CASE STUDIES

Background

Dovel empowers customer missions with innovative technology solutions. By applying proven software development methodologies combined with leading-edge technologies and approaches, customers’ solutions meet today’s needs as well as those of the future.

Dovel has been instrumental in designing and implementing some of the most mission-critical and innovative systems in government today. They bring strong experience across the software development lifecycle as well as specialized experience in Health IT, Education, Grants Management, and Regulatory markets.

Dovel has been appraised at CMMI®Maturity Level 3, and its annual quality report receives accolades from industry leaders such as Capers Jones, who has listed Dovel in the category of “Companies That Utilize Best Practices” along with IBM, Amazon, Google, and Apple.

Challenge

Dovel has supported several projects within the federal government. One specific project required 936 man hours of regression testing time, and six testing resources were allocated towards the regression effort. Dovel delivered development, operations, maintenance, and enhancement support for this project and continues to provide ongoing regression testing.

The project combined a multitude of web-based applications into a single management system servicing twenty (20) Federal agencies. As a cutting-edge technology company, Dovel employed testers with a broad range of skill sets, but preferred a solution that did not require substantial technical skills, so the testers could focus on providing subject matter expertise rather than spending time writing scripts or code to conduct automated testing. It was criticalfor the Dovel team to have a cost-effective solution that was easy to install and configure, scaled out of the box, provided cross-browser and cross-environment testing, and did not require coding knowledge.

Solution

After evaluating several test automation products, the Dovel team decided to pilot Subject7’s platform. The team was quickly impressed with the functionality and ease of use. With only introductory training, the team created and ran test cases almost immediately. Subject7 delivered:

  • A Cost-effective solution that could grow with Dovel as their needs evolved.
  • The convenience of Software as a Service (SaaS), with no installation necessary and seamless upgrades
  • Data-driven testing out-of-the-box
  • High-scale test execution enables rapid regression testing across various browsers and development environments.

After the pilot, Dovel selected Subject7 for all of their automated and load testing needs.

Results

After an initial investment of time to create a library of repeatable test cases, the team observed dramatic increases in the speed they could fully execute regression testing. Production level defects were reduced significantly, directly attributed to test automation. The testing team can now focus their energy on testing new functionality, while the Subject7 test automation platform runs all the regression tests.

Dovel reported the following, as a result of working with Subject7:

  • Reduced regression testing time from 936 labor hours to only 7 machine hours
  • Executing regression tests nightly as opposed to only once per release

Today, with more than five years as a successful partnership working directly with Dovel, the Subject7 program has grown to support load and manual testing across additional products and services. Subject7 continues to train and provide support to the Dovel team and has provided open dialogue about future product enhancements. Dovel has continually been impressed with Subject7’s commitment to customer service and speed in introducing feature enhancements.