Software Quality & Security Testing

Quality is Our Middle Name

Why Test?

Testing applications prior to production is absolutely critical, whether it is for new development, a change or an enhancement.

  • Cost to correct post-production defects is much higher than pre-production.
  • Defects have a costly legal and/or material impact on state operations.
  • Defects erode citizen confidence.
  • IT applications are becoming more complex, which increases the need for careful and thorough testing.

“Next to requirements management, testing is the most overlooked, most under funded, most rushed, yet most critical aspect of the Application Development Lifecycle” ~ Gartner

Why Functional Test Automation?

Mainly to accomplish the goal to test software adequately, but also as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Automation increases the test coverage and reduces the need for manual testing. Manual testing is error prone and time consuming. Automation allows tests to run again and again, which gives us the confidence that the new work we added to the system did not break the code that used to work and also to make sure that the changes we introduced are working.

“Software defects cost the U.S. economy $59.5 billion annually.” ~ NIST

Benefits

Reduce Risk

Provide more comprehensive test coverage, which may not be possible manually due to time constraints or hard-pressed deadlines.

Reduce Time

Automated scripts run substantially faster than manual scripts and can be run unattended, 24/7, across multiple platforms, browsers and environments simultaneously, which reduces the overall time taken to complete testing cycles.

Improve Reliability

Once automated tests are developed, the tests will consistently perform the same operations for every run. This effectively eliminates human errors made by manual testers.

Reduce Cost

Re-using automation scripts that have been previously executed against other versions of the application removes the need to create new scripts for new versions.

Improve Quality

With automation, you can increase the depth and scope of testing possible for each release. Increased coverage will allow you to uncover bugs earlier.

“I continue to find (SQA staff) to be hard working, accommodating of the needs of the project and staff, and delightful to work with. I wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge her great work. We are at a critical point with the Crossroads project and it is very important to keep to our schedule. (SQA staff) helped us to do just that.” ~ Josephine Cialone, MS, RD; Head, Nutrition Services Branch, Division of Public Health

“(SQA staff) went above and beyond the call of duty … really done good work and gave us meaningful results testing our old vs. new database hosting platform for the IBIS project.” ~ Andy Whalen, Deputy CIO, NC Office of State Budget and Management

"The SQA team was instrumental in creating a defect tracking capability for the Southeast Consortium for Unemployment Benefits system. The SQA team worked very closely with DES staff to customize an HP ALM instance for our use, and has been a close partner throughout the past year of operation". ~ Ralph Graw, IT Manager / SCUBI Production Support, North Carolina Department of Commerce

Contact Us

For Information About SQA Testing Services

Email: tulasi.maddi@nc.gov

Phone: 919-754-6242

To Report an SQA Incident

Open a new service ticket in the DIT Service Portal.

Phone: 919-754-6000 or 800-722-3846

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