Application Testing Services

What Is the Service?

Application Testing is the systematic process of evaluating software applications to ensure they meet specified requirements, function as intended, and deliver high-quality user experiences before they are released to end users. MSU's Quality Assurance (QA) team offers two primary testing services: Functional Testing and Automated Testing.

Functional Testing

Ensures that applications meet functional requirements and deliver high-quality user experiences. These services are essential for validating business-critical system and are often utilized in high-risk or high-impact projects.

Functional Testing

Verifies that software features perform as specified in requirements. Conducted manually by testers simulating end-user behavior. Includes validation of workflows, data inputs, outputs, and user interface elements.

Level 1 – Consultation
At this level the QA team hosts 1 – 3 meetings to understand the application under test and the goals of the team. The QA team develops customized templates for test execution and others if needed. The QA team trains the team that will execute the test using customized templates to make sure the team has a good foundation for testing.

Level 2 – Coordination
At this level the QA team works in partnership with testers from the office that uses the application under test (i.e. “home office”). The QA team creates testing documentation which may include a Test Strategy, Test Plan, Test Scenarios including Regression Scenarios, User Acceptance Tests, etc. The QA team trains testers, coordinates Test Execution, documents defects, liaisons with technical resources and leadership to prioritize and resolve defects. In this instance the QA team may produce reports or other metrics if desired.

Requires testers from the home office where the application is used.
Dependent on QA team availability.
At least one lower environment is required for most QA work.
Applications that would encounter high risk or high impact if defects are released to production are prioritized higher.

Level 3 – Execution
At this level the QA team executes all levels of testing including Test Planning, Test Execution, data prep, defect identification and documentation, coordinating with technical resources to resolve defects, collaborating with Functional Owners to prioritize defects, etc.

QA resources need to work closely with a BA or Functional Owners at this level to learn the application under test and application expectations.
Dependent on QA team availability.
At least one lower environment is required for most QA work.
Applications that would encounter high risk or high impact if defects are released to production are prioritized higher.

Regression Testing

Ensures that new changes do not disrupt existing functionality. This is usually incorporated into Functional Testing but can be requested independently if only a regression suite is needed for an upcoming technical-only change. This is often performed manually during early development stages. If an application is well established, consider our Automated Regression Testing service.

QA resources need to work closely with a BA or Functional Owners at this level to learn the application under test and application expectations.
Dependent on QA team availability.
At least one lower environment is required for most QA work.
Applications that would encounter high risk or high impact if defects are released to production are prioritized higher.

Compatibility Testing

Confirms that applications function across different browsers, devices, and operating systems as expected. This helps identify environment-specific issues before deployment. Tests can be executed by the QA team but more often the QA team loans out different testing devices to home office testers to execute tests.

May require testers from the home office that uses the application under test.
If home office testers are not available, QA resources need to work closely with a BA (Business Analyst) or Functional Owners at this level to learn the application under test and application expectations.
Dependent on QA team availability.
At least one lower environment is required for most QA work.
Applications that would encounter high risk or high impact if defects are released to production are prioritized higher.

Request for Proposal (RFP) Consultation

The QA team can provide questions to an RFP panel to help analyze vendor quality assurance standards. QA team members can also be asked to sit in on RFP sessions to ask quality assurance questions. If MSU contracts with a company that has poor quality assurance standards, for instance if they do not provide a lower environment for testing, it could impact the application launch and/or long-term maintainability. Consultation with the QA team is especially encouraged for applications that have high risk and/or high impact to our MSU community.

Automated Testing

Uses specialized tools designed to ensure the reliability, performance, and scalability of high-impact, high-risk University applications/systems. Automated Testing occurs after Functional Testing in the Software Development Lifecycle. Services offered include:

Performance Testing

Analyzes web applications and their associated infrastructure to identify how well they perform under increasing business transactional loads.
Transactional loads mimic “real” business periods (normal day, busy day, etc.).
Can apply transactional loads above “busy” periods to identify scalability and how the application responds when it can no longer handle higher loads.
Also used to compare performance of an existing application before and after a large update/enhancement is applied.

Automated Regression Testing

Validates that new code/changes to an application or its supporting environment do not affect existing functionality or introduce new functional issues.
Often integrated into continuous improvement cycles (Agile and DevOps).

Other Automation Services

Application Availability: Quick tests that verify application(s) are accessible and minimally functional across environments (Test, QA, Production). Used after server reboots or other situations that may affect application functionality.
Business Process Automation: Automate web processes that take manual resources a large amount of time to complete (or that happen on a frequent basis).

Who Is Eligible to Use It?

MSU employees may submit a request for one or more Application Testing services. Requests are evaluated by QA team leadership against MSU’s 2030 Strategic Project Portfolio and available QA team resources to identify best approach for the submitted request.

Request Application Testing Services

Updating...

Application Testing Services

What Is the Service?

Functional Testing

Automated Testing

Who Is Eligible to Use It?