It is the tester’s responsibility to test an application that has been assigned to them and ensure there are no mistakes and negligence while testing. It also gives an opportunity to them to show their skills and prove their expertise. So, in order to ensure that the testing has been done properly, performing end-to-end testing is extremely important.

End-to-end testing is basically a method to ensure that the performance of an application is as per the requirement. Here, the real-world scenarios like hardware interaction, network, database, etc. are considered while testing the application from start till end. The end-to-end testing determines the many dependencies of the application as well as ensuring that there is right flow of information among the various components. This is usually performed once the functional and system testing of an application has been completed.

End-to-end testing of a typical email client would include the following steps.

  1. Go to the login page of the email client.
  2. Login using valid credentials.
  3. Access the Inbox to check read and unread emails.
  4. Check composing of new email, forwarding, and replying.
  5. Check sent items and spam folder.
  6. Logout of the application by clicking ‘logout’.

 

Different Methods of Performing End-to-End Testing

There are two different methods of performing end-to-end testing.

  • Horizontal end-to-end testing: This is the most common way of performing end-to-end testing. This can take place horizontally across multiple applications. For example, a web application of an e-commerce site will have account, inventory, and shipping sections to test.
  • Vertical end-to-end testing: This kind of end-to-end testing involves evaluating an application from start till end. Here, each individual level is verified and tested. This method is difficult to implement, especially in case of web applications that involve large chunk of HTML codes, hence requires a proper validation.

 

End-to-end testing incorporates the benefits of both White Box Testing and Black Box Testing. Depending upon the application being developed, either of these can be used. Moreover, it gives testers a lot of positives, as testers are able to write test cases with real scenarios considering user perspective.

Some of the best practices while creating the test cases include the following.

  • Considering the end user’s perspective while creating test cases
  • Testing existing feature of the application
  • Considering multiple scenarios for creating multiple test cases
  • Creating different sets of test cases.

 

Why End-to-End Testing is Important?

With the advancement in technology and considering the fact that the modern software system allows interaction with many subsystems, modern software system has become very complicated. The sub-system could be same or different form the main system or could be within or outside the organization. So, a failure in sub-system can cause adverse effects in the entire system.

 

The various risks associated with the system can be avoided by performing the following.

  • System flow verification
  • Increasing the test coverage areas
  • Detecting issues associated with the sub-system

 

However, a complete end-to-end testing includes the following process.

  1. Requirement Analysis
  2. Test environment setup
  3. Hardware and Software requirement analysis
  4. Description of system and all the involved sub-systems
  5. Assigning roles and responsibilities
  6. Testing methods and Standards that are being used
  7. Creating test cases
  8. Recording and saving the I/P and O/P data

End-to-End Testing Framework

A typical end-to-end testing framework has three categories, namely user functions, conditions, and test cases.

  • User Functions: For building user functions, the following actions must be performed.
  • Describing features of system and sub-system
  • Tracking the Input and Output data
  • Find connection between user functions
  • Identify the behaviour of user functions
  • Conditions: For building conditions, the following activities must be performed.
  • Preparing a set of conditions before every user function
  • Considering the factors that affect user functions, including time and data
  • Test Cases: Consider following factors for building test cases.
    • Create one or more test cases for every scenario
    • Every test should represent a single condition

 

Metrics

The following metrics are involved in end-to-end testing.

  • Status of the prepared test case
  • Tracking weekly test progress
  • Status report of defects
  • Test environment

After analysing the various aspects of end-to-end testing, we can conclude that the end-to-end testing is crucial in testing the entire application in an environment that imitates real world.

360logica software testing team has the proficiency and resources to provide comprehensive end-to-end testing services. The company strives to ensure that the test satisfies the overall software requirements. With extensive experience over the years, the company makes sure that the testing experts follow an approach that makes every bit of the application and test codes goal-oriented. Irrespective of the number of test cases, 360logica make sure even the smallest subsystems are tested and verified both individually and as a part of the entire system.