How would you go for compliance testing?

Posted by Lisa Williams on April 10th, 2019

Software testing is an elaborate process which seeks to check the drawbacks in a newly developed software product. The drawbacks might include the defects and errors in the code of the software, functional gaps, loopholes and the performance based reliability of the software. It is a known fact that a software product cannot be released for use if it contains any kind of defect. Using a defective software product would not only result in the compromise of data integrity but also impact user experience and would reduce their morale. This is the reason why software testing is considered to be an integral phase of software development.

There are a number of stages of software testing which must be completed in a sequential manner so that the testing can be considered successful. However, among all the stages of software testing, the stage of compliance testing is the most neglected one. As a result of this, the software does not participate as expected. There has been lot of research to find out why this testing is ignored despite holding such great importance. Through these researches, it has been observed that this testing requires the involvement of multiple cross functional teams. The timeline of compliance testing is the highest among all other stages of testing. As a result, testing agencies tend to ignore it so that they can save time and resources. This is definitely a mistake.

There are three objectives of this form of testing.Firstly to ensure upstream compliance, secondly to ensure downstream compliance and thirdly to ensure platform compliance. Upstream and downstream compliance refers to the compatibility of the newly developed software or application with other applications with which it is integrated. Upstream applications are the ones whose data is fed into the test application so that it can run its own operations. Downstream applications are the ones which fetch the data generated in the test application for their own purpose. In case the test application is not compatible with any of the upstream and downstream applications, the software development cannot be considered to be complete. Platform compliance refers to the compliance of the test application with the architecture, database and browsers which would be used for running the application. If the test application is not compatible with the platform it is supposed to run on, it would definitely fail to provide the user experience that is expected from it.

A number of automated testing tools are being developed which would make compliance testing an easy affair. It is expected that the presence of such tools will ensure that this form of testing will not be neglected anymore.