WAAT (Web Analytics Automation Testing Framework) is alive!!!

[UPDATE]  Check related post here (http://essenceoftesting.blogspot.com/2011/04/waat-web-analytics-automation-testing.html)

I am very happy to announce that the first release of WAAT is available for general use.

WAAT is hosted on github (https://github.com/anandbagmar/WAAT)

WAAT v1.3 can be used to test *almost any type of Web Analytic solution. Tested with Google Analytics and Omniture. This is platform dependent.

Binaries:

You can either get the code base from git@github.com:anandbagmar/WAAT.git, or, get the binaries available in the dist folder.

Documentation:

Documentation for using WAAT is available in various different formats:

> WAAT Readme.docx

> WAAT Readme.doc

> WAAT Readme.pdf

> WAAT Readme.html

These files are available in the docs folder.

The documentation is also part of the binary file downloads.

I am looking forward for your usage and comments to make this better and more usable.

WAAT release update

I am almost ready with my first public release of WAAT. Some finishing touches remaining which is causing the delay for this.

For those not aware, here is what WAAT is:
> WAAT stands for Web Analytics Automation Testing Framework
> Developed as a Java jar to be used in existing testing frameworks to do web analytics automation
> Phase 1: Implemented for Omniture using Omniture Debugger -> Status: Completed
> Phase 2: Can be used to test *almost any type of Web Analytic solution. Tested with Google Analytics and Omniture. This is platform dependent. -> Status: In progress. Documentation to be updated.
> Phase 3: Make WAAT available for Ruby / .Net testing frameworks. -> Status: To be started.

Look at my earlier post for more details on WAAT.

Interesting webinar coming up ... "Where Exploration and Automation meet: Leveraging..."

There is a very interesting and informative webinar on how to utilize automated functional testing within your organization.

This is scheduled for Thursday, April 21.

See this link for more information.

Agile QA Process

After doing testing on multiple Agile projects, I have come to realize certain aspects about the process and techniques that are common across projects. Some things I have learned along the way, some, by reflection on the mistakes / sub-optimal things that I did.

I have written and published my thoughts around the "Agile QA Process", more particularly what techniques can be used to test effectively in the Iterations. The pdf is available here for your reading. (http://www.slideshare.net/abagmar/agile-qa-process)

Note: A process is something that should be tweaked and customized based on the context you are in. The process mentioned in the document should be taken in the same light.

WAAT - Web Analytics Automation Testing Framework

[UPDATE]  See my post about how you can get WAAT here (http://essenceoftesting.blogspot.com/2011/04/waat-is-alive.html).

Problem statement:

On one of the projects that I worked on, I needed to test if Omniture reporting was done correctly.

The client relied a lot on Omniture reports to understand and determine the direction of their business. They have a bunch of Omniture tags reported for a lot of different actions on the site. Manual testing was the only way this functionality could be done verified. But given the huge number of tags, it was never possible to be sure that all tags were being reported correctly on a regular basis.

So I came up with a strategy to remove this pain-point.

Approach:

I created a framework in our existing automation framework to do Omniture testing. The intention of creating this framework was:

1. There is minimal impact on existing tests.

2. There should be no need to duplicate the tests just to do Omniture testing.

3. Should be easy to use (specify Omniture tags for various different actions, enable testing, etc.)

How it helped us?

1. We provided a huge and reliable safety net to the client and the development team by having Omniture testing automated.

2. Reduced the manual testing effort required for this type of testing, and instead got some bandwidth to focus on other areas.

Next Steps:

I am making this into a generic framework - a.k.a. WAAT - Web Analytics Automation Testing Framework to enable others doing Omniture testing to easily automate this functionality. This project will be hosted on github.

Phase 1 of this implementation will be for Omniture Debugger and input data provided in xml format. This framework will be available as a jar file.

Phase 2 also now complete includes support for any Web Analytic tool. I have tested this with Google Analytics as well as Omniture (NOT using Omniture Debugger). This uses a generic mechanism to capture packets from the network layer and processes them appropriately. Given this generic approach to work with any Web Analytic tool, the framework does become OS dependent.

Watch this space for more information (instructions, links to github, etc). Also, please do contact me with ideas / suggestions / comments about the same.