| IEEE standards are most accepted in the software | | | | and implement the test cases. |
| testing industry. However, it is not mandatory that all | | | | During the testing phase all the activities that occur are |
| software testing processes have to follow the | | | | documented. There are various reasons why clear |
| standard. Software testing has many different phases | | | | documentation is required during testing. It helps the |
| but we cover the test planning, test specification and | | | | development team to understand the bugs and fix |
| test reporting phase in this article. | | | | them quickly. Incase there is a change in the testing |
| Test plan is the most important phase in the software | | | | team it will help the new team members to quickly |
| testing process. It sets the process rolling and | | | | understand the process and help in a quick transition. |
| describes the scope of the testing assignment, the | | | | The overall summary report of the testing process |
| approach methodology, the resource requirement for | | | | helps the entire project team to understand the initial |
| testing and the project plan or time schedule. The test | | | | flaws in design and development and ensure that the |
| plan outlines the test items, system features testing or | | | | same errors are not repeated again. There are four |
| checking out the functionality of the system, the testing | | | | types of testing documents. The transmittal report |
| tasks, responsibility matrix and the risks associated | | | | which specifies the testing events being transmitted |
| with the process. The testing task is achieved by | | | | from the development team to the testing team, the |
| testing different types of test data. The steps that are | | | | test log which is a very important document and used |
| followed in system testing are program testing, string | | | | to document the events that happened during |
| testing, system testing, system documentation and | | | | execution, test incident report which has a list of testing |
| user acceptance testing. I will discuss about each of | | | | events that requires further investigation and the test |
| these in my next article "Software System Testing". | | | | summary report which summarizes the overall testing |
| Test specification document helps in refining the test | | | | activities. |
| approach that has been planned for executing the test | | | | Many software testing companies follow the IEEE |
| plan. It identifies the test cases, procedures and the | | | | standard of software testing when executing their |
| pass/fail criteria for the assignment. The test case | | | | testing projects. Software application development |
| specification document outlines the actual values | | | | companies may have their own testing templates |
| required as input parameters in the testing process | | | | which they use for their testing requirements. |
| and the expected outputs of the testing results. It also | | | | Outsourcing the testing requirements to a third party |
| identifies the various constraints related to the test | | | | vendor helps in improving the quality of the software |
| case. It is important to note that test cases are | | | | to the great extent. Also an unbiased view helps to |
| re-usable components and one test case can be used | | | | find out the many different loopholes that are existent |
| in various test designs. The test procedure outlines all | | | | in the software system. |
| the processes that are required to test the system | | | | |