Project Summary
Pioneering UK parcel delivery company Doddle contracted software and services specialist Inspired Testing to test and maintain the quality of its frequently updated web and smartphone software applications at its Global Test Centre in Cape Town, South Africa.
Company
Doddle
Industry
Logistics
Location
United Kingdom
Solution
Automated Software Regression Testing
Technology Stack
Client Overview
One of the fastest-growing start-up companies in the UK, Doddle offers a unique, personalised parcel delivery service complete with easy-to-use software for parcel ordering and tracking. Parcels can be sent to and collected from Doddle stores, conveniently located in train stations and other major transport nodes; delivered directly to desk or door by Doddle Runners, or sent to a customer’s local ‘Doddle Neighbour’.
Problem statement
The Doddle concept is built around the busy, modern lifestyle of highly mobile working individuals who don’t have time to wait at home or visit the post office to collect or send their parcels.
“To make it work as efficiently and cost-effectively as it does requires careful planning supported by clever and powerful software that’s both easy to use and regularly updated with new features, functionality and special offers for our customers,” says Gary O’Connor, Doddle Chief Technology Officer.
“Making sure that the software works and our systems are always up and running means that we need to test our software as frequently as we update it and, given the volume of updates, we needed to find a way to automate much of that testing.”
Solution
Doddle first approached Inspired Testing with a problem it couldn’t solve locally. “We first challenged Inspired Testing to find a way to overcome the physical scanning speed of our Android-based parcel scanning device, which was too fast to allow testing scripts to run properly,” says O’Connor.
“Once Inspired Testing solved that issue, we were convinced they had the know-how and experience to deliver a seamless regression testing and test automation service that met with our high development standards and requirements.” The Inspired Testing solution is based on the so-called ‘minimal viable product’ methodology whereby Doddle’s mobile app functionality is updated in smaller increments to get the product to market quicker, and more functionality is released over time as the product matures.
Through automated regression testing, Inspired Testing ensures that current features are not negatively impacted by new features and every software update passes through stringent testing before being released to customers or into stores.
“With fast growth comes the associated challenges of scaling our IT systems to cater for the growth,” says O’Connor. “Inspired Testing helps us from a testing perspective to ensure that we always release quality software which, in turn, results in a great user experience and greater adoption of our innovative parcel delivery service.”
Benefit to the client after implementation
Inspired Testing has now developed test case scripts for every new Doddle software build, with an automated regression that continually tests the integrity of new builds almost as soon as they’re released by Doddle’s developers. On the back of the successful automation of a key product, Doddle has requested the test automation of the new StoreApp – the latest incarnation of the Doddle solution.
The team asked for automation of the returns web portal, which is used for managing the stock return items. These systems have been built by an outsourced provider and will be automated on Inspired Testing’s in-house framework.
A further request was for a functional tester to be allocated, as support to the Product Owner, to deliver manual functional testing. This additional person will be managed by the overall team lead from a delivery perspective, reporting into the product owner.
These are some of the high-level features that have been included in the scope.
These features have been estimated based on the scoping work completed during the initial sprints with the existing team:
- Collection
- New Returns
