Three key points of acceptance testing for software testing

　　Acceptance testing is an active process in the product development life cycle, and verifying that the product meets the specification requirements is a user's requirement. The user can be an end user or an outsourcer. If it is a product outsourced by the outsourcer, during the acceptance test, the outsourcer mainly tests whether the contract meets the requirements, and the compliance of the contract after acceptance directly determines the cost paid by the outsourcer to the customer in the later stage.

　　Acceptance test content

　　Acceptance Testing refers to the software testing activities carried out before the product is released after the product has completed functional testing and system testing. It is the final stage of technical testing, also known as delivery testing. The purpose of acceptance testing is to ensure that the product is ready and to allow the end user to use it to perform the defined functions and tasks of the product.

　　The main contents of the acceptance test include: establishing acceptance test standards, reviewing configuration items, and conducting acceptance tests.

　　First, the establishment of acceptance test standards

　　As with system testing, acceptance testing requires a series of test plans and procedures. Start by determining what type of acceptance test you need to test, that is, what aspects to test, such as performance testing, installability testing, portability testing, usability testing, documentation testing, etc., and then schedule the testing according to the type.

　　When you add specific test cases, you can better accept the feature points that need attention. In general, there are usually two ways to judge test cases: one is to extract a part of the test cases designed from the original system test stage as acceptance test cases (because the acceptance test cannot comprehensively test the entire system, generally a part of the test cases can be extracted (use cases as acceptance test cases), but the disadvantage of this method is that the test cases designed in the system test stage have been tested, and these test cases are usually tested correctly; Second, on top of extracting some test cases, adding some special test cases is more acceptable and comprehensive, although the cost is relatively long. Therefore, adding specific test cases can better accept feature points that require attention.

　　Acceptance testing will focus on the following aspects:

　　(1) Whether the software complies with all the functions and performance specified in the contract.

　　(2) Whether the documents are complete.

　　(3) Whether the man-machine interface is accurate and whether it complies with the contract.

　　(4) Whether other aspects (such as portability, compatibility, error recovery and maintainability, etc.) can meet user requirements.

　　There are two types of acceptance test results: one is that the user's acceptable functions and performance indicators meet the requirements of the software requirements specification; Second, users cannot accept the requirements of the software requirements specification. Serious errors and deviations were found at this stage of the project, which were generally difficult to correct within a predetermined timeframe. Therefore, it is necessary to negotiate with the user to find a suitable solution.

　　2. Review the configuration items

　　Another important part of acceptance testing is the configuration item review. Before acceptance testing, you need to ensure that all software configuration items can enter the acceptance test. Only in this way can the integrity and effectiveness of the software products that are ultimately delivered to the user be guaranteed. The purpose of the review is to ensure that the software is structured intact, categorized, and contains the details required for software maintenance.

　　For outsourced software projects, software contractors are typically required to provide the following relevant software configurations:

　　(1) Executable programs, source programs, configuration scripts, test programs or scripts, etc.;

　　(2) Development documents, including: Requirements Analysis Instructions, Outline Design Documents, Detailed Design Documents, Database Design Documents, Test Plans, Test Reports, Test Cases, Program Maintenance Manuals, Programmer Development Manuals, etc.;

　　(3) Management documents, mainly "Project Plan", "Quality Control Plan", "Configuration Management Plan", "User Training Plan"

　　"Quality Summary Report", "Evaluation Report", "Meeting Minutes", "Monthly Development Progress Report", etc.;

　　(4) In the development files, the most easily overlooked is the program maintenance manual "Programmer Development Manual". The main contents of the manual include: system description (including program description), running environment, maintenance program, source code list, etc., for future development work maintenance, modification and reference. The main contents of the manual include: system objectives, development environment descriptions, test environment descriptions, code specifications and corresponding programs, etc., which is equivalent to a programmer's training manual.

　　The above shipping orders must indicate the time of the submission stage in the contract to avoid disputes.

　　In fact, document review is a difficult task during the execution of acceptance tests. There are two main reasons: on the one hand, due to market demand and time pressures, documentation work is delayed and weakened, and more time and energy is spent on the product. In the course of the study, the preparation of documents was neglected; On the other hand, document reviews often lack a standard basis and it is difficult to grasp whether they are perfect or not.

　　3. Conduct acceptance tests

　　After the acceptance test criteria and review configuration items are ready, the acceptance test can begin, and the objects of the acceptance test mainly include the test of the review configuration item (that is, the document) and the test of the executable program. Test acceptance is the core link of the entire acceptance process.