From Manual to Automated: How AllyGPO...

Customer Profile

AllyGPO, a leading Group Purchasing Organisation (GPO) solutions provider, specializes in helping healthcare organizations optimize their procurement processes. With a commitment to delivering high-quality, cost-effective services to its clients, AllyGPO continuously embraces innovative technologies to improve its internal operations and client-facing solutions. To further enhance efficiency and quality, AllyGPO sought to modernize its quality assurance (QA) processes, ensuring they could scale with the fast-paced demands of the business.

Challenge

Optimizing QA Processes and Enhancing Automation in Agile Environments

AllyGPO, already employed strong Agile methodologies and DevOps practices, but they recognized an opportunity to further elevate their QA processes. As the frequency and complexity of releases increased, the need for a more streamlined, automated testing approach became clear.

AllyGPO aimed to enhance its test automation framework, integrate it smoothly into its Azure DevOps pipelines and ensure comprehensive testing coverage across all phases, including functional, regression, smoke, UAT, and performance testing. Key objectives included:

• Scaling Test Automation for Increased Efficiency: AllyGPO sought to expand and optimize its test automation framework to efficiently support multiple testing phases—regression, smoke, war, and UAT—without compromising quality or speed.
• Seamless Integration into DevOps Pipelines: AllyGPO aimed to integrate their automated tests into their Azure DevOps pipeline to improve collaboration between development and QA teams, streamline continuous integration (CI), and ensure consistent, reliable testing across all code changes.
• Enhanced Performance Testing: Ensuring application performance under high traffic conditions was a priority. AllyGPO sought an advanced performance testing solution to simulate real-world load conditions and identify bottlenecks before releases.

Solution

Comprehensive Automation Framework, Azure DevOps Integration, and Performance Testing

We worked with AllyGPO’s QA team to implement an advanced automation testing framework, integrated seamlessly into their Agile and DevOps workflow. The solutions provided included:

• Playwright and .NET Automation Framework: We developed a tailored test automation framework using Playwright and .NET, enabling AllyGPO to run comprehensive functional, regression, smoke, and UAT tests for their web applications. The framework’s scalability supported faster test execution and greater coverage across the application, resulting in more efficient testing cycles.
• Azure DevOps Integration: We integrated the automated testing framework directly into Azure DevOps, ensuring that tests were executed automatically as part of the CI/CD pipeline. This integration improved test execution speed and facilitated continuous feedback on code quality, enabling AllyGPO’s development team to detect issues early in the development cycle.
• Comprehensive Test Plan and Coverage: A well-structured test plan was implemented to cover all critical testing phases, from functional testing to performance assessments. Automated regression and smoke tests were seamlessly executed within the pipeline, ensuring that all key features were rigorously tested for every release.
• Azure Pipeline Testing: We configured automated test runs within Azure Pipelines, which triggered tests upon code changes or pull requests. This ensured that any potential defects were caught early in the development cycle, providing immediate feedback to developers and shortening testing turnaround times.
• Performance Testing with Azure Load Testing: We conducted a Proof of Concept (POC) for performance testing using Azure Load Testing, simulating real-world traffic patterns to help AllyGPO identify potential performance bottlenecks. The POC provided valuable insights into how the application could perform under peak load conditions, allowing AllyGPO to better understand scalability requirements and optimize the application for future high-traffic scenarios.
• Allure Report Generation for Automation Testing: We introduced Allure Report Generation into AllyGPO’s automation testing process, significantly improving the efficiency and clarity of test reporting. By integrating Allure, AllyGPO was able to generate detailed, interactive reports that provided deeper insights into test results, execution time, and failed test cases. The user-friendly interface made it easier for both QA teams and developers to quickly interpret the results, prioritize issues, and take corrective actions more efficiently. This improvement enhanced the transparency and traceability of automated tests, allowing for better decision-making and quicker remediation of defects.

Results

Optimised QA Process and Accelerated Release Cycles

The collaboration between AllyGPO and Enkaytech resulted in a series of impactful improvements across AllyGPO’s QA and testing practices:

• Enhanced Automation and Coverage: The Playwright and .NET automation framework significantly improved test coverage and execution speed. Automation of regression, smoke, and UAT tests reduced the manual testing effort, enabling the QA team to focus on higher-value activities and ensuring more consistent results.
• Accelerated Release Cycles: Integrating automated tests directly into the Azure DevOps pipeline allowed for faster, more reliable feedback on code changes. This streamlined the release process, helping AllyGPO deliver high-quality software faster and with greater confidence.
• Improved Collaboration Between Teams: The seamless integration of testing into the DevOps pipeline fostered stronger collaboration between development and QA teams. Real-time access to test results allowed for quicker identification of issues, reducing delays and enhancing overall team efficiency.
• Optimized Performance: With the insights gained from the POC using Azure Load Testing, AllyGPO was able to identify and address performance issues before they impact production. The performance tests helped ensure that applications could handle the anticipated load, ensuring smooth, uninterrupted service for users.
• Comprehensive Test Strategy and Greater Reliability: The comprehensive test plan covered all critical aspects of the application, from core functionality to load performance, ensuring that AllyGPO’s releases were reliable, secure, and fully optimized for end users.
• Increased Efficiency in Test Reporting: The integration of Allure Report Generation significantly improved the transparency and efficiency of test reporting. The detailed, interactive reports helped the team identify and address issues faster, improving decision-making and streamlining the overall testing process.

Testimonial

Throughout the project, AllyGPO expressed their appreciation for the significant improvements in their QA processes and the efficiency gains delivered by Enkaytech’s solutions:

“The automation framework Enkaytech developed has transformed the way we approach testing. The seamless integration with Azure DevOps has made our release cycles faster and more efficient, while the enhanced reporting with Allure has made it easier for us to prioritize and address issues in real time. The Proof of Concept for performance testing was a game-changer. It allowed us to visualize how our application would perform under high traffic and helped us make informed decisions to optimize for scalability and reliability. We are now better prepared for future growth.

We are extremely pleased with the results of the collaboration with Enkaytech. Not only did they deliver on their promises, but they also went above and beyond to ensure our teams had the right tools and insights to succeed. The improvements in our QA processes have had a direct, positive impact on our development cycles and overall product quality.”