Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
After evaluating the constraints, current time, shipment time, existing appoint-
ments, and calendars, the engine would come up with three suggested appointments
and display the data on the screen. The user then could choose any of these appoint-
ments, or if he did not like any of the options, then he could try to create a manual
appointment by entering it on the screen. If the user tried to make a manual appoint-
ment, then the engine would again run to see if any existing appointment conflicted
with this appointment. If there were no conflicts, then this appointment could be saved.
If not, then the user could again input appointment start and end times and try.
3. 2.1.4
Problems
When the test cycle was going to start, nobody in the test team had any idea how to
test this module or how complex the module was. It was a real challenge to test it. Even
in the SRS (software requirement specification) and SDD (system design document)
documents the complete logic was not stated anywhere. It was provided in fragments.
3. 2.1. 5
Solution
To test this module, I had to write the complete logic. Basically two calculations
had to be done: (1) calculate variable load times and (2) calculate start and end
times of appointment. Calculation of variable load times was easy. But calculation
of appointment start and end times was difficult. One strategy to test was to keep
all constraints constant, get one shipment record, and deduce the appointment start
and end times from reading, passing, and comparing one constraint to the other in
their hierarchy until you reach the end. The final output will be the appointment
times. Write down your result, and then run the engine and find what the engine
suggested and compare it with your result. If the engine produced the right result,
then the test case will pass. Then change the value of one constraint, keeping values
for other constraints the same as previous values, and then run the engine again for
the same shipment data. Do this for each constraint with separate test cases. Overall
we needed some 500 test cases to test the engine thoroughly.
3. 2.1.6
Pseudo Logic
I am providing here the pseudo logic that I had made to test the module.
3. 2 .1.6.1
Load Time Settings Decision Logic
If partner Variation is true then
If variable load time then
If calculated load time > Max reservation time
then
load time = max reservation time
elseif calculated load time < Min reservation
