Pricing Application
A leading food distribution company with over 100 years of history, originally focused on butter and egg delivery. Today, it is North America’s largest family-operated food distribution business, serving over 100,000 business customers. The company provides high-quality products and menu design services to restaurants, schools, universities, and hospitals, enabling them to deliver nutritious meals.
Business Challenge
The client faced significant challenges with its Pricing Application system, which was critical for providing accurate pricing guidance to its sales representatives. The system’s functionality had expanded significantly, leading to:
- Scalability Issues: The existing Selenium WebDriver framework was unable to scale with the growing test suite.
- Maintenance Bottlenecks: Lack of modularity led to high maintenance overhead as new features were added.
- Performance Constraints: Increased test execution times slowed down development feedback.
- Environmental Versatility: Tests were not easily portable across different environments, hindering validation in Test, QA, SIT, Staging, and Production.
Our Approach
To address these challenges, we implemented a cutting-edge solution using WebDriver IO with Cucumber and TypeScript. Key components included:
-
Modern Test Automation Framework: A modular and scalable test framework using WebDriver IO integrated with services such as:
- wdio-cucumber-framework: Enabled BDD testing with Gherkin syntax.
- wdio-spec-reporter: Provided detailed test execution reports.
- wdio-visual-service: Enabled visual regression testing for enhanced UI testing.
- TypeScript was used to improve code reliability, reducing runtime errors.
- CI/CD Integration:Automated test execution via GitLab pipelines, providing continuous testing with every code change.
- Cross-Environment and Cross-Browser Testing: The solution allowed testing across multiple environments and browsers, ensuring consistent behavior.
- Optimized Test Execution: Parallel test execution was implemented, reducing test cycle time and enhancing test performance.
Key Outcomes
- Faster Feedback: Reduced test cycle times through parallel execution and optimized browser interaction.
- Enhanced Code Reliability: Adoption of TypeScript minimized errors and improved code quality.
- Scalable and Maintainable Framework: Modular design allowed easy updates and scaling.
- Comprehensive Test Coverage: Validated across all environments and browsers, ensuring robust system reliability.
- Improved Developer Efficiency: Automated tests provided immediate feedback, enhancing developer workflows.
Tools and Technologies Used
- Languages & Frameworks: TypeScript, WebDriver IO, Cucumber
- CI/CD Integration: GitLab pipelines
- Execution Modes: Headless and browser modes, locally and in CI/CD pipelines
Client Benefits
Our solution delivered significant improvements in testing efficiency, framework scalability, and reliability, positioning the client for future growth and ensuring a seamless experience for their sales team.