Functional Testing Services and its Process in the Software Development Lifecycle

Functional testing services form an integral part of the software testing process. The US Government says that $59.5 billion is lost due to software bugs every year, out of which $22.2 billion could have been saved if the applications were properly tested.

Functional testing is a verification type of testing which tests that the application according to specifications. Functional testing also handles erroneous code and tries to code it correct version. Automated functional testing involves use of automated software to test the applications.

The functional testing process should have a predetermined set of deliverables. The processes and deliverables which apply to a given testing process are dependent on the existing resources. Here are some of the primary processes and deliverables for the requirement-based functional testing process:

1. Test Planning

2. Partitioning - Functional Decomposition

3. Requirements Definition

4. Test Case Design

5. Traceability

6. Test Case Execution

7. Defect Management

8. Coverage Analysis

Functional testing is mostly done at the fag end of the software development life cycle, but experts suggest that the process should be done much earlier and when needed. Various testing models like the V-Model and methodologies like Agile have become popular and hence facilitated functional tests to be carried out at earlier stage and thereby defects can be traced out earlier. The cost of software quality ultimately goes down helping the achievement of desired ROI. Experts also say that even though it is not possible to cover functional testing for the whole application, at least its components and attributes need to be tested from time to time. As per the experts, the goal of any functional test should be to ensure that the business cases have been successfully implemented by the Application Under Test (AUT).

Functional testing services are pivotal to the process of software development. Without functional testing, the software development process becomes just a guessing game full of error-prone deployments, haphazard work, and refactoring. As reliability and predictability become even more important for cost-cutting procedures, functional testing will become increasingly important to be practiced in software development companies.