Document testing is a Non-functional sort of testing, which may be written in pictorial form describing and defining, specifying, reporting and also certifying activities, requirements and procedures results. Documentation is as important to a product itself. If the documentation is poor and wrong obviously it will reflect in the quality of the software product and the vendor.
Documentation for testing helps in calculating the testing effort required, test coverage, requirement tracking etc. This portion includes the outline of some commonly used documented artefacts associated with software development.
The projects which consists all documents that have a high level of maturity. Carefully done documentation can save the time, efforts wealth of the organisation. Test documentation is written whenever the developers are busy in writing code.
Once the test document is ready the overall execution process depends on the test document. The primary goal of writing test document is to decrease and eliminate the doubts related to testing activities.
Types of test document are:
- Test Scenarios
- Test case
- Test Plan
- Requirement traceability matrix
- Test strategy
- Test data
- Bug Report
- Test execution report.
- Test Scenario-
Test Scenario is a document which explains in many different ways or may be combinations of testing applications. It consists of any inputs for testing. In the test scenario, the detail testing process, due to many associated test cases is available. In the test scenario, testers got to put themselves in the place of the user because they test the software from the user’s point of view. Preparation of scenario in the most critical part and it is necessary to seek advice or help from customer, stakeholders, and developers to prepare the scenario.
How to write the test scenario
The following are the steps to create the test scenario as tester:
- Read the necessary document such as (Business requirement document specification) and FRS (Functional Requirement specification) of the software which is under test.
- Determine all the technical aspects and objectives for each requirement.
- We have to find all the possible ways from which the user can operate the software.
- Supervisor of the project examines all the scenarios and they are evaluated by the stake holders of the project.
- The test scenario is the time saver activity.
2.Test plan
Test plan is a document which is prepared by the managers or may be test lead. It has all information about the testing activities. The test plan consists of multiple components like objectives, scope, approach, Test environment, Test methodology, Template, roles and responsibilities and entry and exit criteria, risk and contingencies etc.
The types of Test plan are:
- Master Test plan
- Phase Test plan
- Specific Test plan.
3.Requirement Traceability Matrix
The Requirement Traceability matrix is a document which makes sure that all the test cases have been covered. This document is created before the test execution process to verify that we did not miss writing any test cases for the particular requirement. The two main purposes of RTM are:
- bidirectional traceability: link the requirements and test cases
- track coverage: make sure all requirements have test cases and are tested.
The RTM template are
For example:
4.Test Strategy:
The test strategy is a high level document which verifies the test types to be executed for the product and describes what kind of technique has to be used and which also which module is going to be tested. Project manager can approve it. It consists of documentation formats, objectives, test processes, scope and customer communication strategy.
5.Test Data
The test data is input data or sample data used for testing. Test test data is added is prepared using standard techniques like boundary value analysis and equivalence class partition techniques. The test data is added while implementing the test case. Many people are having the test data in the excel sheet format and entered manually while performing the test case.
The test data can be used to verify the expected results which means that when the test data is entered, the estimated output will meet the actual result. The software is verified using both positive and negative input data.
6. Bug Report
The bug report is a document where we maintain a summary of all the bugs which are raised during the testing process. This is an important document for both the developers and test engineers because with the assistance of bug reports, they will easily track the defects, report the bug, change the status of bugs which are fixed successfully and also avoid their repetition in the process.
7. Test execution report-
Test execution report is document prepared by test leaders after the entire testing execution process is completed. The test summary defines the constancy of the product, and it contains the information namely modules and number of written cases. And each module features a separate spreadsheet of their respective module.
Benefits of Test Documentation:
- Documentation gives a clear idea of the quality of methods and objectives.
- It makes sure that the internal condition works when a customer uses software application.
- It makes sure about the stability of tasks and performance.
- It gives the feedback on preventive tasks.
- It gives feedback for our test plan cycle.
- It has objective evidence of the performance of the quality management system.
- If we write the test document, we can’t forget the values which we put in the first phase.
- Provides the project history, can be used during knowledge transfer while hiring new members in team in mid of project.
The drawbacks of Test document are:
- It is bit difficult because we should maintain the modification provided by the customer and parallel change in the document.
- If the test documentation is not proper it will depreciate the quality of the software application.
- If written by the person who does not have the proper product knowledge, can affect the software quality.
- Involves lot of effort in terms of cost and time of project
