Software Quality Assurance maintenance is a crucial part of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) that defines and measures the adequacy of the software process. A properly implemented QA process reduces the number of defects in releases, reduces time-to-market, enhances customer satisfaction, and lowers the cost to maintain the software application. Sometimes due to time or budget concerns, organizations do not include proper software quality assurance maintenance as part of the SDLC or just do minor, simple testing before a software rollout. When this is not implemented correctly, the overall quality of the application can suffer greatly, leading to end-user dissatisfaction and frustration.
The quality assurance team from Sonatafy is ready to provide full-time QA engineers to contribute to your project’s quality and success. Our quality assurance software maintenance team testers are skilled, talented, and detailed. We can quickly staff your QA needs from manual testers to automated testing engineers that will help you build a battery of tests to verify your software is shipping with minimal to no risk.
A proper software quality assurance process should correspond with a range of requirements to ensure the final rollout of a product is of high quality and virtually bug-free. The following are some important quality assurance maintenance factors:
Performance — The capacity to perform transactions under a specified workload with the adequate response time
Extensibility — The ability to add functions to the existing system without damaging it
Usability — A simple and clear interface
Security — The ability to protect personal data via authorization and authentication techniques
Common QA & Maintenance Technologies we use include:
Staff Augmentation
Extend your team with staff augmentation. Our professionals work to supplement your current staff, complete any particular projects, and meet critical deadlines. Augment your department with our QA Automation maintenance experts to help assist you in your long-term success.
Our teams are well versed in regression, usability, functional, pixel-perfect manual, and automated testing. Are you having a hard time making sure all tests are run and pass? Call us today to see how we can help you save money, increase your test coverage, and keep your customers happy.
We have been working with DevOps and Back-End developers with extensive expertise with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Whether focused on Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, Serverless and Microservices architectures, or Hybrid Cloud applications, Sonatafy can source and vet experienced developers to help extend your teams output.
Common Cloud Platforms and Technologies we use include:
Communication and Business Process Tools
Our engineers will use your tooling and communication applications. Whether you are a Jira, Confluence, Slack shop, or you use Microsoft Teams, our team will adapt. We support all versioning systems from Git to Bitbucket, and all of our engineers will be able to attend all meetings with clear sound and video capabilities.
Common tools we use include:
Quality Assurance Testing, Software, and Automation: An FAQ Guide
Quality assurance software (QA) is a method of fixing software defects and software issues before the product reaches the customer. It’s a subspecialty of software quality maintenance management, which is all about achieving consistently good software products and software services. Quality assurance maintenance software testing provides a structured environment for measuring and improving processes related to this software objective, but there’s more to QA than simply fixing problems and getting the software to clients and customers. It has several layers to it, including building collaborative maintenance relationships, which is why businesses need to understand how important this process is to their software projects.
What are the levels of quality assurance or assurance software quality?
As a way of knowing whether you are dealing with a project that is performing as expected or relies more on hope, there are five levels of software QA that indicate readiness. The first level is the draft or experimental stage, where mistakes and software defects are expected. At the second level, the project has basic software functionality, but there’s no record that the required functions work and at the third level there’s a key functionality list with software issue tracking. Production-level software testing occurs at the fourth level, and defects found by the customer have serious revenue consequences. When things reach the fifth level, failure is not an option. Clean-ups involve implementing a third-party auditor. At the final level, the product is put through severe load and stress software tests, because at this point, failure costs probably exceed the cost of the software project or even the company.
Is there a difference between quality control (QC) and QA?
Software Quality control maintenance is about monitoring the quality of the software production process. Software Quality assurance is about verifying the software test requirements against actual conditions and sharing those software results with management. In software manufacturing, QA and QC are separate disciplines with similar software goals, and both fall under the methodology of Total Quality Management (TQM).
What are Software Quality Assurance (SQA) activities?
QA, a subset of QA, is a set of procedures, standards, and processes that run concurrently with the software development cycle to improve the development process so that problems don’t become crippling issues. Activities include having an SQA management plan that states how you will carry out those steps and checkpoints or milestones to evaluate software project performance. With SQA, it’s all about creating reliable, high-quality commercial maintenance software products that save time and increase market share.
What is QA maintenance?
Within the QA maintenance process, the software product is continuously checked against industry requirements and quality standards. For many, that means aiming for zero defects, starting from the beginning stages and not just relying on detectors during post-production.
What are some benefits of QA?
QA streamlines software production, creating a leaner organization that produces high-quality software. Other benefits include improved processes and systems that focus on the principles of dependability and integrity. It also fosters a culture of improvement and employee engagement.
What are the responsibilities of QA?
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent efforts” – John Ruskin
Along with meeting deadlines, QA responsibilities include collaborating and brainstorming to solve software problems, writing production plans, and performing the kinds of stress tests that could reveal defects and deficiencies at all layers. It’s all about ensuring that the products meet company or client standards.
Why is proper maintenance important in quality assurance?
Maintaining resources is all about optimizing the cost of time to maximize efficiency. When resources are mismanaged, the trust is compromised, leading to instability and breakdown. Halting software production is a costly concept for most companies. Preventive maintenance serves to lessen this type of failure, which can cripple companies, and keeps proper records to ensure rule and regulation compliance.
What is quality assurance automation?
QA automation maintenance involves having separate software run tests on the product being developed. It’s a way to reduce repetition and of performing more advanced testing. Automated maintenance quality assurance testing is designed for environments where the software runs through its lifecycle multiple times a day. This type of continuous integration is more robust than the traditional development models that worked in stages. Automation is also highly useful in detecting more serious bugs and security vulnerabilities, which can be costly in the long run.
How does QA automated testing work?
The two main ways to execute QA automation are through graphic user interface (GUI) testing and API testing, GUI testing is all about the user experience. This environment replicates the keystrokes and clicks the user would take and checks for irregularities. API testing takes a deeper look at the message layer with a particular focus on end-to-end transactions and their response times. You can even simulate this behavior of individual components in a virtual environment instead of executing a live test.
Is there a role for manual testing in software development?
“First do it, then do it right, then do it better.” Addy Osmani
While automating software maintenance tests is a normal procedure, there are times when humans are needed, particularly when testing for user experience. They need to evaluate usability as well as language and localization features, which aren’t tasks that can be automated. During automated testing, manual testers are invaluable in handling anomalies that automation can’t quite solve. Manual testing expands the testing coverage, making it more comprehensive.
What are the types of manual testing?
There are three types of manual software testing:
Black Box: During this process, manual testers work without seeing the internal code structure. Their job is to evaluate if the software aligns with the specifications, so they only worry about inputs and outputs.
White Box: This is the opposite of black-box testing where the internal design and structure are fully visible to manual testers. White box testers focus on verifying flow, improving usability, and strengthening security.
Exploratory: This type of testing starts with brainstorming all possible test cases and executing them. This is a very dynamic process that requires creativity, curiosity, and investigation, giving testers more freedom to put the product through its paces.
What are the different roles within QA?
Depending on the size and complexity of the project, you may see several layers of various roles and responsibilities. Key roles include
QA Engineer
A QA maintenance engineer is adept at detecting errors and preventing defects. They are specialists who do their part to improve the development process. Within this role, there are two subspecialties. The manual QA engineer uses observations to detect bugs in the system under the guidance of a test plan. They can write scripts, detect bugs, and communicate with other departments. On top of the basic knowledge of software testing, they need to be user-oriented and able to adapt quickly to the project requirements. Automated QA maintenance engineers have more advanced skillsets than manual QA specialists. They design, build, and run automated testing solutions, so they are proficient in languages such as Python, Java, and PHP. They know how to examine bug reports and prioritize tests.
Test Analyst
Also known as QA analysts, they focus on assessing the functionality of the product, thoroughly documenting the bugs, and sending the information back to the development team. They are good at studying and curating the QA’s work as well as prioritizing tasks and clarifying testing requirements. QA analysts are used to working with a lot of data and know how to review and write technical documentation. They are proficient in project management systems and tools.
Test Architect
Software Test Architects find ways to improve testing and come up with optimizations. They ensure that the practical and business requirements work efficiently. Test architects need to know QA practices and scripting languages in addition to having the ability to design a test strategy for complex systems.
Test Manager
These QA managers are responsible for the analyst, architect, and QA engineers by tracking everyone’s performance and preparing the test strategy and task list for each project. They calculate the budget and estimates. They need basic knowledge of web design and scripting. They are experienced team managers and know how to create test documentation and writing test cases on top of their expert knowledge in the theoretical and practical sides of various testing methodologies.
QA Team Lead
The software QA Lead is the supervisor in charge of hiring staff, clarifying requirements, and ensuring software team productivity by setting metrics. To be the lead, they have excellent knowledge of all of the other roles, including software application protocols, software testing planning, and software documentation as well as principles of different maintenancesoftware testing types.
What standard types of quality assurance software tools are available?
Numerous organizations use seven standard QA tools to manage their processes:
Pareto Chart: A Pareto Chart divides data into groups and shows which segments are significant.
Cause-Effect Diagram: Also known as a fishbone diagram, cause-effect diagrams use brainstorming to vet causes and ideas behind a problem. This method identifies the root of a problem with the help of horizontal and vertical lines.
Scatter Diagram: Scatter diagrams are similar to cause-effect graphs, because they show positive or negative relationships between variables. Points that fall together along a line indicate correlation.
Histogram: More than a bar chart, a histogram is about understanding frequency distributions with the help of segmentations called bins. For quality assurance, histograms can show how many defects occur in a specific part of the program.
Flowchart: When teams want to understand how events flow within the system, flowcharts show the different changes. It can also be used to streamline workflows in a step-by-step method.
Check Sheet: The check sheet is a tally of quantitative information, such as questions or problems. It can be used for many purposes including data analysis or for listing important milestones or checkpoints.
Control Chart: When looking to see how things change over time, control charts show how the data changes when compared to control and provides QAs a picture of stability.
Several software vendors are available to use for maintenance quality assurance, and many of them have variations of these tools.
What is the relationship between QA and project development?
“Quality is the ally of schedule and cost, not their adversary. If we have to sacrifice quality to meet schedule, it’s because we are doing the job wrong from the very beginning.” – James A. Ward
The nature of quality assurance is meeting or exceeding client requirements by avoiding reworks which increases project budgets. The concept of quality management is a tenet of project development, because meeting deadlines, assessing team progress, and eliminating project defects are considered best practices all around.
What is the relationship between staff augmentation and quality assurance?
When it comes to software staff augmentation in quality assurance, there are quite a few benefits companies experience in addition to optimizing their processes. The desire for development executives to focus on improving the quality they offer in the marketplace helps them to stand apart from their competition. Poor software quality costs U.S. organizations close to $3 trillion and some of that is due to avoidable errors. QA staff augmentation reduces the coding error ratios and the chances that the project will be canceled or succumb to hacking in many cases. Additionally, having more staff positively affects user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. Having the staff incorporate UX/UI throughout the entire process reminds developers and engineers to keep the customer in mind at every stage. Incorporating testing specialists with a more customer-centric focus is the next best thing to have customer feedback throughout the project.
Hiring good quality assurance engineers can be nerve-wracking for any business owner. While it’s great to have solid interview questions, it’s more important to understand the roles and responsibilities of the various roles. It’s a good idea to have discussions about which tools engineers use and why, so you can get a feel for their philosophy and the direction they take during projects.
Competition is rising on both sides, making finding that perfect match even more crucial. Sonatafy matches your project scope to the best talent. Our nearshore software development professionals work in the same time zones as clients and have both the necessary cultural experience and English proficiency to complement your team. Contact us to meet our team and start the conversation.
