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Feature Friday – Why You Should Start to Use Test Data Management Today
Autumn is just around the corner, and with that the warm winds leave the Northern Hemisphere. Hopefully, if you’re from the Southern Hemisphere, you’re gearing up for the summer heat already! And hopefully, if you’re a tester, you’re thinking about gearing up for better and more efficient testing strategies! Today on this Feature Friday, we are joined by Daniel and Amy who are going to talk to us more about our exciting new feature, Test Data Management!
Tell us more about Test Data Management offered by Qyrus and its use cases.
Dan:
Well, Test Data Management is a feature that manages your test data in one place. It helps eliminate the tedious steps of importing data from external sources like an Excel file. It also has an added benefit of allowing users to synthetically generate data within the Test Data Management system itself for usage during runtime.
Amy:
So, when you import data from a database, you need only to establish a connection one time. Afterwards, Test Data Management will retrieve the data anytime a test is run that uses that data. Furthermore, you can even grab data from an API call for usage during runtime, as well.
Interesting… it seems like a tool that can cover a lot of use cases under one umbrella. This must mean it has a significant impact on testing processes throughout.
What is this feature’s overall impact on the testing process?
Dan:
The areas in which we see the largest impact would probably by test building and execution. It has a direct benefit in terms of test coverage, allowing users to quickly build tests that use data dynamically and during runtime.
Amy:
Instead of having to incorporate some 3rd party tools to generate data, it’s all done from our Test Data Management system. Connections to databases and pulling data from API calls during runtime helps enhance the testing capabilities that Qyrus already provides to its users.
Fragmented environments are the worst. They cause problems and if no problems exist today they will months or a couple years down the line. The ability for users to have a centralized system to handle all of their needs is important. How might other users, besides testers, utilize this feature?
How might Test Data Management help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Amy:
Well, a tester would utilize this feature heavily. Again, it has a large impact on the test building and execution process, and would empower testers to manage their test data more efficiently. This also helps in terms of maintenance from their perspective.
Dan:
And developers can use the Test Data Management system to generate synthetic data to quickly build sample tests or unit tests even. This could help them then catch bugs before it even makes it to the testing phase.
Amy:
And the cool thing about the system is that it can generate data similar to what you provide to it. So, in that aspect, a business technologist could provide a sample set of data and use the tool to expand that sample set.
So, with it being useful for a wide arrange of users and personas, we might see this making waves in the ebb and flow of normal business operations. Let’s learn more!
How do you see using Test Data Management impacting day-to-day operations across organizations?
Amy:
Well, it helps increase test coverage at a faster pace, so day-to-day operations might be sped up to a degree. Data imports are faster, and AI is utilized to help generate sample data. All of these help speed up the testing process.
Dan:
On top of that, from a maintenance standpoint, it all becomes manageable from one spot. It’s super easy to take care of. Connect to your database once, and never worry about it again.
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Dan:
From a competitor standpoint, not everything is integrated and combined in one place like we have in our Test Data Management system. From being able to connect and import data from databases, API calls, and synthetically generate similar data, we have it all in one spot.
Amy:
And before Qyrus, testers would have to have studied and built up a large amount of coding knowledge. That’s if they want to replicate it from the ground up. However, they could use a fragmented suite of tools to help achieve the same functionality.
Enjoy the last remnants of summer while you can! Before it gets chilly up here for us northern folk, we’re out to enjoy one last hurrah before the bell tolls, signifying the end of our summer. We hope you learned a lot about our Test Data Management system and how it can bring value to a tester’s day-to-day life. Hopefully we’ve convinced you to give Qyrus out a try. Until next time, thanks for joining us for this Feature Friday!
