10X Faster Regression Testing & Less Coding for a Titan of TV

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The Challenge

‍Producing a Plethora of Business Applications in Just Two Years

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Facing an aggressive project timeline, FOX leveraged Salesforce and MuleSoft as a force multiplier — building applications across the organization with streamlined workflows and a common user experience across every channel. FOX’s software development teams worked at breakneck speed to stand up an ERP system, a human capital management system, advertising sales systems, marketing platforms and more.

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“We had a two-year time crunch to get everything done,” says Garrett Boss, CIO, West Coast Operations, FOX Corporation. “Quality and speed were vital. To enable business evolution we had to develop faster. And to develop faster we needed automated testing.”

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Pulling the Plug on Manual Testing & Complex Tools

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Before Copado, FOX leveraged Selenium to automate testing — but this pro-code platform presented a challenge for the company’s QA teams. As a result, QA struggled to expand test coverage and were forced to spend long hours on repetitive manual testing before each deployment. Even worse, the test cases were often fragile and led to tedious rework. 

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“We couldn’t get close to 20% test coverage with Selenium,” says Boss. “It was time consuming and we had tight deadlines. People were working late in the evenings to get everything done on time. We wanted to get more automated testing and focus our QA’s time on more productive things than manual tests.”

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Key Challenges

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The Solution

‍Premiering the Perfect Partner for Easy Testing and Extended Coverage

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FOX explored the automated testing marketplace for a new partner — and Copado Robotic Testing naturally rose to the top of the list. FOX selected Copado due to the solution’s Salesforce testing capabilities as well as its flexibility to test other platforms (like their .NET app for programming and scheduling).  

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“We needed to automate process testing and regression testing for a portfolio of applications as efficiently as possible,” says Boss. “Copado Robotic Testing has the best capabilities for adapting to app changes, which prevents tests from breaking and keeps maintenance low.”

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FOX had two core goals for their testing practice: Accelerate cycle time and achieve more productive deployments. After implementing Copado, it didn’t take long for FOX’s QA teams to save time, release faster and cut down on deployment issues. 

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“Copado Robotic Testing has definitely lived up to expectations,” says Boss. “Copado does image capture of the application and it’s easy to set up regression tests through that process. There’s less coding — it’s a lot like doing screen grabs and filming how the app works.”

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Thanks to Copado, FOX’s less-technical business analysts can participate much more on development and tweaking the regression suite. 

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“That was not the case with Selenium,” recalls Boss. “You definitely had to be well trained in that language to make a modification. But Copado is a lot more user-friendly and folks who are more functional have been able to lend a hand in the QA process.”

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The Outcome

‍Screening Software Bugs & Keeping Up with Business Evolution

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With Copado Robotic Testing, FOX can meet ever-rising consumer demands and stay in lockstep with the evolving media and entertainment industry. Copado has enabled FOX’s QA teams to achieve a 10X reduction in regression testing time (from four days to four hours) with a rate of adoption from 0 minutes to 8,000 minutes per month.

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Before Copado, FOX’s QA teams faced a tradeoff between speed and quality. If they found an issue and resolved it, they could run regression tests to make sure that fix didn't cause another problem, which would delay delivery to business stakeholders and customers by 3-4 days. Otherwise, QA could skip the regression test and deploy on time — with a high risk of undiagnosed defects within the code.

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“Without automation, we’d either have lower quality apps or it would take longer to roll them out,” says Boss. “Copado has removed the dilemma. Now, we can run that regression test and make sure the fix we deployed hasn’t caused a problem. Today, we get 20% coverage with Copado Robotic Testing. Our end goal is to reach 80-90% coverage and expand that to other applications.”

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As FOX transitions from a traditional TV business model to the digital media landscape, the company relies on test automation to decrease cycle times and scale application development. Copado’s usage within FOX has grown 400% year-over-year to support more software initiatives, add more enhancements and ensure uptime across their business application suite.

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The Future

‍Catapulting Innovation with Mobile Testing & AI

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What’s the next step in FOX’s test automation journey? Harnessing the power of AI. FOX plans to leverage Copado’s self-healing AI to keep regression tests from breaking each time the application changes. The company also aims to help customers build and execute mobile tests directly in the cloud with Copado’s all-cloud mobile testing — eliminating clunky and costly infrastructure, slow delivery or lost devices. 

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“It’s all about mobile and innovation,” says Boss. “We need to be nimble and try new things to gain market share. We’re focused on what’s next within the AI space and leveraging AI to enhance our testing capabilities and drive value through data.”

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