More safety and less effort thanks to automated tests

Initial situation

Our customer operates a central document management system (DMS) that is used intensively every day.With each new release, key functions – such as searching, uploading and downloading documents – had to be checked manually. This led to several drawbacks:

• High time effort before every release

• Dependency on a few key employees

• Increased risk of overlooking errors

The customer’s goal: more safety through automated tests, without completely changing the existing processes.

Our solution

Together with the customer, we implemented a proof of concept (PoC) for automated tests.The aim was to demonstrate that the most important work steps in the DMS can be checked automatically.

Among other things, the following workflows were covered by automated tests:

• Navigating through the folder structure

• Searching for specific documents

• Uploading and deleting test files

• Downloading files and checking that they arrive correctly

• Running a report and verifying that the result is correct

• Checking key system information in the administration interface

These tests now run automatically and verify that the system behaves as expected.

Result for the customer

The PoC clearly showed:

• Important DMS processes are now safeguarded by automated tests.

• Tests can be repeated at any time, for example before a release.

• Manual testing effort is reduced, relieving the teams.

• Errors are detected earlier, before they affect day-to-day operations.

This gives the customer confidence that automated tests are a meaningful and sustainable building block for the quality assurance of their DMS – and a solid foundation to further expand test coverage in the future.