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| Case Study |
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Multi-vendor test co-ordination enables leading
insurance provider to establish and implement test process across global locations
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By coordinating testing activities across multiple applications involving multiple vendors located in different time zones, Patni enabled a leading US based provider of insurance services improve transparency and efficiency of operations.
The Client
The client is one of the leading US based providers of insurance and other financial services to individual and group customers.
The Challenge
Operating across multiple locations, the client had a diverse IT landscape consisting of applications developed by different vendors located at different countries. To ensure standardization, the client decided to create a standard business process that was to be followed across all locations. Subsequently, an application integration framework was defined for ensuring that all existing applications supported this new business process. This made it imperative for the client to customize the applications to make them fit into the new defined framework.
This made it extremely challenging for the client to customize these applications with respect to the new framework. As all these applications were mission critical, even small defects had the potential of causing adverse business impact for the client.
To ensure that all the applications could be accurately customized into the new framework, the client was in need of a QA partner who could perform reliable testing and coordinate with all the vendors for activities ranging from defect reporting to final closing. This activity also demanded the skills of a vendor who had strong global experience in coordinating activities across multiple vendors located in different time zones.
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The Solution
Patni was selected as a preferred QA partner for handling client’s varied QA requirements. Patni set up a Global Test Center at an offshore location. A hybrid testing team was formed consisting of business users from the client’s side and technical team of Patni. Key responsibilities handled by Patni included Test Planning, Test Preparation, Smoke Testing, Test Execution, Test Co-ordination with multiple development vendors and Defect tracking. Defects reported by Patni testing teams at the onsite and offshore location, were consolidated and communicated everyday to all the vendors & client management team. Translators were used at all stages to overcome language barriers.
Due to the client’s business requirement, there was a need for a performance testing tool which supported different applications involved. Patni evaluated these tools and then selected LoadRunner for performance testing. Patni also developed a Defect Tracking System (DTS) to consolidate all the defects, previously done using MS excel, and track a defect from generation to closure. This was a multi-lingual web-based system, which was accessible to all the vendors, testing teams and the client at the same point of time. Elaborate test cases, multiple data sets, reusable master test plans and test execution reports were built. Patni also took complete ownership for test coordination, provided support for different phases of Testing with active involvement in the requirements gathering phase & undertaking review of functional specifications.
Patni also provided support in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Operation Readiness Testing by coordinating with the infrastructure team for UAT environment setup and daily smoke testing of all the applications before handing over the testing environment to the business team. This ensured minimum time wastage during UAT.
The technology
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IE 6.0 for accessing the
applications |
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Defect Tracking System for
defect reporting & tracking |
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LoadRunner for Performance
Testing. |
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The Benefits
By partnering with Patni, the client established a streamlined and cost
effective process that has the ability to execute large volumes of
testing with high levels of accuracy. Other significant benefits include:
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Single point responsibility: By taking complete responsibility of detecting and
consolidating and fixing defects, Patni introduced processes and systems that
improved visibility and reduced the overall time of testing the applications |
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Effective Resource Utilization: The client's highly skilled Managerial staff
could focus on their core activities while Patni's specialized offshore testing
team concentrated on verification and validation work |
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Improved transparency and reduced time of testing: The DTS built by Patni
brought in transparency of operations to the entire testing process along with
huge time savings of 12-13 hours per day in co-ordination |
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More Thorough Testing: Because more resources are available offshore, the
client is now able to test wider and deeper and can now identify and fix more
defects. Further, the reusable test plans enabled the client to accelerate the
pace of testing, delivering more comprehensive test coverage. |
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