With the introduction of the Orangebeard Software Quality Intelligence Platform, the benefits of test automation have become clearly visible and tangible throughout the entire Intersolve organization. The IT team not only saves more than 75% of their time through optimal control and better insight into the testing process, they also immediately embrace a new way of working with Orangebeard. This gives a huge boost to team spirit and a more efficient way of working. All crucial information is quickly available to everyone in the IT team.
About Intersolve
Intersolve is a service provider in the field of gift cards, loyalty programs, and electronic payment applications. The IT department manages a business-critical real-time network that connects various services and partners to retailers. For this purpose, Intersolve uses a SaaS-based transaction platform developed in-house. Since 2012, Intersolve has held a European e-money license from the Dutch Central Bank.
The challenge
Keeping the business-critical network and the SaaS platform running smoothly 24/7 is an important objective for the IT department at Intersolve. Automated testing is therefore crucial in this process.
The IT department currently consists of 20 FTEs, divided into three teams, each with four FTEs dedicated to testing. All teams work in two-week sprints to maintain and update the business-critical transaction platform. Two teams work with test automation on a daily basis.
The SaaS platform consists of various components that work together seamlessly. Due to its modular design, the majority of releases affect two-thirds of the platform’s code.
Before the introduction of Orangebeard, the teams ran their test automation scripts manually, script by script, using different testing tools such as SpecFlow, Visual Studio, TeamCity, and Zephyr (Jira).
For every story in Jira, it was necessary to create a completely new set of automated tests. With each release, the number of automated test sets grew, along with the test history. The result? The testing teams at Intersolve had no clear overview of what had already been tested. This lack of visibility was also caused by:
- – The green checkmark syndrome, where people focused only on the green ticks and did not look further.
- – Outdated static text, making the test status unreadable.
- – No time to update test cases, let alone reorganize everything.
The lack of overview was not the only problem in the testing process. The IT team also had to keep up with the high company standards for test reporting, which consumed a great deal of unnecessary time and energy. All the more reason for Intersolve to regain control and make reporting on test runs more manageable and efficient.
10x gains for Intersolve
- 75% time saved for testers
- Clear and easy-to-understand reports
- Crucial information available to all team members
- Improved team collaboration
- Turning insights into effective actions
- Easy integration with existing tools
- Better overview and control of test results
- Achieving more in less time
- Boost to team spirit
- Faster build and test cycles
Orangebeard as the solution
With Orangebeard, Intersolve not only made a huge leap in the efficient management of test automation, it also enabled the IT department to collaborate much more effectively throughout the testing process, from start to delivery of the best software for their customers.
For the first time, the benefits of test automation are visible and tangible across the entire organization. In total, Intersolve freed up as much as 75% of their IT team’s time by gaining better visibility and control over all tests and test results.
Orangebeard integrates seamlessly with Intersolve’s existing testing tools, such as SpecFlow, and gathers all test results into a clear dashboard that is easy to understand for everyone.
The IT teams at Intersolve no longer need technical expertise to use the highly technical reports from TeamCity or to rely on technical colleagues for insights.
Now everyone can open the reports and join the discussions, which greatly enhances teamwork and team spirit. Non-technical team members no longer feel left out, and even the developers can now contribute to testing, adding extra value and saving even more time.
With Orangebeard, there is far less discussion within the teams. It is no longer necessary to debate or interpret unclear test results. Everyone can immediately see which component or code issues caused a test to fail. It is also no longer necessary to copy and re-enter reporting data manually. All test reports are automatically collected and displayed in real time on the Orangebeard dashboard. All team members and managers can access them easily, and the information is clear to everyone.