QA Automation for an Independent Investment Advisor

Business Domain
This solution provider offers financial advice on 401 K portfolios to employees of large business enterprises. In addition to offering advice regarding the components of the 401 K portfolio, the software solution developed by the company can automatically manage the portfolio by changing its constituent stocks and mutual funds as the financial goals change with the age of a person and the financial environment also changes. It's personalized advisory services are designed to meet the needs of all types of investors. Whether the advice is accessed online, on paper, by phone, in consultation with an advisor, or through a managed account program, each investor can count on consistent advice and investment recommendations unique to their goals and specific investment holdings.

Business Challenges
• In order to actively manage the 401 K portfolio of employees from multiple corporations, the software engine of this company has to get connected to a large number of financial institutions who manage the 401 K accounts of these employees.

• At the other end, the software engine has to connect with the employers and employees to whom the financial advice is provided. This type of complex integration with financial institutions, non-uniform functioning of individual record keeper, security of financial data, and complexity of portfolio management domain makes manual testing of the software solution very time consuming.

• Every time a new release of software was produced, it took over 4-5 months to complete the testing in addition to the development effort of 2 months. The client wanted to complete new release within 3 months with 2 months of development and 2 months of testing with 1 month overlap. The client therefore recognized the need to increase the efficiency of testing through automated testing that is executed on a continuous basis while the new release is under development. To keep efforts focused on their core competency, the client sought a partner to help manage the QA activities and provide maintenance for the current product.

Technology Challenges
• Development of automated testing framework to support the complexity of functionality and multiple levels of integrations with the financial institutions and corporate employers

• Keeping the automated test suites up-to-date while the software is evolving with
every release

Infogain's Solution
Infogain organized a team of test and development engineers to develop a comprehensive QA regression test suite for the client. Infogain decided to incrementally automate the regression test suite so that the part for which the automation is completed can be deployed immediately and an immediate ROI is realized. While the development team developed the new release, the testing team worked on automating the regression test suite at the same time. Infogain's automated testing framework included re-usable libraries that enabled the team to develop automated test suite with less effort and avoiding the need for re-writing the code for common business functions.

The Infogain team devised a comprehensive test automation development approach that
included:
• Knowledge transfer for understanding of application flows
• Test case documentation and approval
• Test automation and execution
• Verification of automated test scripts
• Closure and acceptance
A test execution environment was setup to run the completed part of the test suite at
regular intervals. As the new set of automated test cases were created, they were added
to the run-time environment for execution and thereby incrementally increasing the level
of automation and reducing the effort required for manual testing. The regular periodic run
of automated test suite helped in discovering the defects early in the software development process. In addition, it also helped in keeping the automated test suites upto- date with the new functionality of the product.

About Us
Infogain Corporation, the Customer Knowledge Company, develops and delivers Customer Asset Strategies to increase tactical and strategic decision-making capabilities across the enterprise. A leading provider of CRM, ERP, Integration and Business Intelligence Solutions and Services, Infogain was established in 1990 with international offices and global delivery centers. It provides high-end IT Services and develops business and technology solutions to enable clients worldwide to gain competitive advantage. Our strategic and technology partners include Oracle, Genesys, Microsoft, Tibco andRedHat. For additional information on Infogain's full range of services, please visit our website at www.infogain.com.

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