Functional Testing
Among the various types of testing that can be carried out today the overwhelming majority are focused in an area called Functional testing. At its core, functional testing is a reliable, repeatable method to validate that a piece of software continues to carry out certain documented functions. Functional testing has been propelled to the forefront of testing due to a sub-technique called Automation testing.
At the same time, software applications usage has continued to grow across all major fields like business, education, defense, research, medicine, energy, utilities, etc. The list is long. Software systems are evolving to become more sophisticated to handle more complex functionalities.
Faulty software can cause minor inconveniences like browser incompatibility for websites or they can cause major catastrophes like losing a spacecraft, causing pipeline explosions, or banking failures and impacting economies. That’s why rigorous procedures have to be defined to test the software before it can be released to the end user. In addition, the software is nowadays being released at far greater frequencies. A decade back it was normal to release software in production once a year whereas nowadays companies like Facebook and Google release software multiple times a day! Functional testing is a critical component in ensuring that software works well in production environments.
What is Functional Testing?
Functional Testing, also known as Specification-based testing, evaluates individual functions of a software system to verify that they adhere to pre-defined specifications. It tests the functional accuracy, interoperability of subsystems and compliance with pre-defined standards in the context of functional and business requirements.
The primary focus of this type of testing is validating the results of processing, not “how” the processing is done. It can also be termed as a form of Black Box testing.
There are two key approaches to performing this type of testing.
Testing based on requirement specifications: This is focused on testing all possible scenarios based on requirements aligning to the functionality that the software system is expected to perform. Testing based on Business Scenarios: This is focused on end users’ requirements pertaining to business objectives that a software system is designed to achieve.
The primary objective of functional testing is to verify and validate the functionalities of individual subsystems and then testing the functionality of the system as a whole.
Functional Testing is applicable at any level of granularity, be it at individual module levels or overall system levels. Depending on the level of granularity and interdependence, appropriate test cases are designed.
Any software system also has certain functions or plugins that can be tested independent of other functionalities. Such features are known as Independently Testable features. Such features either take inputs from modules of software under test or provide inputs to them. Read for more : Functional Testing
Webomates CQ, a tool by Webomates is used for performing regression testing for all the domains. Request a demo today.