if we are speaking on the platform, before we had PDF reporting we allowed users to download an HTML version of the report. You still can download the HTML version, but not as robust in details or as easily readable.
Seema: In terms of our competitors, some do have the ability to download PDF reports but most others provide the report just on the application itself. But not many have built the PDFs to be clickable making navigation of large reports easy!
How do you see this feature impacting day-to-day operations across organizations?
Adhiraj: Well, the collaborative effect this has will make an impact on the day-to-day. Making the test report understandable for multiple parties and sharable with multiple parties makes day-to-day interactions easier. There is less confusion overall and people are on the same page.
Seema: And, it’s really fast, too. The PDF report only takes a few minutes to generate depending on the length and complexity of the test report. However, we have found it to be fast and efficient.
The benefit that these PDF reports can provide is clear. If we haven’t said it enough, we’ll say it again, collaboration and simplicity. Now, I swear there’s that smell of pizza and popcorn again! It must be the weekend by now, so we won’t keep you any longer. Enjoy the weekend and I’m on a diet, so enjoy an extra slice of pizza for me! Happy Friday!
What’s similar between mobile edge computing (MEC)—that’s almost achieved celebrity status in the technology world—and API testing?
By 2026, both markets will be valued at about $2 billion.
Surprised? You are not alone. MEC is part of the larger edge computing market, which enables use cases that rely on machine learning, the Internet of Things, and 5G—all buzzword technologies. This explains why it receives heaps of press coverage.
API testing does not get as much air time. But the fact that both markets are almost the same size indicates just how critical API testing has become as economies and businesses accelerate their digital transformation agendas.
But beyond high‑level digital transformation, what’s driving interest, and the growth, of automated API testing? Is it because API testing underpins the ability of enterprises to deliver defect‑free software on time and on budget? Or does it have more to do with the growth of the API economy?
The answer is: It’s a bit of both, and more.
Uncover the multiple driving factors advancing API testing and automation and count how many of the reasons you already knew.
APIs Drive Revenue
One of the most straightforward reasons that API testing and automation are on the rise is because the APIs themselves are in great demand.
As more processes become digital, the APIs that facilitate access have become a stable source of revenue for businesses. This is most evident among fintech payment firms, such as Razorpay, BillDesk, or Paytm, for example, which charge for utilizing their payment gateways. But it’s also widely prevalent in other industries including telecommunications and healthcare.
According to the State of APIs survey, 40% of businesses monetized APIs in 2021, which represents a 15% increase over the previous year.
For companies monetizing APIs, it is imperative that they build APIs quickly. But over 33% of organizations say it takes one week to one month to conceive, implement, test, and deliver an API to a production environment. Only about 1/3 of developers’ time is spent actually coding and programming APIs, the rest is consumed on other activities with over 15% of developer time used on debugging and manually testing APIs, says the State of the API Report.
These companies also have to ensure that their APIs are available, secure, and high performing. Ensuring this at scale, and with efficiency, requires automating API testing processes.
For companies monetizing APIs, it is imperative that they build APIs quickly. But over 33% of organizations say it takes one week to one month to conceive, implement, test, and deliver an API to a production environment. Only about 1/3 of developers’ time is spent actually coding and programming APIs, the rest is consumed on other activities with over15% of developer time used on debugging and manually testing APIs, says the State of the API Report.
These companies also have to ensure that their APIs are available, secure, and high performing. Ensuring this at scale, and with efficiency, requires automating API testing processes.
The Growth of the API Economy
The idea of APIs as revenue generators falls within the larger umbrella of the API economy. For organizations, the API economy offers a broader set of opportunities including the creation of new products, services, and business models; and improving workforce throughput.
It can also be a lever that transforms businesses into platforms.
“The API economy is an enabler for turning a business or organization into a platform,” says Kristin R. Moyer, VP and Distinguished Analyst, Gartner. “Platforms multiply value creation because they enable business ecosystems inside and outside of the enterprise to consummate matches among users and facilitate the creation and/or exchange of goods, services and social currency so that all participants are able to capture value.”
It’s not surprising, then, that 59% of enterprises say participating in the API economy is a top priority for their organization’s strategy, reports the State of APIs. This is especially true for the financial sector, which is often driven by Open Banking mandates.
The Rise of Microservices and Containers
As more enterprises migrate more significant tracts of their technology estates to the cloud, they are getting increasingly familiar with cloud-native technologies. As a result, many have started modernizing their applications, breaking them down into microservices that are hosted on containers, and that communicate via APIs. These APIs need to be tested rigorously to ensure that they are robust.
According to Java Developer Productivity Report, about a third (32%) of enterprises say they already use a microservices architecture for the primary application they develop. Additionally, a majority of developers report that they are looking forward to experimenting with microservices.
Developers Can’t Get Enough of APIs
Driven in part by an explosion in data, a need to link internal systems and digitalize processes end-to-end, the adoption of microservices, and more widespread Open API mandates, greater numbers of developers are relying on APIs.
Developers lean on APIs to connect internal systems. They also enable developers to couple applications with third-party sources of data and functionality, which can accelerate the creation of new features and drive innovation.
According to the 2021 State of the API Report, 49% of organizations say that over 50% of their development effort is spent on APIs.
Developer reliance on APIs is a trend that will continue to intensify. In 2022, 68% of developers expect to depend on APIs more than they did in 2021, shows data from the State of APIs survey.
All of this makes API testing more crucial. Already, API testing is the second most type of testing undertaken in organizations, according to the State of Quality Testing 2021. In a sign of things to come, a full 97% of testers say API testing is an important or very important skill to learn in order to succeed, says the State of Testing 2022.
As a result, testing loads are being shared with non-testers. Today, only 18% of development and testing teams say that “all testing is done by dedicated testers.” The dearth of testers has become so acute that in 36% of companies, 10-50% of testing is done by non-testers including developers, product owners, support teams, and end users, according to the State of Testing 2022.
API testing is significantly more efficient than time-intensive UI testing. Increased adoption of API testing automation can increase the efficiency of testing teams and potentially unburden other teams.
A Greater Demand for Speed and Agility
Software underpins the growth and success of digital economies and organizations. The ability to generate code quickly, flexibly and cost-efficiently is central to an organization’s ability to create competitive advantage, and be resilient in a business landscape characterized by extreme volatility.
This is why 86% of organizations use Agile or Agile-like development models, shows the State of Testing 2022. There are a few reasons developments teams adopt agile approaches to software development, but tied at the top of that list are two very telling ones. A full 64% of enterprises say that the two most important reasons for adopting Agile are to accelerate software delivery, and to enhance their ability to manage changing priorities, according to the State of Agile Report.
These methodologies are enabling teams to deliver more deployments more frequently. According to the State of Continuous Delivery Report, 30% of developers perform multiple deployments per week.
The challenge is that poor testing, and specifically API testing, practices are impeding the ability of these teams to deliver. According to the The State of Software Code Report, 84% of developers admit to being held back from deploying more often. According to the same report, 43% say testing is their biggest pain point. With 61% of organizations saying APIs are the leading type of testing they perform, it’s not hard to see how API testing is a significant challenge—one that automation can help alleviate.
The price of less-than-optimal API testing is high. Both poor software, and poor software delivery result in revenue losses and poor customer experience. According to the The Business of Software Report: Uncovering the Knowledge Gap, businesses risk up to $126 million in lost revenue due to ineffective software delivery. And 26% of organizations have actually reported losing a significant amount of users to errors, according to the The State of Software Code Report.
As organizations continue to compete in an increasingly digital battlefield, the importance of API testing automation will only grow. There is an urgent need for businesses to leverage solutions like Qyrus’ API Testing Automation Platform, which is 40% more efficient than existing code-based API testing systems—and can cut test execution time by at least 50%.
Back to school is around the corner in the Chicagoland area and though you may find yourself buying the same pens, pencils, and erasers as last year, while finding previously bought ones lying around the corners of the house, at least you won’t have to go rummaging across the store to find them again. And just as most stores adhere to the “back to school” atmosphere with defined sections for related items and requirements, a high quality testing solution does exactly the same. Coupling multiple related testing features can significantly impact test building process. This week’s Feature Friday is brought to you by Milton and Linto who will discuss Mobile performance profiling, a performance testing option that sits one click away from your functional tests on the Qyrus platform.
Tell us more about Mobile Performance Profiling offered by Qyrus, its use cases, and impact on testing and QA processes?
Milton: Performance profiling provides logs of memory, CPU, and network usage to show exactly how a device responds to any given application. While users like mobile applications, delays, battery consumption, memory consumption, and network requirements all play a vital role in application success.
Linto: And as different devices have different memory and network capabilities, covering a range of devices with the ability to monitor device vitals throughout the testing process enables maximum application coverage, leading to higher quality applications where functionality is device agnostic.
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Linto: That’s a great question, and though there are multiple solutions for performance testing and profiling in the market, users would have to download, deploy, and maintain multiple devices and potential solutions to achieve similar performance profiling, metrics, and reporting capabilities.
Milton: Exactly, if end to end testing was required there would be a multiple solution approach, that requires a testing infrastructure, with devices, rather than a single solution answer. Qyrus differentiates itself by placing both performance and functional testing into a single integrated solution with all testing requirements in arms reach.
What is the overall impact of performance Profiling on the testing process?
Milton: Mobile performance profiling allows for insights on application functionality and usage across mobile devices. Dense applications that take a toll on mobile devices battery and memory requirements. Furthermore, high amounts of network usage make applications less accessible. Placing performance alongside functional testing ensures application functionality, accessibility, and integrity across a range of devices. Specifically, performance profiling, was developed to ensure that applications produce as minimal toll as possible on the devices.
Linto: And this data is then formulated into graphs and visual reports that can be downloaded and shared across teams. The ability to reuse functional tests for performance also gives you all of these testing advantages with little overhead or resource consumption.
How might Mobile Performance Profiling help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Linto: Testers often use the full length of the features capabilities in converting a range of their functional sessions into performance tests as well. In doing so they can test mobile application accessibility and integrity across user scenarios and devices returning metrics and graphical reporting to Increase testing capabilities and coverage.
Milton: The developer is able to, alongside testing functionality, check the load times against different networks simulating high and low intensity scenarios while toggling network access. This allows developers to optimize their Mobile applications, run times, and loading speeds. Furthermore, toggling almost everything. including devices, developers can run a range of use cases across beta versions of application.
Linto: With graphical and visual reporting business analysts can easily build and execute functional and UI testing and performance profiling as well. Analyzing exactly which screens and network preferences cause delays. Referencing this data with user analytics and general traffic metrics business analysts can associate the most viewed or used application pages with optimal network, memory, and battery requirements to further assist in releasing high-quality, user-friendly applications.
How do you see the Qyrus’ performance profiling for mobility impacting day-to-day operations across organization?
Milton: Tests are built daily and though functional testing is important, having the perfect application is of no value if it only runs on a 5g network, with heavy memory consumption and battery usage. This is why throughout development and sprint cycles performance testing is pivotal. Qyrus places performance profiling clicks away from functional testing with minimal setup, or overhead.
Linto: And to navigate from functional to performance and back within the same application enables comprehensive testing. We see a large day to day impact as alongside every application release, feature update, or even UI change, testing functionality and performance of the application will be pivotal.
Having quick and easy access to all testing requirements streamlines the test building process. In this case specifically having functional and performance testing increases test coverage and offers another realm of testing, ensuring multiple facets of application integrity. In an era of technology, producing the best applications is a leading factor in success, making testing and quality assurance essential. Qyrus’ Mobile Performance Profiling streamlines performance testing making the overall testing process significantly more comprehensive with minimal cost and resource consumption. Join us next week as we discuss other Qyrus features that can enhance your quality assurance and testing lifecycle!
As more enterprises leverage and monetize APIs, it has become increasingly critical to ensure that they are working at maximum efficiency. That is where Automated API testing comes in. Leveraging API testing automation platforms, such as the one Qyrus offers, has multiple benefits.
Improving Testing Outcomes with API Testing Automation
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, this bank specializes in savings and lending products. It handles over £6 billion in customer deposits and over £7 billion in loans, resulting in a complex business environment, utilizing a number of internal and customer‐facing platforms, which depend heavily on APIs.
On average, the bank spent $400,000 a year on testing and over 2,500 manhours—but despite these investments, its testing objectives were not being met. Its challenges included less‐than‐optimal coverage of mobile applications, and tests related to newer browsers, devices, and operating systems.
This resulted in a poorer customer experience for customers and employees and partners, which, in turn, gave rise to high customer churn. Operationally, too, the cost of its testing practices for APIs had a high price,, especially in terms of test efficiency and poor maintenance.
Success with Qyrus
The Qyrus team automated a range of tests including those related to Savings Account Activities, Customer Due Diligence, and the bank’s Onboarding Process.
Soon the bank’s testing team began to witness benefits from a more rapid and robust feedback mechanism, underpinned by more visual and data‐driven reporting. The implementation of Qyrus’ solutions also resulted in broader test coverage, and increased efficiency with repeatable, recordable, and scalable tests.
Within the first 12 months, the bank achieved a 200% return on its investment, prevented over 2,500 bugs from entering production, and lowered testing cost and effort by 75% and 85%, respectively.
The testing platform also increased automation using CI/CD pipeline integrations, which ensured that tests could be executed immediately after every build, and that reports were generated directly within the CI/CD pipeline.
The Business
UK-based bank that specializes in savings and lending products. Handles over £6 billion in customer deposits and over £7 billion in loans
Location: The UK
Investment in Testing: $400,000 a year, +2,500 manhours
Winning with Qyrus
200% RoI in 12 months
75% Reduction in cost
85% Less effort
2,500+ bugs prevented from entering production
Case 2
The Business and Its Challenge
The Fortune 500 company was building two major applications: One that was customer‐facing and would schedule, track, and manage orders; and the other an internal business process solution.
As development progressed, the number of API endpointsincreased. This, combined with the organization’s manual testing processes resulted in a demand for additional testers, and tester time. It also limited test case coverage and introduced bugs and inconsistencies, which proved costly, and increased the company’s time‐to‐market.
The client needed a solution to manage and automate testing APIs across multiple applications, guarantee application functionality, and ensure reporting was integrated into existing CI pipelines.
Success with Qyrus
The client turned to Qyrus to strategize and implement test automation for APIs.
The client utilized API‐led workflows focused on dynamic data transfer and validation. A robust set of 4,500‐plus test scenarios were built in under four months, ensuring smooth data exchange across 80 enterprise applications, both on‐premises and in the cloud. The Qyrus platform validated over 400 endpoints— including SOAP and REST APIs—using unique, and randomly generated data to ensure application functionality across multiple scenarios and environments.
By introducing reporting—including automated testing metrics—into testing environments, Qyrus enabled fast and easy identification of bugs and inconsistencies. This led to the discovery and resolution of defects, which were resulting in delays, causing timeouts and data mismanagement, and access and validation errors.
As part of a shift‐left strategy, Qyrus supported aggressive release times with seamless integration to existing CI pipelines, enhancing application quality without compromising the stability of existing business processes.
Qyrus’ AI‐powered test automation platform enhanced software quality across internal and customer‐facing applications, leading to improved field service monitoring, inventory and supply chain management, and logistics.
With Qyrus, the client achieved a 10X increase in test case coverage, and a 40% increase in test execution speed. Now tests are executed on each build cycle and are triggered through a Jenkins pipeline, thanks to Qyrus’ native integration with Jenkins, and other major CI pipelines.
The organization continued to expand its API testing capabilities with Qyrus to include another internal trucking application. It is also integrating Qyrus into Mobile and Web application testing stacks, enhancing driver and service center applications that leverage customized tablets.
The Business
Fortune 500 leader in garbage collection, recycling pickup, and waste disposal services
Location: North America
Number of employees: 50,000+
Revenue: $15.2 billion
Winning with Qyrus
10x increase in test coverage
40% reduction in test execution time
4,500 unique test cases created in under four months
Case 3
The Business and Its Challenge
Over the last few years—accelerated by the pandemic—insurers have digitalized greater swathes of their businesses and continue to push their digital transformation agendas forward. This is especially true for customer-facing applications because consumers increasingly expect to be able to buy or renew insurance online quickly and frictionlessly. This necessitates a seamless onboarding experience, and the digitalization of complex underwriting processes, among other activities.
With over $13 billion in revenue, this Fortune 500 (North America) leader in insurance, needed to bolster its testing practices so that it could introduce a steady stream of new features and products. But it was challenged by outdated manual testing processes, which delivered a one-two punch: Slow testing resulted in delayed releases, and poor test-building and efficiency also hurt test coverage.
These challenges could potentially have a cascading effect on a number of business performance indicators including customer experience, policy renewals, and new sales.
Success with Qyrus
The insurer partnered with Qyrus to solve its testing challenges. By leveraging the Qyrus platform, it was able to increase testing speed, expand testing coverage, and lower testing costs.
Within short order, the insurer’s testing group was able to create 50-plus automated test cases, testing 10 business services. More impressively, it could test over 90% of the scenarios. The Qyrus platform also enabled them to generate complex test cases in as little as 30 minutes, as well as shrink execution time by 90%. Today, its average test execution time is four minutes.
Perhaps most importantly, it facilitated the migration of applications smoothly and improved its Customer-Insurance-Quote journey with rapid and comprehensive functionality and UX testing.
It achieved these results and spent $40,000 less than it originally estimated.
The Business
Fortune 500 North American leader in insurance
Revenue: $13 billion
Customers: 38 million
Employees: 10,000+
Winning with Qyrus
Swiftly created 50-plus automated test cases, testing 10 business services
Test coverage increased to over 90% of scenarios
Ability to generate complex test cases in just 30 minutes
Shrunk execution time by 90%
Spent $40,000 less than estimated
Modernize API Testing with Qyrus
Qyrus offers codeless API application testing that improves product quality, increases development cycle efficiency, and expands test case coverage.
With Qyrus API Testing Automation platform, enterprises can leverage service virtualization and execute functional, performance, and process tests as well as monitor the health and status of APIs.
Qyrus can help your organization build tests more rapidly, while shrinking costs and execution time, and increasing both quality and coverage. Try it now!
Automated testing is becoming an integral part of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and is gaining importance as time goes on. In Agile development, releases entail executing a multitude of test cases and other downstream actions. However, for projects that require a rapid release cycle, setting up test environments, allocating resources, creating test scripts, and numerous other factors can cause a time-intensive process all while trying to keep pace with development. To add to the problem, existing tools for test automation typically include a steep learning curve often involving advanced programming proficiency. This, however, defeats the whole purpose of automation – creating less of a burden on testers and shortening the test phase in the SDLC. Fortunately, codeless testing automation can effectively address these shortcomings.
How does codeless testing work?
Codeless automated testing means creating, executing, integrating, and maintaining tests and accompanying processes without writing any code. The basic idea behind it is to abstract these processes through an intuitive UI coupled with a keyword/taxonomy-driven methodology. The codeless model promotes broader participation across tester, developer, and business analyst personas. Among the tactical benefits?
Early team collaboration
Modular design
Easier testing
Increased test coverage
Flexibile maintenance
Resilient regression packs
Test reusability
However, the usefulness of the platform erodes if they cannot handle complexity, cross-platform processes, omnichannel requirements, easy CI/CD integrations, or scaling test infrastructure. Using the right product and processes, testers, developers, and business analysts can push efficiencies beyond the traditional scripting and maintenance activities. DevOps is still considered a challenge for many organizations, and more often than not if one follows the inefficiencies in the pipelines they are brought back to test coding, test flakiness, and/or script maintenance challenges. Reducing time spent on repetitive tasks and abstracting coding will yield time that is better spent automating the end-to-end processes.
Benefits of Codeless Testing
The codeless platform extends well beyond simple record and replay and taxonomy-driven automation. Self-healing tests address flakiness and brittleness of scripts and natural language voice and text interfaces have transformed test scripting into a conversation. Using these approaches, the timeline to design, script, execute, and maintain functional test has dramatically reduced. Add to that layers of performance and exploratory testing, and the codeless platform becomes an all-inclusive one. What used to be days and hours are often minute and seconds, and because the testing participants and reusability have increased, code coverage and test coverage also increase.
Qyrus is your safe bet.
Qyrus solves sluggish testing – the Achilles heel of digital transformation – where quality is not in step with organizational agility.
Qyrus is an on-demand SaaS codeless automated testing platform that deploys machine learning algorithms, an intuitive user experience, and a collaborative codeless approach to test automation.
What makes Qyrus different?
Deliver codeless self-healing and predictive automated testing
Eliminate the need for time-consuming custom frameworks, test infrastructure
Exponentially reduce the time and effort in regression testing
Support for Web, Mobile, API, and Omnichannel testing using integrated browser and device farms
To summarize, Qyrus enables development and testing teams to produce higher quality products and an exceptional user experience all done quickly and efficiently. It helps maximize human ingenuity and minimize unnecessary dependencies across the SDLC, limit human error all while stimulating collaborative working models. It increases in scale when the need arises, decreases operating and testing costs, and enables teams to focus on high-value strategic tasks and growth.
If there is a need for a simple, smart, secure, and scalable platform for testing, consider Qyrus.
Shoes, clothing, and water bottles, with almost all consumer items, there is often a negotiation between quality and price. As brands flourish on being high quality and best in class, consumers can often find a similar money-conscious option available. But as with most decisions, it is important to be critical and note that if it sounds too good to be true, it just might be. These ideals remain true across a range of industries, including development and quality assurance. This week’s feature Friday discusses manual and automated testing using the Qyrus device farm, and some of the benefits of testing applications using real Android and iOS mobile phones and tablets located across the globe. Let’s dive in as we interviewed Jorell and Raoul to learn more.
Tell us more about the testing process using the Qyrus device farm, its use cases, and its impact on testing and QA processes?
Jorell: Though very powerful the Qyrus device farm is actually simple. Real physical Android and iOS devices hosted within the cloud to support manual and automated testing of native applications and web applications.
Raoul: Exactly, all the functionality, each test has videos, screenshots, performance profiling metrics, and device logs. This means that if a defect is found – the developer has as many pieces of evidence to comprehend, recreate, and remedy the issue – Qyrus has native configurations to Jira which means an issue can be filed directly from the Qyrus test report!
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Raoul: Prior to device farm capabilities and during the testing process, testers would have to set up and maintain all required devices for testing purposes. Missing out on a range of features and functionalities, the process also requires more resources and time.
Jorell: And though other device farms exist, Qyrus differentiates itself through experience and capabilities. Feature-rich including the ability to toggle between network options, extensive reporting with screenshots and videos, all the way through offering beta and previous versions of Android and iOS to test on.
What is the overall impact on the testing process when using the Qyrus device farm?
Jorell: When considering the testing process as a whole, the device farms impacts are clear. From the beginning, device setup, and maintenance are mitigated. That’s a heap of time and resources, and as requirements grow, the cloud-native solution grows as well, offering custom and private device options.
Raoul: Furthermore, during the testing process devices are easily accessible at all points in time. Teams can share devices, monitor runs across devices, and test in parallel, with extensive reports and collaborative features making the entire testing and QA process more efficient.
How might the Qyrus device farm testing options help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Raoul: Very broadly – you can test any scenarios, applications, and devices through this feature. Anything that the tester needs from manual testing to automated testing is both available, maintained, and ready to scale up or down as requirements change with no testing or developmental resources or overhead from the client side. This increases test case coverage allowing testers a range of devices on hand to test application functionality.
Jorell: We often find developers uploading beta versions of Android and iOS applications to test within the developmental process. Furthermore, with out-of-the-box Jira integrations, communication between developers and testers becomes seamless. Promoting high-quality applications.
Raoul: Furthermore, coupled with an amazing UI and rich visual reporting, Qyrus creates ease of access for business analysts to access application information. Providing screenshots, videos, and the ability to email and download reports, Qyrus provides the necessary application information and collaborative capabilities for business analysts to integrate themselves into the testing process and QA lifestyle.
How do you see the Qyrus device farm impacting day-to-day operations across the organization?
Jorell: The day-to-day impacts of this feature cannot be downplayed. Teams have access to any and all required devices for testing purposes. By enabling efficient testing utilizing parallel testing features, testers, and developers can establish functionality across a multitude of both Android and iOS devices simultaneously.
Raoul: Furthermore, by offering both private devices and a public device pool, clients can utilize devices across the globe. Test case coverage is no longer a concern. Furthermore, with options to scale up and down as seen fit, clients can ramp up devices during release and scale down accordingly to prevent excess spending as requirements change.
As applications dominate the forefront of business, there are certain things that are worth going the extra mile for. High-quality mobile applications are functional regardless of the device. But building out device-agnostic applications and testing them across a range of Android and iOS devices to promote the best user experience can be a daunting task. With a multitude of devices and mobile operating systems at your fingertips, and the ability to upload and test beta versions of applications, within a powerful solution providing robust visual and data-driven reporting, Qyrus’ Device farm aims to mitigate all aforementioned headaches by increasing testing efficiency, coverage, and enabling high-quality application production.
Jerin Mathew
Manager
Jerin Mathew M M is a seasoned professional currently serving as a Content Manager at Qyrus. He possesses over 10 years of experience in content writing and editing, primarily within the international business and technology sectors. Prior to his current role, he worked as a Content Manager at Tookitaki Technologies, leading corporate and marketing communications. His background includes significant tenures as a Senior Copy Editor at The Economic Times and a Correspondent for the International Business Times UK. Jerin is skilled in digital marketing trends, SEO management, and crafting analytical, research-backed content.
