What is Software Quality Assurance?
A software quality assurance (SQA) department is the last set of eyes on a product or service before it reaches the public. A QA team works with the product or service to ensure the product meets the standards expected by customers. To simplify what quality assurance does, they work to discover any defects within various sections of the software. If an issue is discovered, they send the product back to development for a resolution and eventually retesting.
What does Software Quality Assurance do?
Within the software industry, a quality assurance department of software testers executes tests throughout the software before it reaches the hands of customers. If the software testers discover bugs/defects within the software, it is not ready for the customer.
The QA Team executes various software testing methods to ensure only high-quality software reaches the customers. It is massively important to utilize multiple testing strategies on a software product to ensure a broad range of quality control.
At Vergent LMS, we have found Functional Testing and Regression Testing provide the best results for our manual software quality assurance process.
What is Functional Testing?
In functional testing, the QA team uses the software as if they were an employee of a business. This ensures, from the customer side, that the software still properly functions as it should as a result of either a new enhancement or a resolution made for a bug/defect.
Validating the application in this manner ensures the software conforms to the specifications provided by the customer with all its functions performing at optimal performance. Effective functional testing results in an efficient and smooth experience for the customer.
What is Regression Testing?
Regression testing is performed for any new software updates and enhancements but is also used to validate that other areas of the system were not negatively affected by these changes. Performing regression testing is crucial for two reasons.
First, these tests ensure the new updates and enhancements do not cause existing functions to no longer work properly. Regression testing addresses the basic workflow around the update, and specific use cases.
Additionally, regression testing can highlight new issues that would not be easily apparent to a customer. These tests ensure the QA team can always provide the highest quality product to the customer.
When is the product ready for release?
If a bug or defect is discovered while testing the software, the QA team will work closely with software development to ensure a resolution is found and implemented. After implementing the agreed-upon resolution, the Software Development team passes the product back to the Quality Assurance team to verify that the resolution now aligns with the customer’s original request. These processes occur to validate quality management excellence. Once the issue has been resolved, the final product is ready to be delivered to the customer.
Why is Software Quality Assurance So Important?
As previously mentioned, an SQA team is the last set of eyes on the software before it reaches the customer. Software always plays a specific and important role in how a business functions from day to day. Should the software fail, all daily business relying on it will be unable to function for minutes, hours, days, or even weeks.
Minutes in a business situation are not only an inconvenience but also an annoyance. Business downtime that amounts to days or weeks is absolutely devastating to a company. Quality Assurance is the promise to customers that your software will always be as you expect it. Constantly making software updates, the company aims to deliver a more useful and optimized product to the customer.
At Vergent LMS, we recognize that our clients rely on our software daily to run their business. That is why we ensure only the highest quality loan management software on the market. Our QA team runs automated processes and manually walks through every step, so that our lenders can rely on their software, always.
If you are a lender looking for software to equip you to become a better lender, request a demo today. Custom implemented software allows you to have full control over your business. We will partner to set up your software specifically for your business. Then you can start making any loan, any time, anywhere.
Request a demo today. For an additional resource about Quality Assurance, click here.
