Home / Case Studies / Northgate IS

Northgate IS

   

Northgate developed a sophisticated tool which allowed geographical representation of crime and leading edge analysis of it. Its application “xd” empowered multitude of users; intelligence analysts, performance analysts, crime and disorder reduction analysts and contingency planners.

Download Northgate Case Study  

Issue

Northgate Information Solutions needed to increase the quality of testing and deliver new releases quickly. Regression testing was mainly a manual process, and Northgate were keen to develop an automated solution to speed up the testing process.

As with all complex applications, requirements and testing become more complex and the need to regression test such applications is critical. The regression testing of the package followed the required test processes. This took time as large amounts of point and click activities were required. Consequently, this application area was the chosen pilot for their automated approach.

Requirement

There was a need to automate the application quickly and to maintain the automated regression pack frequently. Previously they had used Robot as a native scripting tool.

Solution

Axe allowed the re-use of the Robot tool but Axe also added the productivity and performance improvements needed to test a frequently changing application. It was a success.

Axe is now used across all applications within the criminal justice area. Because of using Axe, Northgate IS can deploy open source execution tools such as WatiN and QARun which further reduces the overall cost of automation whilst maintaining the productivity improvements.

In Axe, tests are broken down into Tests, Sub-tests and Steps. At the step level the object, action and data are specified. There are 3 basic actions in Axe: SET GET and VALIDATE. The Axe Test Design Model is used to automatically generate scripts for GUI automation tools, on-UI automation tools, harnesses and manual testers.

How does this approach differ from a typical project?

The typical approach to automation is to create scripts through a combination of Capture/Replay and scripting by hand. This approach captures the test design and data in the scripting language of the tool. The creation and maintenance of scripts requires a higher degree of technical skills more often associated with software development.

By building tests using Axe, test analysts can do the work without the requirement to learn automated technical tool skills. Building tests in Axe is also a more efficient means for the documentation of tests, making initial implementation and maintenance significantly easier.

• Try
• Buy
• Demo