Functional Testing

1. Functional Testing

2. Definition • FUNCTIONAL TESTING • Evaluation of programs based on functional requirements to ensure the program works as it was specified to do.

3. Definition

4. Definition • A functional test case validates the solution as defined by the requirements specification or detailed technical specification of the component. • A functional test case design is based on the analysis of the functional specification of the specific functional component without reference to its internal workings.

5. Definition • Functional Testing primarily focuses on ensuring that the solution components work as designed, and that the design sufficiently meets the business requirements. Functional Testing will often involve some manual steps and stubbing of components as not all processes will be tightly linked together. • Functional Testing is often the most complex area of Testing as it involves staggering the test cycle inline with development as it occurs. Typically, it is also where there highest degree of changes occur during the testing process.

6. Types of Functional Testing Criteria • Types of testing criteria for functional Requirements • Demonstration: • Demonstrate the operation of the function to the system owner to show that the requirement has been met. • Inspection: • Sometimes used in combination with demonstration, it requires visual examination of the code documentation, table dumps, scans, etc. • Analysis/Special Qualification: • The processing of accumulated data obtained from other methods, or any special tools, techniques, procedures, facilities, and acceptable limits. This type of testing usually affects critical parts of the system and/or interfaces.

7. Types of Functional Testing Criteria • Demonstration: • Demonstrate the operation of the function to the system owner to show that the requirement has been met. • Examples: • Test that a screen navigates to the correct next screen • Test that a field is displayed • Test that an inquiry can be made on a database

8. Types of Functional Testing Criteria • Inspection: • Sometimes used in combination with demonstration, it requires visual examination of the code documentation, table dumps, scans, etc. • Examples: • Test that an update is made to a database • Test that a report is in the right format • Test that a database table is created

9. Types of Functional Testing Criteria • Analysis/Special Qualification: • The processing of accumulated data obtained from other methods, or any special tools, techniques, procedures, facilities, and acceptable limits. This type of testing usually affects critical parts of the system and/or interfaces. • This is the typical type of testing we think of when we do functional testing. The types of these tests are enumerated in the next slide.

10. Functional Testing Items • Functional Testing will often contain the highest overall number of test cases, as it is focused on testing the solution against the following: • Business Rules • Data Mapping • Key Mapping Validation • Data Validation • Filtering • Data Re-Engineering • Derived calculations

11. Functional Testing–Derived Calculations Functional Requirements The system shall calculate interest on a daily basis For a loan given to a producer, the system will calculate interest daily based on the prime rate of +1.2 • Derived calculations

12. Functional Testing–Business Rule Functional Requirements The system shall calculate invoice discount based on customer status. Customers in good status get a 5% discount, Customers NOT in good or poor status get a 1% discount. Customers in poor status get no discount. • Business Rule

13. Functional Testing–Data Mapping Functional Requirements The system shall create new customer status categories. The previous categories were good and poor and a null status. The new categories will be excellent, fair, good and poor. When converting the data, excellent customers are those customers who been customers classified as high volume customers and who have a good status. Good customers who were not changed to excellent shall remain in the good status. Poor status is not changed and fair is the previous null status. • Data Mapping

14. Functional Testing–Techniques • Black-box testing includes the following testing approaches: • Equivalence Partitioning • Boundary Value Analysis • Error Guessing • State Transition Testing

15. Functional Testing–Techniques • Equivalence Partitioning • Equivalence Partitioning is based on evaluation of business functions by evaluating the input and/or output data that falls into categories where the system responds in a similar manner. • Take a look • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_partitioning

16. Functional Testing–Techniques • Equivalence Partitioning Process • Look at functions that require input • Select input and output data that is representative of all other data that would likely invoke the same process for that particular condition.  • These should include • All valid input/output data for a given condition • All invalid input/output data

17. Functional Testing–Techniques • Equivalence Partitioning Example • If a business rule stated that discounts were given to senior citizens (over 62) of 5%. • We would have test cases such as • One person over 62 • (all others over in this equivalence class) • One person under 62 • (all others over in this equivalence class)

18. Functional Testing–Techniques • Boundary Value Analysis • The purpose of boundary value testing is to evaluated a functions based on the boundaries of conditions. • Take a look • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_value_analysis

19. Functional Testing–Techniques • Boundary Value Process • Look at functions that require selection based on specific values. • Select input data that is representative of the boundary values.

20. Functional Testing–Techniques • Boundary Value Example • If a business rule stated that discounts were given to senior citizens (over 62) of 5%. • We would have a test cases for • One person who is 62

21. Functional Testing–Techniques • Error Guessing • The purpose of error guessing is to focus the testing activity on areas that have not been handled by the other more formal techniques, such as equivalence partitioning and boundary value analysis.  Error guessing is the process of making an educated guess as to other types of areas to be tested. 

22. Functional Testing–Techniques • Error Guessing • Examples of areas where error guessing might be used: • · initialization of data, • · wrong kind of data, (e.g., negative numbers, non-numeric versus numeric), • · restart/recovery • · proper handling of concurrent processes

23. Functional Testing–Techniques • State Transition Testing • State transition testing focuses on the testing of transitions from one state (e.g., open, closed) of an object (e.g., an account) to another state. A good technique to test screen navigation. • Take a look • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_transition_table

24. Good Reference • Center for Software Testing Education & Research • At FIT • http://www.testingeducation.org/BBST/index.html • John McGreggor – known software testing researcher • http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~johnmc/columns.html