Software applications are not built to perform one task at a time. You already know how today’s fast-paced world needs those applications to perform multiple tasks in a sequence to complete large objectives.
Now, such a sequence of tasks is called workflow which is nothing but a step-by-step process to achieve a greater goal. A complex application can have numerous workflows that together fulfill the purpose of the application.
Consisting of multiple complex steps makes the workflows highly vulnerable to bugs and malfunctions. That’s why it becomes highly important to thoroughly test the workflows for correctness. So, let’s dive into some in-depth information about “Workflow Testing”.
What Is Workflow Testing?
Workflow testing is the method of verifying that the workflows in your app are satisfying the business requirements and properly performing the tasks that they are expected to perform. Workflow is a series of tasks that must get executed in the planned sequence so that the final larger objective gets fulfilled.
As this form of testing involves testing multiple steps to ensure that each one of them functions properly at its respective stage, the importance of these tests has become extremely high. In these tests, the production environment is imitated into the testing stages and the application is tested from the viewpoint of end-users. That is the best way to ensure that the obtained results are matching with the expected results.
Importance of Workflow Testing
Well, workflow testing is one of the most important forms of software testing. It is also a modern type of functional testing that has huge contributions to the success of tech businesses. So, let’s check out its importance in detail.
- It provides you with an insight into the tasks, rules, procedures, stages, etc. assigned to the team members.
- It is capable of improving the efficacy of the testing process and streamlining the business workflow.
- It can verify the accuracy and effectiveness of the software workflow.
- It can improve the performance and security of the software being tested.
- It is capable of automating business processes and making them comprehensive with modern technologies and trends.
- Through workflow testing, the testing team becomes able to achieve the desired testing process or results, which also helps deliver client satisfaction.
- This process can also enhance the workflow of the business process.
- By performing workflow tests, you can check the business process and workflow of the software before deploying it to the production environment.
- Workflow testing also assists in business process management.
Features of Workflow Testing
To know workflow testing better, you need to know about its features. So, we have jotted them down.
- It is considered the best form of testing for any workflow-based software.
- It thoroughly checks the entire business process and software workflow before putting it into production.
- It depends on in-depth knowledge and understanding of the business process and software workflow.
- It involves integration testing and several other crucial components of the system.
- Only the persons who know the complete workflow and the objectives of automation can successfully become part of the workflow testing team.
Different Phases of Workflow Testing
Every complex process can achieve maximum efficiency only when it is performed in sequential phases. Similarly, workflow testing is also performed in four primary phases that we have jotted down below.
- Inception Phase: This is the phase where all the test planning is done and the prototypes are tested to get a clearer idea about which steps should be executed and how the test should be managed.
- Elaboration Phase: This phase is dedicated to the test team defining the baseline of the test architecture.
- Construction Phase: In this phase of workflow testing, the testing team minutely tests every stage which helps the testing team to identify discrepancies and bugs in the workflow or the system.
- Transition Phase: Here comes the final phase of workflow testing. While the testers mainly perform regression tests here, they also perform retests to verify the accuracy of the workflow and to validate that no unidentified or unattended bugs are left.
Workflow Testing Process
As users are always looking for more features and functionalities in software applications, the workflows in the apps are getting more complicated. That’s why to detect issues in the workflow quite earlier in the entire process, the following steps should be followed in the workflow testing.
- Analyzing Business Workflow: The business workflow is something that the application is built according to. So, to be recognized as a successful application, the app’s workflow must satisfy the business workflow. Hence, the first step in the testing process must be where the entire team analyzes the business workflow to plan the tests accordingly.
- Developing Test Cases: Once the testing team is done with understanding the business workflow, they proceed with creating tests in various ways such as using techniques like use cases, decision tables, etc.
- Verifying The Workflow: This is the stage where the testing team verifies the workflow with various user types such as end-users, clients, customers, etc.
- Executing The Tests: This might be called the most operational step in the whole workflow testing process. In this step, you can execute the positive tests by providing valid data and the negative tests by providing invalid data.
- Comparing The Results: This is the stage where the actually obtained results are compared with the expected results, and the defects are found and logged.
- Resolving The Issues and Deploying The App: This is the final stage where the entire team works together to fix the issues that are detected, and the efficiently working app is deployed.
Workflow Testing Strategy
Till now, you got to know how workflow testing is performed but, you must know what strategy works behind all the planning and working on the testing process. Hence, let’s take a look at the three most popular workflow testing strategies.
- Workflow Analysis: As we discussed previously, you cannot plan your tests for something if you don’t have a complete understanding of it. That’s why for planning, creating, and performing effective tests on an app’s workflow, you must analyze the application’s workflow which includes all the components that built the app. An effective way to perform that workflow analysis is minutely going through the client’s requirement document & the test data, and carefully estimating & understanding the production data.
- Workflow Designing: Workflow designing is a highly effective strategy that involves the testing team performing useful workflow tests based on the client’s idea, and the business needs (e.g. events, processes, etc.).
Another important aspect of this strategy is developing detailed test cases that are further verified and compared with the user-defined workflow. Also, in this strategy, testers develop various combinations of test data which are executed at the end of the testing process.
- Workflow Execution and Monitoring: This strategy involves high activity throughout the entire testing team because here, they have to run the developed test cases and discover the bugs by minutely looking at the results. Then the detected bugs are sent to the responsible individuals so that they can make plans and take action to solve them. Once the bugs are fixed, the workflows are tested again and everything is included in the detailed reports.
Workflow testing is a huge process and it normally involves the entire team but, the below-mentioned ones are the most important persons in this process. So, let’s check out some details about their roles and responsibilities.
- Test Engineer: As the name suggests, a test engineer is someone who is responsible for planning the tests, setting the goals, defining test procedures & test cases, and evaluating the results.
- Component Engineer: The component engineer generally has the duty of developing test components and automating test procedures.
- Integration Engineer: The integration engineer performs integration tests and reports the identified bugs.
- System Testers: A system engineer has the responsibility for performing system testing and reporting the identified bugs and errors.
Conclusion
As workflow testing means a thorough checking of the complete step-by-step process involved to perform any task, it holds supreme importance in the entire software testing process for any application. This article provides you with a detailed overview of this highly crucial form of testing. So, do consider going through it carefully and using the knowledge to efficiently perform workflow tests.
However, you must know how easy it is to set up and run workflow tests using Preflight. This highly advanced AI-based test automation tool allows you to develop the tests with just a few clicks and drag & drop actions. The best part is that performing effective tests using this tool does not require anyone to have coding skills. That means anyone from your entire business team can take an active part in the workflow testing as well as the complete software testing process irrespective of his/her coding knowledge.
To book a demo and get a glimpse of such an amazing testing experience, feel free to reach out to us anytime. For more information, you are also welcome to our website, and if you are a fan of tech articles, you will definitely love visiting our blog page.
