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Best Practices for Software Testing

As software and websites become an integral part of business processes, ensuring their effectiveness through thorough testing & evaluation after development is even more important than before.

Also, the complexity of modern software/software applications and the need to use them on different platforms and devices have made software testing important.

Complete testing is essential for quality assurance, and best practices in software testing can produce high-quality software in the end.

Here are some of the best practices to ensure your QA process does its job.

  • Process: It is important for an organization/company to define a robust and professionally certified process in order to implement a culture of software validation. The process will serve as a guide that can change over time. Most importantly, it should be legalized and should be followed. Progress will be made until a mature process is established.
  • Write Tests for Maximum Coverage: Write all kinds of tests to cover the maximum number of cases, if 100 percent is impossible. By writing test cases for valid conditions and unforeseen circumstances/performance of applications under test, you can achieve advanced testing and cover maximum tests.
  • Developers Should Not Write Tests: All test cases should be written before coding. Coders/programmers should not write test codes in their code to reduce the chances of bias testing or incompetence in the test. Test cases should be written by the QA team as they can write them according to requirements and the cases will not be biased.
  • Break Tests in Small Fractions: If you take the tests often and throughout the cycle, taking small tests will save you time and resources. Many tests are longer than we think, so divide large tests into smaller parts like UI test, performance test, security test, UX test, and so on.
  • Noting and Reporting All TestsWhen you do manual or automated testing, keeping records of all these tests is a good practice. Note all test progress and observations in a file, and incorporate these observations into the final test reports. Some of the things that should be noted include bug symptoms, results we get across the system, and all possible solutions to make testing more meaningful.
  • Testing Environment: Implementation of appropriate testing environments which allow the developers to reproduce the system execution in production environments is important to the creation and execution of the corresponding test cases. 
  • Customize Testing: Write customized testing solutions for each project according to their needs and use cases. The module in the app running on a smartphone has a different usage case than the tablet environment, so write the test accordingly.
  • Use Tools and Metrics: The complex and tedious process of software testing can be simplified by using popular automated testing tools such as. Selenium and other unit testing tools: such as PHPUnit, Amock, PyUnit, Achoo, SQLUnit, etc. These are only a few of the tools that are being used today by the QA teams. Using these tools to automate the process of software testing and Quality Assurance (QA) would increase the maturity of the process
  • Multiple Platform Tests: It should come as no surprise that the numbers of platforms and device types vary now more than ever. Multi-platform testing is therefore very important and the only way to ensure compatibility with multi-platform software. Both API functionality and GUI authentication can be tested on different platforms.
  • Keep an Eye on the Bigger Picture (aka the User Experience)The first thing all the best testers have in common is their laser focus on user information. It is very easy for testers / QA teams to get lost in the test cases and forget about the end-user, however, this is a big mistake.

 

Leading testers understand that testing best practices aren’t necessarily things to check off a list, but rather a step to be taken to help bring the best end product to users.

We have explored the best practices to enhance the testing projects for better quality and security of your software in the current age. Experienced and expert software testing developers are mandatory to hit your testing goals.

A complete buyer’s guide to CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

When people talk about CRM, they are usually referring to a CRM system, a tool that helps with contact management, sales management, productivity, and more.

A CRM solution helps you focus on your organization’s relationships with individual people — including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers, including finding new customers, winning their business, and providing support and additional services throughout the relationship.

Trends in 2021

We can expect to see new ways of interacting with customers and much more. Let’s take a look at the key CRM trends that are expected to take shape in the coming days:-

1. Artificial Intelligence: It is confirmed that AI will become the new CRM trend in 2021. Analysis of different organizations has shown that when integrated with CRM, AI alone is capable of boosting global business revenues by more than a trillion by the end of this year. Further, it is predicted that AI use will create more jobs in the customer relationship management CRM softwares. Contrary to common belief, AI will create more jobs than it replaces the existing ones. This job generation will increase the scope of CRM tools, thereby, increasing the visibility of businesses.

2. Voice Technology integrated into CRM: Voice technology is critical to the advancement of SaaS solutions. An Adobe study on voice technology says that around 94% of users consider voice technology easy to use, and say it does more than save time – it improves their quality of life. For example, Salesforce’s Einstein Voice Assistant helps sales personnel track customer data faster and update their teams about the same. SAP, another CRM solution provider, too has embraced voice technology. More CRM solution providers are expected to follow suit and incorporate voice technology into their operational processes and interfaces.

3. Integration with IoT: Experts expect IoT to redefine CRM activities in future. TechJury says the world would be flooded with more than 64 billion IoT devices by 2025 which may range from smart home devices to wearable health monitors to cyber security scanners. Companies are increasingly using data generated from IoT solutions to improve overall customer experiences. Embracing IoT will offer CRM platforms deep insights into customer usage and behavior to devise personalized marketing strategies while providing enhanced customer support.

4. Social CRM: What is social CRM? It’s the integration of social media channels into CRM platforms. By viewing social media and CRM together, companies gain a more powerful overview of what people are posting about them on social media, as well as a clearer understanding of brand sentiment. If organizations can use social CRM to respond to comments quickly and thoughtfully, they can build stronger relationships with existing and potential customers and incorporate more user feedback into their roadmap.

5. Customer Experience: Customer satisfaction can either make or break a business. Since they are the pillars of any business, it is of paramount importance to ensure that the best service is delivered when they reach out to your team. Be it the first call, purchase call, or support call – they must receive the best service that will increase the lifetime value of customers. Hence, customer experience is an important CRM trend.

6. Mobile CRM: When your teams have a mobile solution, the employees can easily follow up on their tasks and provide solutions from anywhere, even when they are away from their desks. The development of Mobile CRM has become a boon for employees to easily collaborate among themselves and communicate with the customers. Since Businesses are encouraging their employees to work remotely and in that condition, a Mobile CRM experience is necessary for them to have a great working option. Hence, Mobile CRM is the latest trend to look forward to.

7. Chatbots: Chatbots are programmed to engage customers, ask questions, sum up details, and provide the end-users with more personalized content. The synergy between automation and CRM has enabled chatbots to complete more contact management tasks without any human interference on the part of sales team members. Chatbots ensure that the customers get quicker answers with little or no effort on the part of the company employees. Automation renders interaction, engagement and management tasks much easier for businesses.

8. Integrations to CRM: Future CRM platforms would definitely go for advanced integration with multiple data sources and other third-party applications to draw more insights on consumers while improving the functionality of their software. For example, integration with marketing automation and analytical tools would help CRM platforms track and analyze external interactions with consumers. Similarly, integration with various accounting tools would help businesses streamline the billing process and implement customer segmentation better. As already stated, integration with IoT devices would give CRM platforms access to voluminous data on consumer usage to offer better customer support and formulate personalized marketing strategies.

9. Analytics: Advanced analytical tools help companies identify challenges and find solutions to meet them. This is achieved by analyzing data in real-time and reporting on it. Advanced analytics backed up by CRM processes would offer actionable insights on sales pipelines, lead generation, and customer satisfaction. Most businesses have come to accept that CRM Analytics is integral to their growth in more ways than one.

10. CRMs need to be connected to every other part of a business: From your email marketing tool to your invoicing system, make sure to have two-way syncs set up between tools that store customer data and your CRM. Keeping your data in sync is the best way to avoid human error, resolve pesky data silos, save time on manual input and paint the clearest picture of your business for every team. In the 2020s, you should have no reason to distrust your customer data and wrestle with unending lists of duplicate emails and misleading data.

Statistics

Following are some real facts and figures regarding CRMs:-
1. According to Fortune Business Insights, In 2020, the global market for Customer Relationship Management was valued at $52.64 billion.

2. Nucleus Research revealed an average of $8.71 returned for every dollar spent in 2014. Though this number hasn’t been updated since then, Dynamic Consultants commented on the evolution of the CRM market in 2021 and calculated that this number may have increased to an average of around $30.48 for every dollar spent in 2021.

3. According to industry estimates from Grandview Research, more than 91% of companies with 10 or more employees use a CRM to manage conversations with customers.

4. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2021, CRM technology will represent the largest area of enterprise software investment. Companies from small brands to large banks and consulting agencies are all increasingly turning to CRM.

5. Salesforce believes that artificial intelligence will be one of the major factors accelerating the growth of CRM going forward. In a report conducted in 2017, the company revealed that AI could lead to $1.1 trillion in additional CRM revenues.

6. A report on the State of Sales by LinkedIn found that 64% of companies consider CRM technology to be either impactful or very impactful. Additionally, sales teams using CRMs also showed a 17% higher job satisfaction.

7 According to Grandview Research, Around 82% of the companies surveyed in a recent report say they use their CRM systems for sales reporting and process automation. However, senior management across companies is also relying more on CRM solutions to handle actionable customer data.

8. According to resco.net, Around 72% of companies say that using a CRM gives them access to better customer data. Users also recommended CRM technology for improved relationship management and enhanced interaction tracking.

9. According to OnePage Express, CRM technology isn’t just for the desktop or laptop anymore. CRM solutions are becoming increasingly common on mobile devices. 81% of users say they frequently access their technology from more than one device.

10. GWI finds that around 1 in 4 customers interacts with their favorite brands on social media. These customers want access to more support, sales, and services on their preferred social channels, paving the way to more CRMs with social technology.

 

A Step-by-Step Guide to Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

We are in 2021 and we have been hearing this word MVP for quite a long time and it’s most commonly used by software consultants. I often recommend Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to various clients who want to introduce something new to the market or I would say they have an idea of a Startup. When I do suggest them they end shooting my lots of questions like What is an MVP? How does it help? Will it be a good idea? and many other questions. I do explain them with all the answers but let’s understand an MVP first:

What is an MVP? 

The simplest definition is that an MVP must be the simplest core feature set of any product that allows it to be deployed and absolutely nothing more. However, the most popular definition is; “The smallest thing that you can build that delivers customer value (and as a bonus captures some of the value back).”

Basically, it allows you to test an idea by throwing an early version of the product to the target customers. It helps in collecting data and actual customer feedback.

Benefits of MVP

User-Focused Design Approach: An MVP is developed to solve a user’s key problem and is constantly iterated as per the user’s needs. It gathers valuable feedback constantly to provide an improved version of the product at each iteration.

Clarity of Vision: At the initial stage of your product’s development, you should specify the core features and customer value of the software and write everything down. After a checklist is created, share it with the team. This primary vision will definitely help you to stay on track and make better decisions in the long run

Quicker release & Immediate Testing: By offering the core set of features rather than a fully developed product, organizations can easily establish if their product’s concept resonates with their target audience or not. Based on the findings, it further provides an opportunity to make changes. An MVP also helps businesses identify which social group, in their target audience, are the most active users and how they interact with the product.

Developing Early Relationship With Customers: The immediate goal of a business is to build trust with their existing customers while also connecting with the new ones. The early users will then spread the word about your product and also give valuable feedback.

Steps to building an MVP

Step 1: Market Research

At times, it happens that ideas do not fit into the market needs. Before you initiate an idea, ensure that it fulfills the target users’ needs. Conduct surveys, because the more information you have, the higher your chances are of success. Also, do not forget to keep an eye on what your competitors are offering, and how you can make your idea unique.

Step 2: Express Your Idea

What value does your product offer to its users? How can it benefit them? Why would they buy your product? These are important questions to keep in mind to help better express your idea.

You should also be clear about the essential estimations of your product. As MVP implies, introducing value to the people, first outline them and based on that develop your MVP.

Step 3: Consider the Design Process & User Flow

Design the app in a way that is convenient for users. You need to look at the app from the user’s perspective, starting from opening the app to the final process, such as making a purchase or delivery. In addition, user flow is an important aspect as it ensures you do not miss anything while keeping the future product and its user satisfaction in mind.

To define your user flow, it is necessary to define the process stages, and for that, you need to explain the steps needed to reach the main objective. Your focus should be more on basic tasks rather than features such as finding and buying the product, and managing and receiving orders. These are the goals that your end-users will have while using your product. When all these procedure stages are clearly laid out, it is time to define the features of each stage.

Step 4: List the Project Features

First of all, list all the features that you want to incorporate into your product before you start building the MVP; and, once the building process is completed, cross-check with the list. When you have a list of features for each stage, you then need to prioritize them. To prioritize the features, ask yourself questions such as, “What do my users want?” and “Am I offering them something beneficial?”

Next, categorize all the remaining features based on priority: high priority, medium priority, and low priority. When you have organized all the features, you can define their scope for the first version of the product, and move to build an MVP. If you want to see how your future product will look, you can even create an MVP prototype.

Step 5: Build your MVP

Once you have decided upon the main features and have learned about the market needs, you can create your MVP. Keep in mind that a prototype is not lower quality than a final product, and still needs to fulfill your customer’s needs. Therefore, it must be easy to use, engaging, and suitable for your users.

Step 6: Build, Measure, and Learn

Everything is part of a process: first, the scope of work is defined, and the product is moved to the development stage. After the completion of product development, the product needs to be tested. Quality Assurance engineers, who work to improve the quality of the product (even if the product is not released) conduct the first testing stage.

Review everything thoroughly after launching the MVP, i.e. collect your client’s reaction to the release. With their feedback, you can determine if the product is acceptable in the market, if it is competing with the other products in the market, and so on.

It is important to realize that users tell us where the product is lacking and what features are not needed. Once you collect the feedback from the users, start improving your product, then test, learn, and measure the quality, and then test again, and the process goes on until it is finalized.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt, any startup should begin with the business idea validation. That’s why the MVP development stage is crucial and why you can’t skip it.

As soon as you are done with steps #1-2, we can jump in and help you with the rest: map the user’s journey, choose key features and the right MVP type, develop the app and release it. At Ucodesoft, we help startups with steps #3-5, accompanying the project until the release. Moreover, we can provide additional info on how to prioritize features and what techniques can be used for it. If you delegate the MVP development to us, you will have plenty of time for PR and investors, while we guarantee your app will be well-thought-out and cutting-edge.