A deep look at how Appsvio streamlined their testing process, improved efficiency, and lowered barriers across their team.
As a small team with a single tester, finding a solution to keep our apps bug-free for users required a unique approach. Appsvio has been a Marketplace Partner for one year and we maintain and develop a portfolio of many fast-growing apps, but manual testing was slowing us down. To address this issue, we've implemented a new tool and new processes for more efficient end-to-end testing. Keep reading to learn about our approach – it was a game changer for us, and whether you're a small or large business, we hope you'll find it useful, too.
Low-code testing: How we bridged the gap between technical and non-technical team members
One of the main problems our team faced was the time it took to complete our manual end-to-end testing process. For Marketplace Partners, ensuring your app’s navigation and UX are flawless is crucial. The first five minutes with a new user matter the most – if anything needs to be clarified or doesn't work properly, the honeymoon is over. Automating the testing process often requires coding skills, which can be a barrier when working on a small team.
We wanted to find a tool that would allow us to automate end-to-end testing without the necessity of coding. With the full range of skillsets represented on our team, it was important that everyone could understand the testing process and create scenarios on an easy-to-use interface.
Low-code testing definition by mabl
From mabl:
“A modern approach to low-code testing, mabl eliminates the need to write code or scripts to test applications. The intuitive GUI interface allows you to quickly and easily create, run, and manage automated browser, API, and mobile web tests."
Learn more about mabl's low-code approach to end-to-end testing.
It’s important to leverage the full potential of your team. If you can implement a solution that eliminates the need for specific skills and makes the process easier for everybody – go for it! Developing apps is not just about programming; your team will be full of people with soft skills as well as coding skills. If your UX researcher, for example, can create end-to-end tests, then you'll be better off in the final app development stage.
We were looking for a tool that not only our tester but, for example, me, as CPO, can use to support testing processes when needed. Luckily, not everybody in a DevOps team is a developer with coding skills because then we'd be flooded with technical stuff.
Kate Pawlak, Appsvio CPO
How we used mabl as a tool for low-code end-to-end testing
At Appsvio, we tried out mabl as an end-to-end testing solution for two main reasons. First, we were looking for a cloud solution that didn't require additional infrastructure and would be easy to integrate with Bitbucket and pipelines. And second, it was crucial to find a solution that could work in tandem with Jira. Having previous experience with testing in the Jira environment, we knew that not all tools, even those that required coding skills, handled the iFrame well.
Sometimes even tools requiring SDETs skills don’t work as well in Jira as mabl.
Peter Patrzek, Appsvio CTO
Initially, we used mabl for low-code, automated testing across the three most common use cases in Customer and Organization Management for Jira Service Management (Connect app):
- Form creation with standard fields
- Form data editing, table i.e.
- Data displaying
In each of these cases, the result was faster and more efficient testing that everyone on our team could implement.
For another use case, we used mabl for Issue Templates Agent for Jira, a Forge app. This time integration with the pipeline was a must. The app was still in development, and there were a lot of ongoing changes in the code. Integration with the pipeline ensured that the script automatically ran when the team made changes or uploaded new versions.
In this case, the result was immediate test feedback on the pipeline after every single change that our team made.
Key takeaways: What we learned about low-code testing with mabl
What our team liked most about end-to-end testing with mabl:
- Low-code approach: Our implementation meant that anyone on our team could do testing without the need for coding skills.
- Cloud-native architecture: mabl provides tools for all platforms and you can create tests in the browser. The runner is also in the cloud, no need to create new infrastructure.
- Easy bug tracking: The interface makes bug tracking intuitive and easy.
- Ease of integration: Integration was smooth and quick, working well within the Jira environment and Bitbucket setup took less than five minutes.
- Environment split for test/staging/production: We could easily configure this environment within mabl.
Mabl's low-code approach meant our team could run tests faster and leverage the efficiency of an automated tester. Now, even a marketing hero could run a test, and, in our case, they sometimes do when conducting content research. Our team is self-supporting, and a lack of technical skills is no barrier to our success.
Everyone on our team has unique skills. We want there to be no technical barriers to testing our solutions – so there is not a lot of time-consuming and involved testers with each case.
Chris Skoropada, CEO Appsvio
Challenges our team faced while running low-code tests
Finding a tool to meet all our needs wasn’t easy, but in our case mabl proved to be one of the best solutions on the market. Integration was quick, simple, and didn’t require any extra assets. The process of getting our team members accustomed to it was also relatively easy.
The one challenge we had was with a drag-and-drop test. In the app configuration, there was a place where the user could choose displayed attributes on the special view. While building this view with drag-and-drop was very intuitive, the process was unrecognized by mabl when recording and running the test. It turned out that the test ID elements were missing, and their implementation solved the problem, but it took some troubleshooting to figure this out.
Conclusion: Tips for every Atlassian Marketplace Partner
Using a low-code approach can boost end-to-end testing efficiency and is the perfect match for a cloud-oriented company. It'll allow you to leverage the potential of your full team and lower technical barriers throughout the process. This benefit is most significant for users as they’re not always technical people.
That’s why mabl was such a useful solution for our team at Appsvio. Implementing it improved our testing efficiency, allowed everyone to participate in the process, and, most importantly, provided the end user with a bug-free, well-tested app.
If you want a deep dive into end-to-end testing in a low-code approach, connect with us on the Developer Community.