SaaS, or software as a service, is becoming a valuable resource. Because of reduced cost, quick deployment, and increased availability, SaaS products are an ideal choice for many organizations and businesses.
Having a product that meets the standards and expectations is crucial to the success of a SaaS company. As SaaS companies are feeling the strain to produce new applications and upgrades, and new features rapidly, there is the risk for quality testing to slip through the cracks.
A SaaS company must prove that its product is exceptional and ready to handle whatever is demanded of it; bugs must be worked out, gaps found, and strengths tested. To deliver quality software as a service, a company should employ a SaaS testing methodology to provide a quality product quickly to a very competitive market.
What is SaaS Testing?
SaaS testing is the methodology and process to certify the software functions as designed. The applications must be thoroughly tested to ensure data security, application integrity, performance, compatibility, and scalability (guru99).
Because SaaS operates in a cloud-based environment, different measurements and tests are used compared to traditional software products. There is no need for case studies, client/server installations, or version support, to name a few.
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Key Concerns
Ultimately the goal is to produce a competitive application that is user forward. Ensuring a quality product delivers to the customer a product that meets their needs.
Security, return on investment, platform suitability, compliance, and integration are key factors that SaaS testing should have at the forefront of its process.
Performance: is imperative to SaaS success. With SaaS performance testing, each aspect of the module needs to be tested through rigorous testing meant to explore every part of the application. By stressing the system with tests, it can be determined what the maximum performances for the application are and find the weaknesses that come with unsteady loads.
Availability: is ensuring that the application is available at all times for the consumer. Though it is a cloud-based and internet-dependent application, the service should not experience downtimes.
Security: is vital for SaaS consumers. Testing must ensure that there are no gaps in the security that could lead to threats to consumers’ data. For consumers that must maintain government regulations for compliance, security concerns can be a deal-breaker for whether they chose the SaaS product or not. Proper and rigid security testing must be carried out to ensure there are no threats to data.
Interoperability: ensures that the product functions across different environments and platforms. It also ensures that users from a variety of backgrounds can access and utilize the service. SaaS is often appealing to companies with small IT departments or are looking to cut down on IT demands. Making sure that the SaaS product is user-friendly will add to its appeal to customers.
Stress and Load: determine how functional the application is at max capacity. Testers also evaluate how the application responds and how it gives results. By putting the application through strenuous application testing, the limitations and responses of the application, a SaaS company will know the maximum abilities of the SaaS product.
Integration and API Testing: lies in how well third-party developers can build their applications with the product tested and how they can add value to the product. Testing for security, function, and performance is critical to make the user successful.
Business Workflow: must work a software as a service, a company should employ a SaaS testing methodology to provide a quality product quickly to a very competitive market.
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Testing Approaches for SaaS Products
Because these SaaS products need to be delivered to the market quickly and often rapidly, automation of SaaS testing methodology can speed up the application testing (Apprenda). There are several approaches to this process that reduce testing efforts while maintaining rigorous testing. Automation also reduces the time-to-market while maintaining accurate results.
- Record and play: offer convenience, low implementation cost, and is easy to deploy. However, flexibility is limited, and if manual intervention is required, it could become a costly endeavor.
- Data-Driven: ideal when large amounts of data are to be tested under various combinations.
- Keyword-Driven: is suitable for a variety of data sets and projects of various duration. However, implementation cost is high.
- Hybrid Keyword: long-term test automation strategy that is long-term, flexible with checkpoints, and can easily integrate external objects. Implementation costs are high and may not be the right choice for short-term and straightforward projects.
Quality Assurance Plan
Regardless of how effective and efficient testing is, a well-designed quality assurance plan (QAP) is necessary. A QAP will define the criteria, parameters, and processes that verify the testing data meets quality objections. A good quality assurance plan should include:
- Identify quality and scope of the project
- Defined quality criteria and objections
- Defined parameters of elements tested
- Depth of testing for each SaaS component
- Process for handling failed automation testing
- Method for managing test cases
- Methods for feedback
- Identification of resources for the various tasks performed
- Process of handling corrections and disputes
The goal and motivation of a SaaS product company is to release a customer-focused quality product as quickly and efficiently as possible. Putting through the SaaS product through the proper SaaS application testing will bring confidence and validity to the company and product. Ensuring that the product has undergone adequate testing ensures the customer experience meets and exceeds their expectations, creating loyalty between company and customer.
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References:
- guru99.com/cloud-testing-tutorial-with-saas-testing-primer.htm
- apprenda.com/library/software-on-demand/saas-testing-methodology-development-process/l