Abstracta Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Quality Assurance Manager of the company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Operates as a quick-service restaurant company in Canada, the United States, and internationally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Abstracta Inc. to accomplish?

• Maintain automated scripts while adding to automated suites any additional features
• Automate visual testing across 4 different screen resolutions
• Develop an automation framework
• Automate regression and smoke suites across iOS, Android and Mobile Web

SOLUTION

How did you find Abstracta Inc.?

Referral

Why did you select Abstracta Inc. over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Abstracta Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The scope of work included:

• Set up of initial repository and framework
• Automate Android smoke suite across US and CA
• Automate iOS smoke suite across US and CA
• Integration into device farm, reporting, CI/CD
• Automate Android regression suite across US and CA
• Automate iOS regression suite across US and CA
• Monthly Demos
• Maintenance of automated suites
• Automate visual regression of key screens across 4 resolutions

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Full regression cycle is now completed in approximately 50 min for over 300 test cases. Manual testing used to take 7 business days for US and CA.
• Faster feedback on new builds. We are able to run a full regression immediately with results in less than an hour.
• Manual testers are now able to dedicate their time to feature testing and exploratory testing.
• Visual testing allows us to compare each version against base screens, an area that was missing with functional testing.
• Weekly deployments used to be comfortably uncomfortable, but with the faster testing feedback provided by automation, we have greater confidence in our releases and the ability to release more frequently.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Communication has been key, and Abstracta excels in this area. Their automation team is fully integrated into our development team and regularly colaborates with teammembers. All deliverables have been completed on time if not ahead of schedule. Daily standups and monthly demos contribute to this success. In addition, knowing the key players to reach out to on both sides of the aisle when there was a blocking issue was crucial. 
Abstracta has consistently delivered on what was promised and frequently gives their professional opinion and direction as subject matter experts. They've been able to advise on best practices, industry standards, and knowledge they gleaned. They're solution-driven and seek to solve a problem best by carefully listening to their client's needs.

What was your primary form of communication with Abstracta Inc.?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The quality of work has been most impressive as well as the high standards they set for themselves with regards to communication. The code is clean. They thoroughly document their processes and workflows. They are proactive when it comes to addressing potential issues or roadblocks that could be encountered in a project and also put in the effort to find the appropriate solution. They set a high bar when it comes to work ethic. It's truly been a pleasure partnering with them. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Abstracta Inc. could have done differently?

Abstracta has exceeded my expectations. I could not have asked for a better experience with a vendor.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a company responsible for software product development, including product strategy and technical implementation. We have a team of product owners, software developers, testers, managers, and DevOps engineers responsible for defining and building the software products we sell and are part of our portfolio.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Abstracta to help us improve our quality processes, including our automated and manual software testing process. Our ultimate goal is to be able to release software products faster and with higher quality.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started our engagement with Abstracta with an initial discovery process on the technology that we would select for automated testing. As a result of that process, Abstracta provided us with the results of their discovery, an ultimate recommendation on the technology to use.

Abstracta recommended using Ranorex and presented a proposal for its implementation within our automated testing process. We were already using a different technology, so as part of that implementation, their team has been working on converting our automated tests from the old technology to Ranorex.

As a second part of our engagement, Abstracta has helped us work on our manual testing process. We initially wanted to focus on automated testing, but we’ve expanded our engagement since then. Now, we work with a separate team from Abstracta on manual testing.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with around 12 teammates from Abstracta throughout our engagement. Their executive leadership team was involved early on in the process. From there, we’ve worked with account managers, the financial team, testing leads, and individual testers.

How did you come to work with Abstracta Inc.?

We found Abstracta through a referral. A member of my team personally knew someone who had worked with Abstracta in the past. When we first connected with them, we felt that they had a very niche expertise within software quality processes, which was where we had a significant gap.

The discovery phase I mentioned earlier helped convince me that Abstracta was a great organization to partner with. From the start, we collaborated very well. They were very professional and demonstrated expertise in the area we needed help with

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $500,000 thus far. Therefore, I estimate that we’ll spend around $1 million with them over a five-year period.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around the second quarter of 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The key metric for the success of our project revolves around the new technology implementation for our automated testing. When the Ranorex implementation started, we had 3,000 tests to convert. Abstracta has been on track with achieving that goal within the timeframe we’ve laid out.

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

Abstracta has been very collaborative with us on staying on time and within budget. We had some challenges early on with staying within budget because we underestimated the effort required to complete the scope. However, we’ve been able to adjust the project and the way we allocate our expenses to accommodate the budget and timeframe while keeping the original scope. We use Jira to manage the project and Microsoft (MS) Teams to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Abstracta’s collaborative culture is outstanding. They’re very willing to work with our uniqueness and how we function as a business. Additionally, their background and expertise in their field is impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything Abstracta could improve on. Although they underestimated the scope of our main project, it would have been very difficult for them to estimate it more accurately. That issue was more our team’s responsibility; we needed to explain the scope and the amount of time and effort required to achieve it more accurately.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to have ownership on both sides and work together as a single team with common goals to achieve success.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Manager of Quality Assurance of Spruce, Inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Spruce provides title insurance, coordination, escrow, and recording services through proprietary technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Abstracta Inc. to accomplish?

• Create a suite of manual test cases
• Translate manual test case suite into a robust suite of UI Automated test cases
• Create an automated API testing suite

SOLUTION

How did you find Abstracta Inc.?

Online Search, Other

Why did you select Abstracta Inc. over others?

Pricing fit our budget, Great culture fit, Company values aligned

What was the size of Abstracta Inc.’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Abstracta was tasked with helping Spruce redefine our testing strategy. They were responsible for helping us create a robust feature matrix and a manual test case suite for E2E regression testing. Abstracta also created a fully featured API and UI automation suite for Spruce that we utilize daily for regression and smoke testing.se suite

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our team went from not having an automated test case suite to having over 280 Automated Test Cases. We also had over 1000 manual test cases created. Combined we have over 90% coverage of our primary customer-facing application.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Abstracta integrated with our team perfectly. We operate as one unit. They participate in stand-ups and ll agile ceremonies. They always respond to our company's needs and are very dependable teammates. It has been an amazing experience working with the Abstracta team.

What was your primary form of communication with Abstracta Inc.?

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

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

They have strong customer-focused values. They align with our team goals and mission statement.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Abstracta Inc. could have done differently?

None really. Perhaps if they can expand to other regions and be more available for onsite work would be a nice addition. But they truly satisfy all company needs remotely. I totally recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP at a software platform that provides financing to independent car dealers in the US; we provide sophisticated tools to help those businesses grow. I’m responsible for providing strategic leadership for our technology to broaden and deepen our culture of continuous improvement to help us develop innovative products. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

In order to scale our business, we need to build quality software. We can either design the quality or inspect it afterward through QA functions. Strategically, we design the quality of the product up front and have partnered with Abstracta Inc. to identify a quality strategy and implement practical steps to execute it. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve embedded Abstracta Inc. into every piece of customer technology — they’re a core part of our agile teams. Their team is helping design and test strategies and practices to ensure that our teams produce high-quality products. 

What is the team composition?

Day-to-day, around 10–12 teammates work with us, and I work with several technical leads and a customer success manager. I’ve also worked with Abstracta Inc.’s executive leadership team.

How did you come to work with Abstracta Inc.?

I heard of Abstracta Inc. over the years through various contacts, so I asked them to put together a proposal for us. We discussed how they’d design and embed that strategy in our processes. Their translation of the strategy from strategic to practical implementation was compelling enough for us to engage them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership with Abstracta Inc. began in April 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve designed a manual QA testing strategy that has led to the creation of a test using Selenium that automates QA where possible. Since hiring Abstracta Inc, the number of production incidents and defects and bugs encountered during development has been on a steep downward curve. They have turned every member of our team into a quality specialist. 

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

Their team managed the projects excellently. Since we work in agile, we don’t prioritize communication tools — we communicate directly with our teams. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Abstracta Inc. absolutely dominates their service domain — they are experts in what they do. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We could always benefit from their team providing additional training, guidance, and material to sustain ongoing efforts to improve quality. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend Abstracta Inc. if customers want quality built into their products. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager at a software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired them as business partners to engage in tasks related to functional and automated testing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Abstracta Inc provides us with QA testing services. We have numerous projects that they work on, such as web development, payment platforms, and back office systems. They’re in charge of quality assurance in all of those projects. For some products, their team does manual functional testing while automated testing for others. They use Cucumber and Selenium for automated testing.

What was the team composition? 

We’re currently working with nine people from their side.

How did you come to work with Abstracta Inc.?

We compared different companies that specialized in testing and were based in Uruguay. We decided to go with Abstracta Inc. based on their expertise and pricing. At first, we hired them for a trial project, but we extended the collaboration after getting good results.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2016, and it’s an ongoing partnership.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Abstracta Inc is a part of our team, so we don’t have separate measures of success. We value our work relationship with them and are happy with their work and incorporation into our team. That’s why we continue to collaborate with them for an extended period of time. 

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

They are very good in this regard. Their team is open to feedback and attentive, and they offer suggestions for improvement. We use all means of communication, as well as in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We are very happy with the way they have integrated into our teams. They are also very quick at responding to our needs, and our communication is very fluid.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should just continue being as open and honest as they have been so far.     

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.