A Dutch telecom provider has grown into a leader in high-speed fibre internet services over the past decades. Offering Gigabit internet, TV, telephony, and mobile services, their multi-Gig fibre network connects 1.6 million homes and businesses in the Netherlands, with ambitions to expand to 2 million Dutch households by 2025. 

ALTEN Nederland has been working with this company for the last eight years, assisting in various QA fields such as functional testing, test automation, CI/CD pipelining, DevOps practices, and cloud native strategies. For the last months, we have been working on structuring test data generation to support all testers that require test data for their execution. 

Automating test management with keyword-driven testing 

The telecom provider uses Azure DevOps Test Plans to manage their test cases, including different customer flows regarding managing subscriptions. As they have been using this tool for the larger part of the past decade, they are quite adept at utilising its many features. Features such as the query-based suites, parent-child linking, and automated running of test cases are completely integrated into their software development lifecycle. We have developed and implemented automated test cases, as well as designed a solution based upon a keyword-driven approach.  
 
Keyword-driven testing is a software testing methodology that uses keywords to represent actions or functions to be performed on the application being tested. For example, in a login test case, it allows testers to use keywords to represent actions like opening a browser, entering text, clicking buttons, or verifying text, using keywords like: “Enter Text”, “Click Button”, “Verify Text”. These steps are data-driven, which means that they can be quickly adapted to the specific need for a certain testcase and provide generic functionality which can be used in multiple testcases. By applying the practices of continuous improvement, the client adapts to the ever-changing market and its demands. 

Leveraging API integration 

The telecom provider faced challenges in ensuring seamless synchronisation and compatibility between the test case management tool and the keyword-driven framework, leading to maintenance complexities. To tackle this challenge, ALTEN Nederland implemented an efficient solution by integrating a test case management tool with their existing keyword-driven test framework through a custom API. This API integration allows for seamless automation by linking reusable test keywords, defined as shared steps, from test cases stored in Azure DevOps Test Plans directly to the automation framework. 

The API acts as an intermediary layer (see figure 1), ensuring the automated execution of test cases by retrieving and mapping shared keywords based on their unique identifiers within Azure DevOps Test Plans. This mapping process guarantees that the correct keywords are executed as part of the test automation workflow, maintaining alignment between the test case documentation and the automation framework. 

By leveraging this API integration, the test automation pipeline operates autonomously, with minimal manual intervention. This significantly reduces the complexity of maintaining and updating test cases, as test automation engineers no longer need to manually reconfigure individual steps for each test case. The solution enhances scalability and maintainability of the automation framework, streamlining the overall testing process and ensuring consistency across test executions. 

A foolproof ALTEN solution 

The API integration of the test case management tool with the keyword-driven style approach significantly improved the customer’s testing process. It ensured consistent and reusable test steps, reducing maintenance complexities and manual updates.  

With the help of ALTEN Nederland, the client has undergone a remarkable transformation in test automation, achieving a huge reduction in test case creation time. What once took 3–4 hours can now be completed in just one minute, significantly improving efficiency and allowing teams to focus on higher-value tasks. 

This transformation enabled increased functional tester involvement. Testers with little or no knowledge of test automation were not previously involved in automation, whereas now they contribute to the creation of automated tests. This ensures a short feedback loop when a new functionality needs to be verified. 

Another challenging aspect of test automation is maintenance. By applying ALTEN’s solution, this has been significantly simplified. Updates can now be made centrally, which reduces the complexity and effort traditionally required to manage multiple test cases. The reuse of automated and predefined steps has drastically lowered the overall cost of test creation and ongoing maintenance, leading to significant long-term savings. 

Finally, real-time reporting, and enhanced traceability are improved. The new system has enhanced reporting efficiency, providing instant feedback on test results, which enables faster decision-making and quicker issue resolution. Integration with Microsoft Test Plans has strengthened traceability between requirements and test cases, ensuring better alignment and transparency throughout the testing process. 

With these advancements, the client has successfully optimised their testing process, setting the stage for continued growth and innovation in test automation.