Scenario Tester is a TEST DESIGN MANAGER and an AUTOMATED SCRIPTING METHODOLOGY.

The Scenario Tester approach consists of:

•	creating test designs in Scenario Tester,
•	building generic code,
•	testers executing their test designs, which are seamlessly integrated with the generic scripts.

Test Design Manager

A test design is a detailed description of how to test a specific test requirement or set of requirements: the test data, navigational flow through the application, which actions to take and expected results. In most organizations, test designs are written as text documents, often in Microsoft Word. As a result, there is no automatic connection between the test design and the test script - the test script has to be created from scratch, duplicating the test design.

With Scenario Tester, the testers enter the test designs directly into the Scenario Tester application. This is much easier than entering them into Word. New test designs can often be created by copying existing test designs and then adjusting the data.
As a Test Design Manager, Scenario Tester allows testers to control their test data easily and intuitively. This allows business users and testers to directly control the behavior of the test scripts.

At its most basic level, Scenario Tester takes the complexity out of managing test designs. Data is managed by the testers simply and quickly.

See what our users are saying about what it is like to use Scenario Tester.

Scripting Methodology

The test designs then form the test data, which can be used by the automated scripting tool.

Currently these values are either hard coded into the scripts or are stored in files, Excel or databases. Testers who are new to automated testing generally hard-code these values into their scripts. They soon discover that this makes the scripts inflexible, nearly impossible to debug, and un-reusable.

The next level is to extract this test data into its own special files. The data and the scripts are treated separately. The scripts read the data values from the data files. This is called data-driven testing.

In the past, CSV files and spreadsheets have been presented as the way to handle test data. But both of these methods leave much to be desired because they do not address the real problems that are encountered in building tests of large systems:

•	a CSV file contains rows and rows of data, each row has many, often hundreds of fields separated by commas. Each row has to have the data in the exact same order as every other row. This is very hard if not impossible to manage,
•	a spreadsheet has the same data, but in columns. This is easier to manage, but most commercial spreadsheet programs, for example Microsoft Excel, restrict to 256 columns. Since each column represents one field, any decently sized application will soon run out of space. This necessitates using multiple spreadsheets. The data then, again, becomes very difficult to manage.

Scenario Tester solves these problems. No more struggling with impossible data files. The test designs entered into Scenario Tester are the test data needed for automation.

Now to use automation, generic test scripts have to be created.

Test scripts are simply computer programs that run the application you are testing, and perform the functions that are necessary. If the application undergoes any changes at all, for example there are new fields, the scripts cease to work. The scripts then need to be maintained to make them work again.

Depending on how the scripts are written, this can be straightforward, or it can be nearly impossible. Based on years of experience in this field, we know that the "nearly impossible" scenario is the norm. Too many automated testing projects fail because of the complexity of the scripts. Maintenance becomes impossible and the scripts are abandoned. Testers revert to manual testing "because we don't have time". But isn't automation supposed to make things faster not slower?

Scenario Tester provides a brand new scripting approach. Using the Scenario Tester approach, your scripts will be robust, easy to understand and maintain, and long-lasting. Changes to the application being tested are easy to deal with.Thus your investment in your testing automation will be returned with a stable base from which you can perform software verifications for years to come.