mClinica hosts 2nd QE-360 meetup
mClinica Health Solutions Inc. hosted and sponsored QE-360’s 2nd meetup at the Manila office on March 12, 2019, which gathered over 70 participants. The event explored the differences between QA and QE, API Testing using Chakram and Mobile Automation using the Robot Framework.
Introductions
The event started with Jake expressing his gratitude for the Quality Assurance (QA) community.
Before, we just deployed our codes directly in production and waited for the end users to report a bug, but now, issues are being caught during development because we have QAs.
Being a developer for a couple of years without a QA made him realize how important it is to have a QA in software projects. Before, they just code and deploy directly in production and wait for the end-users to report a bug.
But now, issues are being handled during development, as the team meets for requirements analysis that will identify the pain points of the new features. He emphasized how a QA/QE should be strong enough to say NO to a release if there are major bugs, and be the gatekeeper of their respective projects.
Then followed Michelle, head of QE-360, talking about what the organization is and their plans for 2019. She announced that questions during presentations are encouraged and it should be done to promote discussion.
In summary, she pointed out how every QA should embrace the evolving world of testing that includes self-development, especially in terms of automation. It is everyone’s responsibility to keep up with technology so that manual tasks will be lessened by automating repetitive tasks — such as regression testing — and give way to more exploratory testing to better find hidden bugs from legacy features.
Quality Engineer (QE) is the new Quality Assurance
— Michelle Lagare
QE-360’s 2nd meetup tackled the following topics:
- Differences of QA and QE by Jerry Durant
- API Testing using Chakram by John Ian Biligan
- Mobile Testing Automation in Robot Framework by Francis Awisan
Differences between QA and QE
The first talk came from Jerry Durant. “The dinosaurs are my friend,” he said as he spoke about the history of Quality Assurance starting from the 80s. He also talked about good practices, frameworks, and having a good mindset about testing.
Testing must be systematic, it must have analysis and there must be balance.
Among his main points were the following:
- Software development is 80% building and 20% execution
- Be adaptable, you can’t do my way or the highway
- Lack of understanding causes misunderstanding
API Testing using Chakram
The second talk was from John Ian, where he discussed Chakram, an API Testing framework. He explained the following:
- What an API is and some free tools we can use
- Quality Engineering through automation
John Ian proceeded with his demonstration of Chakram using Chai and Mocha. He explained that the framework allows Quality Engineers to easily write clear and thorough test scripts, and how it can be integrated into the software development process to easily test endpoints once a change is made.
Mobile Testing Automation in Robot Framework
The last talk was from Francis, he started with an introduction of Robot Framework, a generic open-source automation framework for acceptance testing. He then continued the discussion with reasons why we should use Robot Framework for mobile test automation. Among these reasons were the following:
- Robot framework is a cross-platform automation tool which means that it works on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.
- It is also keyword-driven which means that it is human readable.
- It also allows open source libraries that can be used to extend its functionalities from UI testing to database and API validations.
He concluded his presentation with a live demo of the Robot Framework showing which tools are required for mobile test automation.
Open Space
At this time, the participants talked about the issues they face while they work.
The common struggle is how to transition from manual to automation since the business sometimes has a limited perspective of the long-run benefits. Others who experienced the same scenario agreed that it will take a lot of time and effort to create a framework because the daily deliverables do not give room for automation. Some are lucky enough to get all the support they needed from their organization. Another common issue is how to choose a tool because there’s a lot of things to consider such as the company’s requirement, budget, usability, flexibility, etc. Some of them talked about improving the processes their team had. A few started talking about what frameworks each of them are using. These discussions lasted for approximately an hour.
Are you looking for a host for your meetup? Contact me at this email and maybe we can host you at mClinica’s office.
Looking for a career opportunity? Our company is still hiring for Developers and QA at our office in Taguig, Philippines. View more of our vacant positions here. Referrals are appreciated!
