Aer Lingus & Testing
Enovation Solutions was selected by Aer Lingus to implement a test automation tool in their e-commerce division; the division responsible for the AerLingus.Com website. Due to the fast moving world of the travel industry, Aer Lingus are constantly updating and improving the functionality offered on AerLingus.Com. To do this successfully there is a need to maintain the sites stability and high quality standard, and therefore significant investment is made in testing the site before it is released to the public.
Despite unsuccessful attempts to introduce commercial automation tools, the testing performed by Aer Lingus has been 100% manual. As a result each release sees a large drain on resources. To reduce this drain, Aer Lingus engaged Enovation to find an open source tool that would not only meet their requirements but also work hand-in-hand with their technologies.
Leveraging their knowledge of open source solutions and testing practices, Enovation performed a detailed suitability analysis of the relevant automation tools on the market to determine the right choice for Aer Lingus. They then worked with the Aer Lingus test and development teams to implement the solution, define an automation friendly test suite and finally script these tests to the point where they were ready for execution in the Aer Lingus test environment.
A complete regression test suite has been written using the chosen tool, Selenium, and a full rollout is currently being planned. The automated test suite should have a significant impact on the amount of manual testing that is performed on each release. Aer Lingus plan to increase to the volume of automated testing over the coming months, and eventually forecast close to a 100% automated regression cycle.
"We are delighted we decided to go down the open source route on this project," said Ronan Fitzpatrick, head of e-commerce division at Aer Lingus."Where the commercial product failed, Selenium is proving to be successful - we anticipate that our test cycles will be greatly reduced and our test resources will be able to concentrate on advancing the functionality of the site."
Dean Horrigan, head of Enovation’s testing services, commented on how Aer Lingus’ progressive approach has paid off. “The software industry is rapidly changing the way it looks at open source solutions and the return on investment that they can offer. Through their forward thinking approach Aer Lingus had the acumen to realise this and worked closely with Enovation to implement a solution that provided what the more costly world of commercial tools could not.”
