Portfolio
a1qa helps a risk management company drive software excellence and facilitate releases
a1qa was contacted to help the client establish robust testing processes and boost software quality.
Overview
The client was developing a web system allowing B2B companies to insure business or people against risks or force majeure. Users can fill out a form with questions regarding their company details and submit an application. It’s either processed by third-party companies or sent to Salesforce to be handled by the client’s brokers. Afterward, the system shows end-users insurance quotes available for purchasing.
The client’s product owners and a QA engineer were responsible for manual testing, and an outsourced QA vendor — for test automation. The processes lacked efficiency, and defects still appeared in the production environment. a1qa was contacted to turn the tide.
Services offered
Business analysis
Cybersecurity testing
Performance testing
Functional testing
Project scope
a1qa assembled a team that was later scaled up upon request, integrated into Scrum-based workflows with three-week sprints, and kicked off the following process advancements:
- Optimized release cycles
The client rolled out new software features chaotically and without sufficient testing, which resulted in numerous issues. To overcome this, several steps were applied.
First, a1qa set up a dashboard outlining all major and critical issues in the system to provide visibility into current quality level and better manage delivery processes.
Second, the team introduced release planning. Instead of releasing unstable features, specialists ensured the client prioritized key user stories that were added to the release schedule. If developers completed tasks with little time left in the sprint, a1qa moved on to regression testing and software stabilization. If there was enough time, the development process would continue. a1qa helped the client release robust updates every three weeks.
Third, QA engineers suggested abandoning Friday releases, as end users could place an application during the weekend. Instead, a1qa leveraged existing disparity in time with the client and agreed with developers that they roll new features out in the evening, enabling a1qa to detect and address issues by the client’s morning, ensuring quicker fixes.
- Improved defect management workflows
The process of handling defects was poorly structured. One ticket contained information about up to twenty defects, and data on fixes was updated inconsistently. a1qa proposed adopting a “one defect per ticket” approach, which eased resolving issues and communicating progress.
- Set up Jira for project and defect tracking
a1qa offered to switch to Jira as it provides good issue-tracking capabilities, allows extensive customization of workflows, has a range of built-in reports, includes time-tracking features, and can be integrated with various development tools. a1qa customized Jira to fit the project’s specifics and created usage guidelines for the team.
- Enhanced release branching strategy
a1qa assigned one DevOps engineer to set up management of Git branches and ensure smooth transitions between the environments. This helped accelerate release cycles, improve traceability of code changes, and reduce merge conflicts.
- Established coherent communication with the client
To effectively perform daily activities regardless of time difference, QA engineers set up a communication framework and adjusted their schedules. a1qa used crossover time to address questions during daily meetings with the client and developers. a1qa offered to work overtime to support critical releases and validate new functionality after software rollout without waiting until morning.
Furthermore, the team conducted software testing activities. After security testing ordered by the client, specialists detected critical issues impeding correct software operation and offered functional testing. After a small trial period, the client was impressed with results and asked for a scaling of services, which included:
To prevent security loopholes and safeguard confidential user information, a1qa conducted security testing activities in line with OWASP. QA engineers searched for sensitive information in Git repositories, performed static analyses of code, and ran authentication, authorization, input validation, business logic, session management testing. They helped define software security level and improve it based on provided recommendations.
To verify every software feature and prevent issues in the production environment, QA engineers performed a number of activities.
They created test documentation to ensure consistent QA practices and necessary coverage. To determine if a new software build was ready for further QA activities, they conducted smoke testing. Each time new functionality was to be rolled out, experts ran new feature tests based on AT coverage. Regression testing before each release helped check that new features didn’t negatively influence the correct operation of other functionality. a1qa’s QA team validated defects to confirm that all software issues were fixed by the developers.
Moreover, a1qa wrote test cases for another client’s vendor responsible for automated testing that they leveraged as a basis for scripts.
On top of that, the software was integrated with Salesforce — new submitted applications were sent there for processing, which involved creation of new users, accounts, and other entities. To ensure high quality of such integration and prevent data losses, a1qa offered to test it as well. The client enjoyed testing results and asked to dedicate one more QA engineer to verify Salesforce itself.
The software wasn’t used by thousands of simultaneous users, so there was no need to run server-side tests. However, a1qa saw that application pages were loading slowly, which could spoil UX. QA engineers offered to conduct client-side performance verifications. They helped detect heavy-weight elements on the pages and optimize their loading time.
- Business analysis
The QA team faced a pivotal issue — software requirements were vague or missed. Everyone had to spend time figuring out what they should do in each ticket, and project workflows lacked consistency.
a1qa dedicated a business analyst who established continuous interaction with a product manager to get requirements for each feature and document them. This helped ensure more effective development and QA processes and alignment with business goals.
Technologies & tools
- Jira
- Confluence
- TestRail
- Postman
- DevTools
- Firebase
Results
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Created solid quality control to facilitate timely rollout of stable software features that don’t require post-release expensive and long defect fixing.
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Ensured high IT product’s quality due to improving work with requirements and running tests focused on preventing major and critical issues in the production environment.
In numbers
2.5
years of project duration
10
QA experts involved at peak times
250
user stories developed by a1qa’s business analysts
4,000+
software defects detected