E-Commerce Breakthrough for Top Waste Management Firm

Case Study at a Glance

The Challenge

Pre-Go-Live testing for customer's new website, so as to prevent any errors regarding online orders

The Solution

Determining which scenarios were appropriate to automate using a cost vs. benefit analysis

Providing manual scripts for tests that would be inappropriate to automate

Utilising the full suite of Azure DevOps features

The Benefit

Technical issues prevented

Boosted revenue in new, untapped market of online waste services

Confidence to expand online offerings

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The Challenge

Automation Consultants (AC), worked with a leading waste management company in the UK which provides a multitude of services to businesses, including waste collection, specialist waste disposal and recycling. In order to further develop its online presence and extend service offerings to individuals as well as businesses, it made the decision to branch out into E-Commerce, a stark change from its existing sales strategy of predominantly phone and field-based leads. Its first step towards this goal was to design a new website to accept service payments online. It was crucial for the new site to be highly resistant to any errors as, if present, could lead to misprocessed orders, damaging the brand.

The Solution

Automation Consultants provided full functional testing for the website, which consisted of both manual and automated testing.

This included:

Devising a set of test cases directly from business requirements, ensuring full coverage.

Determining which scenarios were appropriate to automate using a cost vs. benefit analysis. This is a key decision in software testing – often automation is used too heavily or too sparingly, with the former resulting in long periods of time with no benefit being seen, and the latter meaning more manual testing resources being required.

Automating user journeys with the Selenium framework for web browser automation, implemented with Visual Studio in C#. These tests were then run after every subsequent release, providing a comprehensive regression pack, the analysis of which identified any immediate issues for attention.

Providing manual scripts for tests that would be inappropriate to automate.

Used the full suite of Azure DevOps features, including the Test Plans module for test management/execution; Boards module for work management; Pipelines for automated regression builds in conjunction with Azure Repos for version control, and Dashboards for detailed test reporting.

Worked with an external development agency, using Atlassian Jira and Confluence for defect management and requirements tracking respectively.

Presented with the challenge of using Azure DevOps and Atlassian Jira/Confluence simultaneously, requiring careful consolidation of requirements in both locations. This ensured that the preference of both the development agency and the customer were met.

The Benefits

The launch of the new website was a huge success, with AC receiving fantastic feedback for its performance.

Technical issues prevented

The website's launch went smoothly, with minimal technical issues thanks to AC’s extensive pre-Go-Live testing.

Boosted revenue in new, untapped market

Since the launch, hundreds of orders have been made, boosting revenue and demonstrating that a large, previously untapped market existed for online waste services. AC received fantastic feedback for its performance.

Confidence to expand online offerings

The project has been so successful that the company have decided to further expand its online offerings, requiring further web development which AC will provide a key role in testing.