Abstracta Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the lead architect for a startup involved in organization and billing of SAAS subscription services

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Abstracta Inc.?

We need help with Testim.io. It is a great test automation tool. There was some strategy with respect to a couple test areas that we were not clear on and Testim recommended Abstracta as a valued partner.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Recommendation directly from Testim.io

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We started the project with a one week time box to ensure working offsite with little knowledge of the product could work. It did - better than I hoped. We then contracted for them for following phases.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked directly with 2 automation testers who were intimately familiar with the product and strategy.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We now have testing strategy in place that allows us to open flood gates in two major areas: financial transactions and rollback and complicated back and forth with email communications. It helped us bridge the last major areas we need to automate.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We launched into zoom meetings where we could demo and describe the test problems and what we needed to automate. They recorded those sessions. Of course a question here or there but for the most part they were self-sufficient relying on the demos to guide their automation. The workflow was better than we initially thought.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

There knowledge of the testing product and the limited "hand holding" they needed understanding ours.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None noted

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a technology solution provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Abstracta Inc.?

We needed their team to conduct application testings across all our platforms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve relayed our project requirements to Abstracta Inc.’s team through a scoping phase, and they’ve identified testing timelines and staffing assignments afterward. Upon finalizing the scope, they’ve assessed all our websites and applications to determine each platform’s efficacy, performance, usability, and interface quality.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with about six resources from Abstracta Inc.’s team.

How did you come to work with Abstracta Inc.?

They were referred to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in October 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Abstracta Inc.’s team has resolved all the tickets we’ve sent them and tested all our platforms comprehensively to identify any bugs that can impede app performance.

How did Abstracta Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via email and Slack and rely on Jira for project management. Abstracta Inc. has effective communication and productivity methods, allowing us to meet our goals on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a highly diverse and skilled team dedicated to delivering quality work and employing an enjoyable process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Abstracta Inc. is an excellent partner — I have no complaints about their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t hesitate to engage their team for your QA needs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former lead QA engineer of Keeeb. We’re a knowledge management company that operates similarly to a SaaS platform. Our goal is to transform how collective intelligence is shared through enterprises so that individuals who work on separate projects can leverage each other’s knowledge base.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Abstracta?

At the time, we only had one QA resource, which wasn’t a lot considering that we had around 11 engineers. However, we didn’t have the budget to hire another full-time testing resource. The challenge was being able to keep up with our ever-changing demands so that we could deliver a fully-fledged test suite while staying within costs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Abstracta provided flexible staffing for a range of testing services. They were mostly focused on automated testing for our performance, load tests, and API, however, there was also a manual tester who helped bolster our regression testing. The team used JMeter to manage their API and performance tests as well as TestRail, which was a test case management system. 

What is the team composition? 

We worked with between 3–4 people throughout the project’s duration. 

How did you come to work with Abstracta?

I performed a number of searches and interviews with different QA companies before finding Abstracta. What stood out to me was that they were more QA-focused compared to other engineering teams that were more development-oriented. I also liked that they did a comprehensive current state assessment of our engineering flow. That overview was really helpful in terms of getting my manager to sign off on them.

How much have you invested with them?

It was between $50,000–$60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between August 2020–January 2021. Our company recently went through a bit of a restructure to become more development-centric, which was why we stopped working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Abstracta helped increase our team’s sprint velocity, allowing us to have a more focused effort on quality. Within the first two months, they took us from zero automated testing to about 90 cases. On the manual side, we went from 30 cases up to about 300. 

How did Abstracta perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Jira, Confluence, and Figma along with other documentation tools to manage workflows. Their team was good about check-ins, too. One of their members would ask us monthly how our project manager and resources were doing to see if we needed to make any alterations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Not only was Abstracta’s dedication to learning our product was top-notch, but they also completely learned our company’s culture. Their team members didn’t seem like they were contracted resources. It was a very seamless, team-oriented approach.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would’ve been a bit more helpful to have had a better understanding of which resources they had available upfront. In the beginning, they chose the team for us. We had the option of changing those members, but I would’ve liked to have seen a little more of what went on behind the curtain.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Their team really sinks into the details and is super flexible, so you need to have a plan of what you want from them. Know which metrics you want to improve and outline your goals. If you give them a direction, they’ll be off and running. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an Engineering Manager at Lodgify. Lodgify is an innovative all-in-one solution that simplifies vacation rental marketing. It allows both owners and property managers to create their own mobile-friendly website with a “Book Now” button, manage reservations and calendars efficiently, and instantly synchronize property information with listings on external portals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Abstracta Inc.?

The regression tests automation project.

What were your goals for this project?

The regression test automation project was very important to us because the automation freed up QA resources for other tasks.

SOLUTION

How did you select Abstracta Inc.?

We were looking for reliable partners and looking for experts who already had experience with the Testim solution. It was this company that advised us their partners - Abstracta.

Describe the project in detail.

The goal is to automate more than 70 regression tests with the Testim solution.

What was the team composition?

Direct communication between the QA team on our end and Abstracta allowed us to set up a constructive workflow. 3 QA from our side and 1 full time QA from Abstracta's side were involved.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The results were achieved. 80% of all work was done on time. The extension of the project allowed us to get 100% results, which we were satisfied with.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Direct communication and daily standups work for us very well. With other online collaboration tools, we felt like a team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

All cooperation has been positive. From the first communication to the final meeting. Perhaps separately I would like to note their focus on our goals and objectives. Their desire to understand and solve our issues is exactly what we were looking for.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not really. They have tried do their best.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was an IT manager at a financial services company from 2011 to 2016. I am no longer working there, but I believe they still work with them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Abstracta Inc.?

The company has two different modules: one is transactional, and the other is dedicated to back office. The company decided to develop using GeneXus. We had five knowledge-based systems (KBS) to manage all the backend for all credit cards in the company. The problem was that the KBS were remarkably similar, so testing them was complicated, tedious, and manual.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They initially came in as a consulting service and provided their testing tool, and later, we came up with a plan that included the training for the testing area. Then, they started automated testing, and finally, they did capacity monitoring and automation using Apache JMeter. They also used Selenium.

What is the team composition?

The team ranged from 3–7 members.

How did you come to work with Abstracta Inc.?

I found Abstracta Inc. and heard about a tool they had developed that was planned to be integrated into the GeneXus testing system. They have excellent references for managing GeneXus. Once we started working with them, we realized that they go beyond what the contract asks, which made us want to continue working with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent approximately $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2012, and I believe they continue working with the company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We had a 0% rate of automated testing before working with them, and that grew to 30%, which was huge for us. Instead of having five people doing the testing, we had a report in the morning that was done overnight, which was incredibly helpful. 

It’s hard to find people who love testing, but they do. You can feel their passion for testing when you work with them. 

How did Abstracta Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Redmine. They adapted very well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were extremely talented at recognizing that we had training needs that weren’t obvious to us. They realized that if we didn’t start with training, the project was going to be much more complicated, so they had a brilliantly practical view of the project, which served us well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I believe they have expanded to tools other than GeneXus, which would have been my recommendation.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO for a low code development platform. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Abstracta INC.?

We have a modeling language through which we generate code, using AI. We needed a model-based testing service developed, which Abstracta created using a unique testing methodology.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked on our model-based testing service, using continuous integration tools such as Jenkins and Jibe. They focused on Android and iOS tools, among others.

What is the team composition?

Currently, we have direct contact with 10–12 people. We’ve been working with them for many years, so in the past, there was more involved.

How did you come to work with Abstracta?

We have worked with them since they were a startup. Their work has become a reference for testing tools.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent between $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around 2009 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’re now entering the Japanese market, which wouldn’t have been possible without the testing tool developed by Abstracta. That’s one of the most important measures of success that I can mention.

How did Abstracta perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s changed through the years. When we began, we worked with Excel sheets, but now our communications are fully digital and automatized. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have great technical skills but for us, the most important thing is their attitude and ability to solve issues fast. Their young, fresh minds also impress us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I couldn’t mention anything specific—there are always things to improve but they drive for continuous evolution.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a solutions architect at Pernod Ricard, a wine and spirits company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Abstracta Inc.?

We developed an application connected to Salesforce, and we needed to test the app in the twenty countries where we plan to roll it out. We hired Abstracta Inc. to help us with the testing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Abstracta Inc. tested our application and evaluated it across all of our target markets. They started with manual testing. They loaded the app and ran several tests. Then, they introduced Selenium to automate the tests. They ran all of our case scenarios and proposed some extra tools for further automation.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two people at first, and then just one person.

How did you come to work with Abstracta Inc.?

The owner of Abstracta Inc. and I were partners at a university. They had several references, and they were interested in collaborating with us. Their team was a good fit for my company.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $8,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2018–March 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Abstracta Inc. delivered great quality. The scope of the project was large, and they were very helpful. The cases were quite complicated, and they understood the end-to-end user cases and executed processes quickly.

How did Abstracta Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We managed the work through Confluence. My team provided Abstracta Inc. with clear, specified objectives, and there weren’t any problems. We controlled the schedule, and they responded accordingly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They added value to our company. I’m very happy with them, and I hope we can work together again in the upcoming months. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I didn’t have any issues with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of TangoCode, a custom development firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Abstracta Inc.?

We’d developed a store management system for college textbooks to replace a system across 800 stores. Before the replacement took place, we wanted to ensure that the performance and scalability were up to the required level. It was going to begin in 100 stores and increase across the whole selection.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We partnered with them for performance testing to make sure the Java application was configured and set up well. They used a tool to simulate multiple transactions, while we calculated what would be the maximum stress. They use an open STI to simulate how many transactions can happen at a time, with a performance monitor and a navigation tool too.

What is the team composition?

There was a project manager and one or two other people.

How did you come to work with Abstracta Inc.?

We were using a code generator tool and Abstracta Inc. was the only company that specialized in this testing. We wanted a specialized team so they were a natural choice.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

It was very important that we did the testing before bringing the system to stores, and their work gave us the confidence to go ahead and sell the system. It also meant we had the right knowledge about how to best configure the system going forward.

Now, we have testers and QA on our side so when we do functional tests, we do them ourselves. In this project, it was specialized performance testing and their changes ensured that the system performed much better.

How did Abstracta Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t know how to do performance testing, but we wanted to be very involved. They had the flexibility and patience to explain everything to us and keep us involved.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very knowledgeable about testing, flexible, and committed to their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I lead the software factory team at Pronto!, the leading financial company in the consumer loan market in Uruguay.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Abstracta Inc.?

We hired them for their performance testing expertise. We needed consultation from their performance engineers to help with the automation of performance tests, integrating them into our pipeline.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to improve our agile software development processes, with a focus on introducing performance testing in continuous integration and continuous delivery, in the process of adopting a dev ops culture. We also wanted to improve our approach for performance testing validations prior to the release of each version of our applications.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We evaluated several local companies and found them to be a professional team with great knowledge and experience in the industry. They shared our culture and values as well as our methodologies.

Describe the project in detail.

When the consultancy began, we had only integrated some phases of our development process into our continuous integration/continuous deployment pipeline. Abstracta Inc. started by automating performance tests for us and then trained our testing team in performance-testing tools so that we could continue to carry out these tests and grow the test case suite internally.

In addition, they collaborated on the incorporation of these tests into our CI/CD pipeline. They also led a retrospective analysis activity to identify any wasteful or inefficient elements of our processes regarding quality or delivery time and proposed ideas for facilitating continuous improvement.

What was the team composition?

Our internal testing team mainly worked with Andrei (Performance Engineer, Abstracta Inc.), who communicated with us, guided our strategy and led the initial efforts to automate performance tests. Valeria (Performance Tester) took part in the performance test automation, execution, and analysis. Federico (COO) was involved during the whole process and led a closing activity with various team members on our end.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Their results were excellent. They quickly delivered high-quality automated performance testing capabilities. They also empowered our team in relation to performance tests. The integration into our CI/CD channel was successful.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We worked together in a great cooperation.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their experience and knowledge of performance testing automation impressed us.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, we’re very satisfied.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO and co-founder of PedidosYa, a leader in online food delivery.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Abstracta Inc.?

More than 90% of our delivery orders come from our native applications, making our UX critical to our success. Our apps are constantly evolving, with changes sent to production on a frequent basis. Thus, it was imperative that our developers adopt methodologies and tools to help reduce bugs, glitches, and crashes.

We tasked Abstracta Inc. with building an automation framework and methodology for our dev teams which would give them early and continuous feedback about the quality of our mobile apps.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted an automation framework that was scalable, dynamic, and easily maintainable and one that would implement automatic checks at the UI level for our Android and iOS apps.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We’d worked with them before on the testing automation for other projects based on scalability. They performed well in those prior engagements.

Describe the project in detail.

We demonstrated to them our existing smoke test suite so they could understand it and start to automate it. They finished the project and delivered an automation framework as promised. It includes a base framework divided into two repositories, one for Android and another for iOS. They worked in Java, Maven, TestNG, Appium, Allure, GenyMotion, and SauceLabs.

The framework follows the data-driven testing methodology, and we can add more test cases by simply adding data to a CSV file. They used Page Objects pattern to maintain the testing functions. The framework also can execute tests in a way that simulates different geographic locations or languages that may be configured on the user’s device. It also accommodates A/B testing situations, where the flow of the screens changes in certain situations.

They worked together with our developers to optimize the application for testing capacity. For example, they added IDs to the elements with which the test interacts. This allowed the tests to be faster and more robust, so we can find the elements in the UI more efficiently, even when they change location.

What was the team composition?

We worked with an automation engineer and one of their QA leads. Our internal team featured two Android developers, two iOS developers, and four manual QA testers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The solution helped our developers to code in a way that made testing our apps easier, while also reducing the time it takes to obtain results about each change in the code’s impact on quality. This enabled us to run different types of automatic checks in our development pipeline, which in turn improved the UX for thousands of users who order food from our app daily.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They established an effective workflow from the start, making it easy to work as a single team for the duration of the project. We worked together via daily standup meetings and planning sessions while following a Scrum methodology.

Throughout the project, Abstracta Inc. held weekly reviews and retrospectives, demonstrating the framework for different stakeholders and obtaining feedback and suggestions for improvement. In addition, they held workshops with the developers and taught them everything they needed to know about the framework, from its basic components to how to execute tests and run reports.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They offered high-quality dedicated resources. They had the expertise to understand our needs in order to provide the solutions that we expected.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I can’t think of anything.