Navantis
Navantis boosts efficiency and productivity of QA team with Visual Studio Team System
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Company Overview
Counting some of North America’s largest organizations among its clients, including Microsoft, CIBC and Honda, Navantis has forged a reputation as a premier provider of enterprise IT services. The Toronto-based company and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, founded in 1998 specializes in the development and integration of portal, communication and collaboration, content management and business intelligence solutions.
Business Challenge
Success at Navantis is driven by the quality of its solutions, and its team of developers, architects and testers are responsible for building reliable, mission-critical software. This means quality assurance is paramount - solutions must be delivered free of bugs and meet pre-determined performance specifications. To accomplish this, the quality assurance (QA) team needs to work together in order to spot bugs and address performance issues in a timely fashion. Efficiency is equally important. To keep costs as low as possible, backtracking must be minimized, meaning everyone on the test team needs clear and easy insight into each other’s work items.
Although the Navantis applications development group followed the Microsoft Solutions Framework development methodology, it lacked a comprehensive tool set to support the QA process. Instead, it leveraged a mix of Visual Studio® 2003 development system, Microsoft Excel® spreadsheet software documents and email to track projects, report changes and update the team. Navantis wanted to simplify this process using a standard platform and set of processes to maximize collaboration and make it easier for testers to work together.
“Our testers want to come in each morning and can get a view on the projects they are working on – this would help them work more efficiently,” says Raif Murray, Quality Assurance, Network Services Manager, Navantis.
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Solution
Navantis conducted an analysis of potential solutions, including LoadRunner from HP Mercury. “While many of these tools are well-established in the market, they also went well beyond what we were willing to spend. We needed an affordable way for us to adopt a solid performance testing solution without incurring a major cost,” says Murray.
Given its commitment to the Microsoft .NET platform, Navantis next looked at Microsoft Visual Studio® Team System 2005, and was immediately impressed. Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), an integrated suite that includes tools, processes, and guidance designed to help all members of a development team improve their skills and work effectively together.
“With the per-CPU licensing model available with Visual Studio Team System, it was clear we could equip every member of the QA team with the software,” adds Murray.
Ultimately, Navantis made the decision to follow the application lifecycle management (ALM) strategy enabled and supported by VSTS, focusing on two key tools:
| • | Visual Studio Team System 2005 Test, which provides a comprehensive suite of testing tools for Web applications and services that are integrated into the Visual Studio environment. These testing tools enable testers to author, execute, and manage tests and related work items—all from within Visual Studio. |
| • | Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Load Agent, which generates additional test loads for Web application load testing. |
Navantis also took advantage of Team Foundation Server (TFS), the collaboration server at the hub of the VSTS system. Designed to help everyone on the development team work more effectively, it combines project management, work item tracking, version control, reporting and business intelligence, and build management in a unified server. Its close integration with the Microsoft Office system helps make exporting files to any team member easy.
One element that set VSTS apart from its competitors was its flexibility, according to Navantis. “Visual Studio Team System may be young in terms of its market presence, but its open architecture allows us to easily customize process templates – and that’s not necessarily true of other solutions on the market,” says Murray.
By integrating VSTS and TFS with TestComplete, Microsoft-based automated testing software from AutomatedQA, Navantis now has a complete and standardized QA platform that enables testers to quickly and easily see the status of projects and work more efficiently.
Business Benefits
By integrating VSTS and TFS with TestComplete, Microsoft-based automated testing software from AutomatedQA, Navantis now has a complete and standardized QA platform that enables testers to quickly and easily see the status of projects and work more efficiently.
Enhanced testing scenarios
Taking advantage of VSTS and TFS helps Navantis create more comprehensive test validation rules, and bind to additional data sources for more accurate, real-world application and Web site evaluation. For example, Navantis recently generated 20,000 users in a scenario in order to test performance of key customer Web sites, part of a series of data-driven Web tests.
“Testing is also much more flexible. If we build a load test to fulfill a certain scenario, it’s quite easy to adjust that scenario as needed. This kind of flexibility makes it easier for us to respond to changing test requirements and continue to meet the highest quality expectations,” says Murray.
Improved productivity, predictability
VSTS and TFS have also provided entirely new levels of visibility into ongoing test projects at Navantis. With the click of a button, testers can immediately get the latest status on bug counts and fixes, team workloads and schedules, and project updates. This has made project reporting at Navantis much faster and more efficient.
“Using VSTS, I don’t even have to leave my office to get key updates. The open nature of the solution allows us to easily create custom reports that suit our needs. Every bit of investment we put into TFS has come back in just a few months because of this streamlined reporting process,” says Murray.
Taking advantage of TFS also helps the 26 core Navantis testing team members plus an additional eight people in network services department work together more effectively. Colleagues can easily pick up where another left off by accessing detailed reports and status updates. This ensures that all testers, regardless of where and when they work, are completely in the loop on the progress of any given assignment.
Building best practices
With a standardized testing process and technology in place, Navantis is now able to phase in the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) process improvement approach to allow for complete collaboration not just between QA team members, but between QA and the core Navantis development team.
“This helps us further our commitment to constantly adopt industry best practices, and ensure that we deliver quality software,” adds Murray.
Access to future innovation
Navantis is already looking forward to implementing “Rosario”, the code name for Visual Studio Team System 2008 and taking advantage of even more advanced Web testing features.
“To say we’re excited about Rosario is an understatement. The integration with Microsoft Project, full traceability and addition of even more comprehensive dashboards and metrics for testers will make our life even easier,” adds Murray.
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 is the world’s most popular development environment for designing, developing, and testing next-generation Windows®-based solutions and Web applications and services. By improving the development experience for Windows, the Web, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office, Visual Studio 2005 helps organizations deliver a variety of solutions more productively than ever before. Visual Studio Team System expands the product line with new software tools that enable greater communication and collaboration throughout the development life cycle. With Visual Studio 2005, businesses can deliver modern service-oriented solutions more efficiently.
For more information about Visual Studio 2005, go to: msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com
For more information about Navantis products and services, call (416) 583-4940 or visit the Web site at: www.navantis.com
