QA Automation for a leading SCM

Project summary Design and implementation QA Automation strategy for a leading vendor of software configuration management tools
Customer AccuRev is a leading provider of configuration management software and project automation solutions. Its largest customers include Intel, Sony Computer, Sun Microsystems, Siemens, and Nortel Networks. In 2008 AccuRev was listed by Gartner as leader of it Magic Quadrant for configuration management tools. By building "Configuration Management Best Practices" into its products, AccuRev delivers an enterprise-class solution which adapts to any project organization and development process.
Project geography USA
Project objective In 2001, AccuRev was preparing to release a major upgrade of their product. This new version included an integrated GUI in combination with a fully featured command-line interface. These new features represented a new level of complexity for AccuRev's Quality Assurance organization, especially in the areas of 3rd party integration, automation, and administration. AccuRev would need substantial new QA resources to provide thorough testing of their new version prior to release. However, for a start-up like AccuRev, cost control and product quality was critical. They needed to quickly bring in a competent QA team without significantly increasing their headcount.
Project highlights Focus on core business: “With ALG we've found a partner who gives us quality engineering services and a great value. Our product quality remains exceptional and we've been able to focus our expenses and headcount on critical areas of development and marketing. It's been a great relationship.” - Damon Poole, Chief Technical Officer
Knowledge transfer: When the time came to transfer QA automation harness to internal testing team, ALG and Accurev put together and executed a month-long transition plan with knowledge and test tools and asset transfer, technical guides, and Agile training . From there internal QA team was able to run verification of all existing functionality and enhance test harness to keep pace with product further development
Project description ALG started manual testing for complex features of Accurev along with a parallel effort to automate testing of the most commonly used functions. These tests were automated using Rational Robot and a variety of custom scripts. As new scripts and tests were developed, they were added to the suite of tests run automatically against every new build. Minor defects that might have gone unnoticed before were picked up right away, saving rework, reducing costs, and improving customer satisfaction. The tools of choice where Ration/IBM – First Rational Robot and then Rational Functional Tester.