Introduction

Release Testing as acceptance testing or final testing is essential before delivering code on the production server and is a critical phase in the software development lifecycle, It is conducted to ensure that the software is ready for deployment and can perform as expected in a production environment. But also builds confidence among stakeholders, the Manager, the team, and end users.

By involving actual end-users and focusing on real-world scenarios, UAT/Release testing helps ensure that the software meets business requirements and performs as expected in a live environment.it is also an actual first run of the software before it gets released.

Advantages of Release & UAT Testing

Release testing offers several advantages that help ensure the software product's quality, reliability, and success before it is deployed to end users. It is very significant to deliver good quality for any project and product.

Quality Assurance: Ensures the software meets the specified quality standards and is free from critical defects.
Risk Mitigation: Found and addresses potential issues before the software is released, reducing the risk of failures, downtime, and costly post-release fixes.
Validation of Requirements: Confirms that the software meets all business and user requirements,
Performance Assurance: Ensuring it can handle real-world usage scenarios without significant degradation.
Security Validation: Identifies and mitigates security vulnerabilities, protecting the software.
User Satisfaction: Engages and more focus on User Acceptance & Release to gather feedback and ensure the software is user-friendly and meets their needs.
Documentation Accuracy: Reviews and updates all user manuals, help files, and other documentation to ensure they are accurate and helpful for end users.
Deployment Readiness: Validates the deployment process, ensuring the software can be successfully installed, configured, and started in a production environment without issues.
Customer Confidence: Builds confidence among stakeholders and customers that the software is reliable and stable.
Reduced Support Costs: Identifying and fixing issues before release, reduces the need for post-release support and maintenance.
Improved Communication: Facilitates better communication and collaboration between development, testing, and operations teams, ensuring that everyone is aligned and working towards the same goal.

Best Practices for Effective Release & UAT Testing

Start Early: First, we require proper planning for release testing early in the development process to ensure all necessary resources and environments are available.
Define Clear Objectives: Establish clear goals and criteria for successful release.
Engage Stakeholders: Involve stakeholders and end users in testing to gather valuable feedback and ensure the software meets their expectations.
Automate Where Possible: Find automated testing tools to streamline repetitive tasks and improve testing efficiency.
Create Realistic Test Environments: Use environments that closely mimic production settings to identify potential issues that might arise post-release.
Document Everything: Maintain detailed documentation of all test cases and results.

Things To Plan & Do Before UAT & Release Testing Starts:

Before starting User Acceptance Testing (UAT), thorough planning and preparation are essential to ensure a smooth and effective testing process. Here are the key things to plan and do before UAT begins:

Conduct usability sessions with external team members to get initial reviews.
Identifying test scenarios and writing test cases.
- Test cases should include a happy path taking a user through the major and critical components of the application.
- Pass/fail tests will be the primary metric for a successful UAT/ Release.
- Need to identify team members to start preparing this and take ownership.
- The internal team should execute all test cases with a “pass” result before considering the application “feature complete” and ready for UAT/Release.
The backend is writing unit tests and the Frontend is doing manual and unit tests.
Mapping requirements to linear tickets — Traceability Matrix → think more in the future. Projects
Deployment timeline — code should be ready and the date for code freeze should be set before deployment
Setup criteria for how long a bug should take to be fixed during the UAT/Release phase
Legal Review — happens when the design phase starts
- Who will do it — Evan Seam one
- What does this review include? The legal team goes over copies/statements and approves or asks for any changes
- How long should this take? ~1 week [This process is still WIP]
Find and finalize UAT & Release testers

Stabilization and Deployment:

The stabilization phase focuses on ensuring the software is stable and free of critical defects. This phase includes the following steps:

Security Audits: Conduct security audits and testing to identify and fix vulnerabilities.
Required team members prepare for production deployment. (happens in 3 days).
Compliance Checks: Ensure the software complies with relevant security standards and regulations.
- Strictly follow to select the date & time for the code freeze.
- Staging QA/Dev environment for deployment
- Deployment day.
- Syn with the team.
- Maintained the checklist

Best Practices for Final Testing:

Set up bug triage calls every day with the UAT/ Release manager.
Specific team members to be available (on-call of sorts) to actively participate in impromptu meetings regarding questions or functional workflows
Integration, Penetration testing, and Load Testing - TBD or needed per-project base
Start drafting a report to summarize the project and bugs found during this phase.
Automate Where Possible: Use automated testing tools to perform repetitive and regression tests efficiently.
Involve Stakeholders: Ensure that end-users, business analysts, and other stakeholders are involved in the final testing process to validate business requirements and usability.
Simulate Production Environment: Conduct tests in an environment that closely mimics the production environment to identify potential issues that might arise post-deployment.
Clear Communication: Maintain open communication with the development and testing teams to quickly resolve any issues that are found.
Risk-Based Testing: Prioritize testing efforts based on the risk and impact of different function abilities to ensure critical areas are thoroughly tested.

Exit Criteria for UAT & Release:

Zero bugs mentality OR exit with only cosmetic bugs
- We should strive to have zero bugs remaining that were discovered while executing the prepared test cases.
- We might exit UAT/Release with having some bugs or known issues in areas of the application that are neither covered by the prepared test cases nor likely to be encountered during exploratory (i.e., not following a prepared test case) usage.
Sign-off meeting with all required stakeholders
Complete report with defect log and trace matrix (mapping of requirements to test cases)
~70% test coverage — unit tests
Happy path covered by function (i.e., end-to-end automation of the UI) testing.

Considerations:

Ensure the regression test suite is up-to-date with the latest test cases.
Prioritize high-risk areas to maximize coverage with limited resources.

Final Pre-Deployment Checklist

Purpose: Ensure everything is ready for a smooth transition to production.

Activities:

Backup: Ensure that all data and configurations are backed up.
Deployment Plan: Confirm the deployment plan, including timelines and roles.
Rollback Plan: Prepare a rollback plan in case of critical issues during deployment.
Create the release note for the project & product.
Stakeholder Communication: Inform all stakeholders of the deployment schedule and potential impacts.

Conclusion

By meticulously planning and executing final testing, organizations can minimize risks and ensure a successful software deployment, meeting both business requirements and user expectations. It involves multiple testing activities aimed at ensuring the software is stable, functional, performant, secure, and user-friendly.