Today, SaaS are being developed faster than ever thanks to ever changing needs of the market as well as the Agile, DevOps, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Integration models. These approaches to software development allow organizations to release their product earlier and add new feature or functionalities periodically through updates. Given the fact that many SaaS are becoming more complex as they embrace the cloud, API’s, microservices, and more, there is greater room for the development of bugs as a result.
The faster development periods that push these organizations to update their SaaS solutions every week or month produce greater risks of launching an update that can produce unintentional bugs that negatively affect functions and the user experience. When this happens, it can create significant problems for businesses that provide and use SaaS solutions. As a consequence, continuous testing is vital to SaaS.
What is Continuous Testing?
Continuous testing is the execution of automated tests that occurs while a product is being developed. These tests occur as soon as a functionality is capable of being tested in a stable environment. Overall, Continuous testing provides a risk assessment of the product using data from the automated tests to determine the if a product meets the necessary conditions or requirements needed to be released.
The Benefits
There are several benefits to incorporating continuous testing into SaaS development projects. In general, continuous testing expands automated testing by enhancing risk assessment, broadening test coverage, and by accelerating test execution.
While automated tests can uncover bugs early in the development cycle, it is continuous testing that provides a risk assessment that is used to determine if an update should be launched. This helps organizations avoid the embarrassment and damage that comes from launching updates that contain major bugs that block functions and disrupt the use of the software. In the end, this will allow all organizations to improve the reliability and quality of their software.
Reliability and quality are vital for B2B SaaS solutions that companies rely to operate. Unreliable service or a mediocre product is more than enough reason for an organization's customers to seek out a new software solution to better serve their needs. Continuous testing avoids this by ensuring broader tests that increase their coverage to prevent new updates from causing unintentional changes to the user experience. By delivering a consistent and quality software tool, users will be less likely to jump ship in search of an alternative solution.
Continuous testing also requires organizations to have at least 85% of their QA tests automated. As a result, this helps organizations accelerate the execution of QA tests while also making it easier for uncover bugs earlier. This is possible as continuous testing requires testing to take place alongside the development process as soon as it possible to test functionalities in a stable environment. Fixing bugs after a software solution has been built is much harder, more time consuming, and more expensive. Having the ability to fix bugs sooner and quicker will help ensure deadlines are met with updates being launched on time.
Conclusion
Continuous testing is a vital aspect of SaaS development. With the need to develop SaaS quickly and provide updates regularly, QA testing can be become difficult to manage. Nonetheless, continuous testing is vital to ensuring a quality product that protects both product and organization through risk assessment, broader test coverage, and faster test execution. This allows organizations to not only control for defects but ensure each launch adds to the value of the product and organization itself.
With the ability to automate tests, integrate on-site testers into your team, and provide key test analysis, StarDust has the tools, resources, and experience needed in today’s SaaS QA needs. Contact StarDust today to learn more about the ways in which continuous testing can bring additional value to your organization.
