software tester's blog
This blog is a platform to share my understanding on "Software Testing" and to gain knowledge from others as well. So please feel free to write your comments.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Implementing ERP systems
Friday, December 24, 2010
Handling Software Product Support
Friends it has been long time since I posted last. In my opinion two most difficult fields in software industry / SDLC are “Software Testing” and “Software Implementation and Support” as both are customer facing. In this post, I am sharing my experience of software product support industry till now as to why I consider it as one of most difficult field of IT.
Software Product support is not an easy task and it takes lots of time to become productive in this field. Following are the major reasons –
- Vast and complex nature of software - Any product implemented in a particular organization is certainly of a very vast and complex nature as they are automating major processes of the organization.
- Customizations in standard product – Every organization has its unique needs and processes. Thus while implementing a standard industry product some customizations has to be done in standard product which implements the unique needs. This adds to the complexity of the product.
- Change in requirements – There are sometime frequent changes in requirements and this tampers/somehow disturbs the original information flow of software. This in turn introduces new issues in software.
- Volatile nature of software – Remember software’s are volatile. An issue which is encountered at customers end might not get replicated at support environment at all. There are also incidences that a incidence occurs just now might not occur next moment.
- Expertise and problem defining capabilities of customer – This is also one of the major points contributing to difficulty of the job. Some customers are intelligent enough to explain the problem and resolving the queries for such is bit easy as compared to customers who are not intelligent enough and are not sure of what operation they have performed. Also there are customers who are technically sound it is easy to explain / resolve their queries. Also it is easy to make them understand the complexity and technical aspect of the problem.
- Nature of customer – Understanding customers is very difficult. Customers are after all humans and as there are different types of humans on earth there are variants in customers too. Some customers can control there emotions and some cannot. Some report issues after doing every workaround and some don’t. Some want there work to be done on priority and does not want to wait at all and some can wait. Like wise there are as may categories of customers as there are humans on earth. A software support / technical support engineer has to handle them all.
In the coming post, I will deal with handling issues while providing support
Friday, November 12, 2010
ERP … the future
ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning, as the name suggests is a software package designed and developed to plan all the resources of an enterprise effectively. These resources can be Financial Resources, Human Resources, material resources and others. A ERP package software addresses the enterprise needs of an organization by tightly integrating the various functions of an organization using a process view of the organization. The activities supported by ERP systems include all core functions of an enterprise, including financial management, human resources management, and operations. Major reasons organization going for / advantages of an ERP product are –
- Integration of interrelated information.
- Integration of end to end business processes.
- Standardize and speed up organizational processes.
- Reducing complexity.
- Centralized information source
- Security
Interestingly, above are also the points why organizations are reluctant in installing the ERP system in there facilities as because of these reasons results in decrease of departmental myopia and also the habit of putting work on others shoulders.
We will try to understand all the above points by an example. Visualize an industry process of manufacturing, storing (Inventory) and selling of an item. Now we start from back, a sales person enters a sales order in the system for item X with quantity Q then the inventory in charge should come to know that Q is committed to sales for item X. Further consider that there is minimum stock which is to be maintained for item X and if processing of this sales order decreases the inventory below the minimum stock quantity then the production in charge should be intimated to start production of item X. in turn purchase department should be intimated to purchase the required raw material. Below is a diagram depicting this flow –
Coming back to above points, ERP automates, integrates this information flow and the business process as well. It also standardizes and reduces the process complexity. Above all, all this information is stored at centralized place and is secured by user privileges.
A quick point on testing ERP software, apart form the normal functionality a tester has to test the business process and the integration of the information among the interrelated modules.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Spice QT-66 Usability Issues
Nothing much to write about in this post as this is just a small sharing of information in reference to usability of mobile phones.
Recently, I bought Spice mobile QT-66 just two months back. This is the first time I am using any phone other than Noika. While using spice one, I observed two unusual things both in terms of normal usability and also when compared to Nokia devices. Observations are -
Whenever I disconnect a call without attending it then usually in Nokia devices this goes into RECEIVE CALLS but in my spice device the screen displays MISSED CALL and the entry also goes into the same option (MISSED CALLS)
Second observation is regarding the MESSAGE functionality. Whenever, I reply/type a message and then I opted to end the message screen by pressing the END key then the message gets saved into the OUTBOX folder. Usually it should be in DRAFT folder as per my usage of other devices / messaging software’s
Comments awaited on this…………………
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
ICICI Bank ATM bug … Try it!.............
Recently I went onto an ICICI bank ATM for doing some transaction. I noticed one interesting bug over there. I want all of you to try that only once because if you try it for 3 times consecutively your card will be blocked and I am not responsible for that. Anyways, here is what I noticed –
PREREQUISITE - You must have changed your ATM PIN once.
1. Insert the card
2. Enter the old PIN , the one provided by the bank initially
Notice that you will be presented the transaction selection screen
3. Select any transaction, say balance enquiry / any other from the available options
Notice that now you will be prompted that you have entered wrong PIN and the machine will ask for the correct one.
4. Enter the correct PIN and then you will proceed towards the completion of your transaction
Comments awaited on this obsercation as to whether this is a bug OR not . In my opinion , its a high priority Low sivierity BUG
Amit