How to Make Manual Testing More Efficient Using Micro Focus Sprinter

HP Quality Center / ALM is now changed to Micro Focus Quality Center / ALM but still, the content on the page is valid on the new Micro Focus domain and tools as well

Today in this era of Automation Testing, almost in every QA testing departments’ automation is the first preference. But there are few QA departments where 70-80% of testing is carried out manually. Indeed, there are cases where quality is completely determined manually as no automation is carried out there.

One of the crucial reasons for companies to continue with the manual test is the inability of automation tools to cope with the changes that some application faces on regular basis. In certain cases, the only option left with QA is of manual testing.

Manual Testing using HP Sprinter

Manual testing, the oldest form of testing, can be very laborious at times as it requires the tester to be very patient, creative, innovative, open-minded, skillful. The manual tester should have out of box thinking and always think them to be in customer’s shoes while testing the application.

Exploratory testing, as a part of manual testing, is the area where manual testers can analyze their capability to think out of the box.

In case of thorough testing of the application, manual testing plays a crucial role. During the initial development phase, smartness is to test the initial application developed manually rather than wasting time in writing test scripts.

While performing a manual test for any web application, desktop application or say mobile application, a manual test engineer is said to be working more effectively when tester can identify many critical, severe errors in the application within a short period of time.

Such skill to think out of the box is very important as often there is a time limit for every software development projects and within the limited time period, it is necessary to ensure the quality of the product/ application. “Time is Money

Often it is seen that we run for different tools to increase the test efficiency of an automated scripts. There are many tools available also to support almost every scenario but the reality is there are still many cases where some test cases can’t or say should not be automated. Reality is, with Automation testing, many a times testers keep on struggling between test scripts, test data, different apps to analyze test reports, tracking defects, etc resulting or creating lots of opportunities for mistakes like entering wrong test data, missing some steps in a test script, etc.

Much has been done to increase the efficiency of Automation Testing but in contrast, little has been done to improve the effectiveness of Manual Testing.

Let us talk about few factors which can be considered for making manual test engineer’s work more productive and manual testing more effective.

Factors Making Manual Testing More Productive:

  • A thorough review of Requirement document, understanding each implementation and modification is first and the foremost requirement/necessity before proceeding for functional testing.
  • While preparing the test cases, more emphasis should be given to such areas where critical or major bugs could be found out. For example, more emphasis should be given in areas where there is any integration to some other application or implementation of new feature, rather than, UI (User Interface) changes.
  • Test cases must cover each and every detail for new implementation or modification describing every functionality.
  • Priority of test cases can be set as per effectiveness on application so that in given less time limit at least only those test cases should be covered whose priority is high. Test case covering some minor UI changes can be skipped when there is less time as there is little or no effectiveness of such test cases on application.
  • Test cases should be prepared such that every test data is mentioned clearly with expected test result corresponding every test case.
  • As per the application requirement, cross browser functional testing should definitely be performed. Cross browser functional testing is testing application on different operating system with different browser combinations. Functionality may not differ but lots of UI errors are observed in cross browser functional testing.
  • Sometimes previous project experience helps a lot in determining new test scenarios for understanding the application in different ways. Many a times such approach result in extra ordinary bugs which could not have been found out by normal test cases execution.
  • Exploratory testing helps testers to use their thinking to take the application in the way customer might take.
  • Testing application with every phase of development is the best practice as it can be cost effective as well as decrease the chances of finding severe bugs afterwards. Defects identified later are very expensive to fix than the defects identified at early stages of testing.
  • Bug reporting should be such that it is clearly understood by the developer. Exact steps to reproduce should be given so that developers do not assume the scenario while fixing the defect. This will help in fixing of bug quickly.
  • Proper Bug tracking tools like JIRA, Bugzilla, etc should be used to report issues.

Manual Testing Challenges

Manual testing is on one hand very error prone, time consuming and laborious, while on the other hand, there are multiple challenges faced while performing manual testing. Enlisted below are few:-

  • Repetitive steps to be followed while test case execution.
  • Manually enter large amount of data.
  • Work with multiple screens and tools. Perform cross-browser testing.
  • Much time consumption in writing test cases and managing test data.
  • Time wastage while recreating/ reproducing the issues once observed.
  • No track is maintained for test action performed while exploratory testing.

The Solution

To attain both speed and quality, to increase effectiveness and efficiency of Manual testing, Micro Focushas introduced a manual software testing solution, known as, HP Sprinter, that speeds agile testing maximizing the impact of exploratory testing. HP Sprinter is often also referred as HP ALM/QC Sprinter.

Advantages of using HP ALM/QC Sprinter:

HP Sprinter 1

Key Features of HP ALM/QC Sprinter includes:

  • Enhance and improve exploratory testing by better determining the reason of defect or test outcome.
  • Deliver results faster
  • Recording user action while performing test cases in detailed manner resulting in through test results.
  • Eliminate repetition of test cases – Data Injection
  • Running test cases simultaneously on multiple machines for increased coverage of different environment to determine application compatibility
  • Mirror Testing- Test multiple environments at the same time.
  • Increase in Productivity with defect resolved in faster rate.

Micro Focus Sprinter download: You can download the trial version of HP Sprinter on this page.

Watch a short HP Sprinter demo video here:

 

Detailed Steps to Run a Basic Test Using HP Sprinter

Let us understand with multiple screenshots “How a basic test is run” using HP Sprinter.

1) Hp Sprinter has two modes: ‘Plan’ and ‘Run’. Plan mode for test answering and Run for test execution.

(Note: Click on any image for enlarged view)

HP Sprinter 2

2) Now, to open a test in HP Sprinter, first of all click on ‘Open’ button present in left panel and then select ‘Open HP ALM test’ from the dropdown.

HP Sprinter 3

In this below example,’Order a flight’ Test is selected.

HP Sprinter 4

3) Next screenshot describes ‘Test workspace’ which provides access to the test details that contains all the information.

HP Sprinter 5

4) Test ‘Steps’ contains the design steps that are included in test.

HP Sprinter 6

5) We can add any manual test steps also by clicking on ‘Add’ button. As you can see in below screenshot, step 6 is added on clicking ‘Add’ button.

HP Sprinter 7

6) After writing the step description, a screen capture can also be added to the step.

HP Sprinter 8

7) Using test sprinter, we can automatically document test cases as we navigate through the application. Click on step capture to open application window.

HP Sprinter 9

8) Under Run tab, where test execution is done, all sprinter functionalities are available as side bars. Click on Run button to initialize the run.

HP Sprinter 10

9) Tabs around applications are available like: Tools, Macros, Scanners and Run Control.

HP Sprinter 11

10) Defect Reporting: Sprinter enables to create detailed and documented details in add defect scenario information (under Smart Defect tab)

HP Sprinter 12

11) When we submit a defect, Sprinter can add test steps to the defect description; can also attach screen capture or movie of a test to a defect.

HP Sprinter 13

HP Sprinter 14

12) Can also edit the screen capture to further clarify the defect or help in validating the major elements in user interface to the developers using tools.

HP Sprinter 16

13) Sprinter can also automatically detect defects, Under scanners, click on scan when we are about to scan for the defect.

HP Sprinter 17

14) Data Injection: Testing application that contains all forms of many input fields may become tedious, time consuming and error prone. Data injection automatically injects pre- defined data into the application. This leads to huge time saving in tedious manual testing activity.

HP Sprinter 18

15) When we click the inject button, data is automatically injected into the form as is displayed in the application.

HP Sprinter 19

16) Data mirroring: Test multiple environments at the same time. Provides huge value to the customers by localization, different backend configurations.

HP Sprinter 20

17 ) After that detailed Run Report is created. Report includes the Run summary, all the steps that have been performed, submitted defects, and all the actions performed.

18 ) Another way to review run results is Storyboard.

Hp Sprinter 20

Conclusion

Sprinter is an easy-to-use desktop application, which increases the speed of test case execution, cost reduction and improves productivity, and ultimately helps in increasing the efficiency of manual testing.

Suggested reading =>> What is Efficiency Testing

The impact and effectiveness of exploratory testing are not only maximized by Sprinter but it also reduces the time taken in completing the test life cycle. It accelerates application delivery. Thus by including HP sprinter while performing manual testing for any application, the manual test can be proved as a very efficient way of testing.

About the author: This is a guest post by Sushma S. She is having 4+ years of software testing experience and currently working as a Senior  Software Test Engineer in an MNC. She is having expertise in QA processes and manual testing with timely delivery against aggressive deadlines.

Let us know if you have any queries on using HP Sprinter.

PREV Tutorial | NEXT Tutorial #5: Top 17 Exploratory Testing Tools

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19 thoughts on “How to Make Manual Testing More Efficient Using Micro Focus Sprinter”

  1. Fantastic information about HP. ALM. SPRINTER tool, STH is the first attempt to publish about this topic. Wonderful STH, thanks Vijay sir.

    Reply
  2. Thanks for this information. Good one.

    Reply
  3. Hi nice hp sprinter tutorial. its good tool if used properly. It saves lot of time and money.

    Reply
  4. Good to know about the tool.

    But how its helping manual, It looks more to be automation related. Which all kind of applications it supports. As you said click on run and it will execute cases.

    How it can understand various steps written in plain english and how its doing exploratry testing?
    what are the comparable tools ?

    Reply
  5. this is good article for manual tester.but now in market more tools are available for Testing.like testingwhiz.
    This tools is look like similar to Hp sprinter.but the hp sprinter is better as compared to Testingwhiz.here integration available with UFT and QC.
    Really this is best step to introduce a new tool with beginner or who do not know about the proper auto mation testing…

    Reply
  6. Nice article. This is a good article specially for manual Testers. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  7. Its a nice article to be aware of… Even I have the same doubt of understanding how does it differ from automation testing.. How does it evaluate as how human being involved in manual testing do??? Exploratory testing is done on many basis, different types of testing are involved and at different phases.. Is this tool providing solution for those too??

    Reply
  8. Nice Article.

    When i try to download HP Sprinter, its displaying as ‘The evaluation version does not support for 64-bit Operating system.’ is there any alternative…please help.

    Reply
  9. @all
    Thank you everyone for liking my article. Your appreciations are very encouraging and I feel happy that I could share this information about Hp Sprinter through softwaretestinghelp.com

    Reply
  10. @Gaurav Khurana, This tool is much different from any Automation tool. Yes, “Run” functionality is used in both but the overall process and usage are much different. When any test case is executed through Hp Sprinter, we get a detailed report i.e test outcome, defect (if any), it’s occurance, screenshots, etc one at the same time which otherwise is very long process when we perform any test manually. Hope this clears your query.It will be more cleared once you start using and exploring this tool.

    Reply
  11. @ Arun , please read my above comment for Gaurav. This will clarify your doubt.Also, will like to add that exploratory testing has no limit. Your way of thinking and understanding can be much different for a particular scenario. Hp Sprinter does not capture all your scenarios but when you test a particular scenario, it will capture all the defects, its exact steps and screenshots in the way which can be missed while performing exploratory testing.

    Reply
  12. Nice article.

    Reply
  13. It’s clear that the author of this article has bad ideas about manual testing.

    Before recommending a tool to do manual testing you might want to learn how to do it yourself first.

    Read a book…start with Lessons Learned in Software Testing by James Bach

    …and save us all from your bad advice!

    Reply
  14. I already install 11.50 HP Sprinter.
    Problem is What is ALM User Id and Password and how to connected.
    How to create It?

    Reply
  15. Hi,

    Can i save the screenshots automatically in a predefined path prescribed before the run?

    Thanks

    Reply
  16. Hi Shushma,

    It’s really great to know about Sprinter. Good article…

    I have a question like, does Manual sprinter has a capability to record On and automatically set the data on Applications Under Test designed in Flex/ AngularJS/ Silver light etc….

    Reply
  17. Hi Shushma,

    It’s an awesome article about Sprinter.. it’s really very useful one! Thank you for sharing!

    Reply
  18. Is anybody else having a hard time downloading HP Sprinter successfully from the HP website?

    Reply
  19. It is very good Article does it dependent with ALM tool or its an independent tool?

    Reply

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