Meet ZUMA (ZAP Universal Mobile Access)!

Recently, ZAP has released its new technology (ZUMA) to its customers. This technology is unique because it gives mobile testers a new way of working with applications in the Cloud. One of the challenges of today’s mobile testing industry is the installation of AUT’s on devices. Platforms such iOS make this even more difficult, as it has closed off systems that rarely allow open access to its code. The methods to face these challenges have been to either jailbreak/root the device or to instrument it.

Jailbreaking/rooting is a risky process involving third party “hacking” of the device that provides a bridge into the platform in order to upload third party applications to bypass official approval. This method is not always available from vendors due to the modification of third party systems and reluctance of enterprises to use this method for official testing of their applications.

Alternatively, instrumentation is a risk-free process, but it has its own pitfalls. Originally, in order to instrument a device, the source code of the application needed to be recompiled. This puts elements in play that causes strain in communication between development teams and is viewed by some organizations as a large threat to application security and performance.

To combat all of the shortcomings of these two primary methods, ZAP Technologies has introduced ZUMA (ZAP Universal Mobile Access) to its customer base. This revolutionary solution solves the main challenge of uploading applications to devices in the Cloud and completely eliminates any need for instrumentation and jailbreaking/rooting with a unique Drag-And-Drop AirUpload method of installing apps. ZUMA is currently available as part of ZAP Technologies’ product zapFARM or as a standalone licensed package.

For more information about this, visit our website at www.zapFARM.com and register for an evaluation to see if this market-leading tool is right for you.

Partnerships Drive Synergy for Global Success

No matter how advanced our technology has become, the size of the world has not changed. People and businesses still stretch across continents, some separated by thousands of miles.  The Cloud and the internet helps build bridges across these distances, but not even the most sophisticated of mobile applications can completely fill in the gaps left by differences in locations. To make matters even more complicated, each business has its own niche that it occupies. As everyone knows, there are hundreds of competitors for each runway, and each business races to stay on top. During this struggle, a business “runner” aims for the quickest and most efficient way of getting things done, but this approach can sometimes cause them to miss out on benefits they would have if they slowed down; or just had a helping hand.

Partnerships can do wonders for your business. Not only can a partnership help you make that decisive leap across the chasm of international affairs, but partners can also assist your business in a large variety of ways. Where some partnerships are based purely on the sharing of sales and profits, others are based on boosting each partner’s strengths and eliminating their weaknesses. In this case, the saying of “two heads are better than one” applies literally. One company only has so many hands. Despite the fact that reaching out in hundreds of directions is the best way to make sure that one stays ahead of the game, that reach is limited unless one has friends, colleagues, and business partners as their side.

So, what is a Partnership?

Partnerships are formed when two or more companies with the same goals come together to form a mutual beneficial relationship. Perhaps they have a common set of ideas or a specific set of needs that they feel could be addressed better with cooperation. Forming this type of relationship is often the most logical and efficient way of problem-solving on a higher scale. Two partners working jointly can create a better, combined environment that benefits their mutual customers and bottom lines. Not only does creating a partnership build firm trust between companies all across the globe, doing so also helps create synergy – a key factor in continuous growth and improvement of a business.

Here with ZAP Technologies, we’ve recognized this need and have joined with many partners in recent years to help make our solutions and services well-rounded, solid, and dependable. Some of our partners help their customers implement our tools to their customer base. Others use their extensive knowledge of business development to help make more users aware of our products and how they can help drive their own company needs. Still others work more closely with us at a technical level. Every day, we collaborate to address the complex system of technological needs of the growing software testing market ecology. All of us recognize that, with the help of our partners, we can accomplish much more.

Having 100 friends is often better than having $100!

Multitasking in a World Ruled by Mobile Applications!

In a few short years, mobile application downloads have skyrocketed from a relative 30 billion to an estimated 200 billion in 2016. As we’ve noted in previous blogs, the mobile industry has transformed not just our lives but the living market and business ecosystem we work in every day. Multitasking is no longer a bonus; it’s a must. Just like consumers need to browse the internet, make a phone call, and possibly pay their credit card bill at the same time, we – as testers – have to be able to cater to multiple venues of our profession. But, the “mobile explosion” hasn’t just affected developers and testers. The strain of a fast-paced environment has greatly altered the way other departments within development companies think and act. Marketing and sales teams, in an attempt to hurriedly release the “new product”, want everything done yesterday and this often leads them to bypass critical steps from testing phases in order to meet their deadlines. They cut corners with budgets for testing tools and sometimes leave developers at a large disadvantage. 

The most important concept that these marketing and sales teams have to adopt is that developing a revolutionary or popular app isn’t enough. Testing said app for errors and glitches is a living, breathing, and essential part of the entire lifecycle. Without it, no matter how great the product is, projects will have trouble staying afloat. No consumer wants to use an app that crashes frequently or loses their data. The key to success is functional and performance testing of web-based and native mobile applications.

Functional testing can identify trouble within devices themselves that may cause an app to fail. Making sure the app works on all devices is necessary to ensure that the product reaches the maximum number of consumers. This brings about the necessity for services that allow developers to use their devices for mass testing both physically and in the Cloud. This may seem like a tremendously difficult task, but it doesn’t have to be when developers invest in the correct instruments to help them multitask in a world that accepts nothing less.  

Even more crucial is test automation to save time and resources. Taking a drastic shortcut here is a mistake that many non-developers (such as sales and marketing teams) make. Enough time must be allotted to testing of an application to catch any and all bugs before their have a negative effect on customer experience. Using the right tools at the right stage in development will set any project on the right track and keep it there, including setting an efficient pace that even non-developers can accept.

The most popular product for application testing currently on the market is the HP ALM Suite. This product is a well-rounded, advanced, tool for developers to use that helps identify errors and malfunctions early on in the test phase. However, as advanced as HP ALM is, it still lacks a few features that can be supplemented with solutions like ZAP-fiX. ZPX plugs seamlessly into the HP ALM Suite and works side by side with developers and testers from start to finish. 

Visual Test Automation Leads the Future of the Software Testing Industry

Today’s test automation technology in general relies primarily on the test object recognition aspect.  This means that any testing tool is required to identify test objects of the application under test (AUT) and successfully recognize it during creation of the script and its playback. Conventional test automation technologies developed are based on API object recognition, where each singular client API’s is correlated with the testing tool technology’s test object class. In the modern testing world, this approach is insufficient due to the existence of a variety of different clients for one application under test – ie browsers, client-server applications, etc. With most tools, you can only recognize one set of objects per script per AUT. Therefore, if you are automating different clients of the same applications (which may be different browser flavors or different version of client or native mobile apps) you will, in most cases, need to recreate the script. This approach tremendously increases maintenance requirements of test automation framework and makes it very costly and many times more impractical. This inevitably forces many organizations to roll back to manual testing rather than supporting test automation.

The solution for this challenge is visual based object recognition technologies. Visual based object recognition is the future for test object recognition in the modern software application development and testing world. It contains algorithms built on OCR (object character recognition) and ICR (image character recognition). This type of algorithm is what the ZAP-fiX solution is based upon. Technology based on visual based object recognition allows testers to execute scripts cross-client and cross-platform. When talking about visual based object recognition technologies, it’s very important to understand the level of object recognition. The majority of them are driven through the tool’s built-in functionality rather than sets of API’s that can be prescribed in a singular line of code. Visual-based object recognition is more reliable in many cases depending on the complexity of its algorithms. When speaking about API vs. visual object recognition, test engineers should change their approach to automation and think of less complex techniques unlike programmatic description and custom object recognition functions. Using the built in functionality of tools reduces the complexity of scripts and lines of code per scripts which, at the end of the day, reduces their required maintenance and time spent on managing such test automation framework. Instead of depleting the company’s budget and causing the failure of testing projects, selection of the proper testing tool that allows cross-client and cross-platform automation with less scripting increases return investment from software test automation.

In conclusion, in order for us to successfully cover the modern requirements for software testing, we need to start building test automation technologies that support the newest features. Today, software has changed from a standard, single, Windows-based platform to multiple platforms, and we – as test automation professionals – need to start adapting to the world using the latest technology that offers the ability to switch between all of them. Visual object recognition is the future of test automation!

zapFARM Paves the Way for Cost-Efficient Mobile Device Testing!

Currently, the process of mobile test automation requires hosting of mobile devices under test. Modern solutions on the market offer hourly rental of devices – a costly option that has many downfalls. With the continuing rise of technology,  the majority of companies are starting to perform test automation for mobile testing. Most of the time, they don’t have a precise device strategy that may justify a return of investment from such services.  It is very difficult for a company to invest hundreds of thousand dollars solely for devices under test. ZAP Technologies offers a way out of this cycle but providing a solution to solve this problem in the form of zapFARM hosted services. zapFARM offers customers the ability to rent cost-efficient use of mobile devices under test dedicated to them. These devices are available any time anywhere the customer may need them.

zapFARM with ZAP-fiX offers the flexibility of the industry’s only Full Lifecycle Mobile Testing platform – on-site, customer managed, secure (ZAP-fiX) or Pay-As-You-Go, subscription, and low administration costs (zapFARM). ZAP has expanded our industry’s only Full Lifecycle Mobile Testing solutions and services to provide hosted device support on zapFARM. ZAP has already established itself as the most functionally expert, financially flexible portfolio of mobile testing products  and solutions that have become a key strategic platform for global commercial brands rapidly accelerating transformation and migration of key business applications to smartphones, tablets and other intelligent devices. ZAP’s family of emulators, viewers and real device testing tools extend and increase the investment value of HP’s market leading QuickTest Professional ALM suite by delivering transparency and compliance with existing installation, test scripts, administration and management reporting procedures – no new skills, no new education, no retraining of expensive personnel resources. Now zapFARM can completely eliminate the time, complexity and logistics of acquiring, maintaining, updating and adding to your mobile device inventory as your application platforms change or expand.  Where you have more flexibility, and less concern regarding local process management and security, zapFARM provides a hosted service subscription program that provides managed access to mobile devices located at our Atlanta-based hosting facility. ZAP provides the hardware and telecommunications facilities, manages logistics and inventory, and administers all aspects of your custom testing environment. You pay for the service when you require it, for as long as you need it, at a cost that makes sense to you.

Visit www.ZAP-TEST.com for more information about this solution!

Architectural Foundations of Testing

Today’s modern application testing matrix is full of rising complexities. In order to save time and money and to assure the success of a developed application, test automation teams have to start with the basics. A strong tower requires strong foundations. In this case, one of the most important parts of that foundation is the development of test framework. In order to ascertain that your product can bear the weight of all of today’s demands – those of both users and technology – all framework has to be flexible and robust. We develop test architectures in a modular, data-driven, and event-driven fashion that includes rich-logic. The  main goal of test architecture is to achieve full testing with less test artifacts, meaning that we will have less maintenance of said architecture down the line. As Test Architects, our main goal is to preferably design one test case per one functional area, which can be achieved through framework modularity.

When designing modular test architecture, one can define two classes of test cases: Test Components and Business Processes. Test Components are usually smaller, reusable test cases that represent a particular functional area, while Business Processes are more procedural test cases oriented to test application business processes.  Let’s take a look at a basic example of a common application to illustrate the above methods – a travel portal. The main purpose of this app is to help a user create their own itinerary for a trip. First, we will set the functional areas as “login”, “book hotel”, and “book rental car”. In order to develop test coverage based on these principles, we will develop test components separately for each of these areas.

Data-driven testing is carried out with a simplified principle of input and output parameters, meaning that our test cases should not have any static input and output values (when this is possible and logical). The advantage of data-driven testing is the ease of driving test scenarios though input and output data within a single test artifact. Later, we will incorporate all of these into a single “book itinerary” business case. Once we develop the business component, we can address the principles of data driving. Our goal is to create an artifact that will take any input and output values into testing procedures. Therefore, we will parameterize every input and output value such as the “user name” text field, etc.

Another important characteristic of a modern test framework is event-driven testing. Event-driven architecture is an script pattern promoting the production, detection, consumption of, and reaction to events in the script. Every test case should end with a triggered event and present validation criteria in the scenario. Building applications and systems around an event-driven architecture promotes validation of test case expected results that each test step has to have by definition. For example, when designing a Login Test Component we will create two test steps: Invoke AUT and Login (typing user name, password and clicking Login button), at the end of each step this test case will be triggering event in AUT presetting validation, i.e. Login dialog invoked, or Welcome page appears (including output data from the previous input step).

Last but not least on our list of foundations is rich-logic. This element allows testing teams to incorporate all business requirements. This includes applying conditional statement into the expected results area. For example, when there are multiple user groups in the application under test, we can create a conditional statement to validate which user of the group is logged in and outline subsequent steps for the user to proceed test in a certain way. Such framework can be executed either manually or in an automated fashion across any platform. With this method in place, we can take our business case of booking an itinerary and use it anywhere (Windows, Mac, Unix,Mobile etc.) without any further modification.


This approach allows better collaboration for team members, like application SME and Automation Specialists or new colleagues. It improves change management and reduces maintenance of test artifacts, therefore increasing testing ROI.

In conclusion, designing your framework in the most efficient way from the very beginning is the ultimate test strategy. In order to achieve a rapid pace of modern software development and offer proper test coverage, the foundations for an application’s script must be strong. Once the foundations are built with care and focus, the tower will stand tall and unwavering even in the strongest of winds.

Test Automation – Choosing the Right Tools to Drive Success

In our most recent installments, we’ve talked about the efficiency of test automation, agile testing, and some best practices for test teams. We’ve covered the difficulties of catering to multiple platforms and browsers, and have mentioned that the modern market is ever-changing and filled with obstacles that must be surpassed to stay afloat among the competition. There are many testing tools available out there today, and one of the most critical steps towards successful application testing is choosing the right one to get the job done.

Here, we can continue our car analogy. Just like building a custom car requires focusing on each separate part and how it will benefit the whole, test automation teams must also work together to determine what aspects of a testing tool will help them reach their goals in the most efficient way possible. Some companies may struggle with this, as there is a false rumor going around: that test automation is a low-maintenance cure-all for any development process.

The reality? Test automation is possibly the most difficult and rigorous form of application testing. Because everything is automated, teams must be doubly focused in assuring that all scripts run as planned. The goal of this method is to save time and prevent error, but the scripts that run the tests must first themselves be error-free in order to take advantage of the benefits test automation offers. The quality of the tools used throughout testing can make or break a project.

When driving a car, the main goal is to go from point A to point B. However, when a critical situation presents itself – such as hydroplaning or a potential accident – the quality of the vehicle and its safety features can tip the scales in your favor and save your life. The same can be applied to testing scenarios. When you need to quickly overcome certain problems with object recognition or architectural aspects of a project, you must rely on the particular feature set of your tools to help you make the climb. Even the most experienced tester can’t foresee all possible hazards on the road to launching a project, and – on the surface – freeware may look to have the same functionalities as paid software. However, each tool is different. You get what you pay for, after all.

For example, some very important factors to consider in modern test automation are: the ability to recognize objects on a higher-end scale, support of rich logic scenarios, modularity support, and configuration aspects of device under test such as jailbreaking/rooting or instrumentation. Finding a tool that can perform with the most versatility with these tasks and cover all platforms and browsers is crucial, since it’s impossible to predict whether the requirements for the usage of the application will take a sudden turn. End-users may initially need the application to run on iPhone, but may unexpectedly change their requirements to running the app on Windows Safari (yes, there is such a thing!).

The chart below shows StatCounter statistics about some of the mobile browsers of today and their popularity. Can your tools help you develop your scripts on all of these and more?

The knowledge and experience of test engineers along with operating budget are also important things to consider. Certain tools may have a steeper learning curve than others. If a tool has a large feature set, it will take more time to train teams to use it. What is the budget for the project? Can it support the investment of a more advanced tool along with additional time to train the team in its usage? ZAP Specialists highly recommend investing in a high-end tool, but teams must always plan ahead to make sure that they will have a return on this investment. In the long-run, putting aside a portion of the budget to acquire a better tool may save you days when you least expect, helping the budget remain in the positive.

In conclusion, test automation is a difficult and complicated path that must be navigated with the correct tools at hand. Taking the time to make an informed decision regarding your test automation tools can save you time and money in the end.

Test Automation Best Practices for a Smooth Ride

Test automation can be compared to riding a race car. Just like test automation, a race car is an attractive way of getting where you need to go with the speed of lightning. By the same token, this can be very dangerous if you don’t possess all of the needed skills. Racing a car is a feat accomplished by many separate elements combined into one. The racer must be focused, agile, and adaptable. 

The elements of racing apply to test automation as well. Development teams must be skilled, 100% focused on their goals, and adaptable, especially when considering the overwhelming amount of new platforms and emerging technologies that form new obstacles on the road every day. Most development teams that encounter such obstacles can overcome them, but only in the right environment. 

 Another roadblock comes in the form of cutting resources. When test managers try to cut corners, allocate less skilled personnel to do automation, or mix test automation with other responsibilities, they are giving the reins of a formula one to someone who barely knows how to drive a go-cart at a theme park. Overwhelming testing teams leads to distractions that turn them away from their goals, lengthening the process and leaving room for errors and failures. These problems result in such issues such as test automation teams trying to develop un-executable artifacts. The testing projects lose out – development is pushed back and the budget dwindles. 

At ZAP, we have over 10 years of consulting experience. Pulling from this knowledge, we always advocate the approach of assigning specific tasks to particular team members and setting reasonable mini-goals that will build on each other to reach the ultimate conclusion. One of our best practices is dividing the work between “Experts” and “Specialists”. 

Experts perform QA analysis that focuses on testing goals and test documentation. Their roles also include managing requirements and building modularized test cases that will adhere to test automation best practices.  They schedule test execution based on the goals of the project and execute test sets while tracking defects and errors in the products. Simultaneously, they will collaborate with Specialists to ensure that they develop scripts addressing testing goals through test case logic and validation criteria. Meanwhile, Specialists are solely in charge of developing and maintaining robust test automation framework.  

The productivity of such collaboration usually results in 1 Specialist supporting 3-5 Experts. Automation Specialists should always use advanced technologies such as HP QTP and ZAP-fiX to make their tasks easier. Test automation teams should implement HP ALM as the ultimate test automation product to be able to quickly address all testing objectives and apply them cross-platform. This will allow test Experts with one artifact to execute it on multiple platforms with ZAP-fiX’s revolutionary 1Script technology. 

In conclusion, if Specialists use good tools like QTP and ZAP-fiX, they can execute their scripts cross-platform using ZAPFARM hosted services. In order to achieve efficient test automation processes, teams should define precise roles and responsibilities and assign particular skillsets of their members to define QA processes while focusing on test automation tasks using advanced technologies. Following these guidelines will complete the racing metaphor – proper technique, focus, and training will always result in a safe and exciting race.

Agile Testing in Today's World

With each passing year, technology puts new pressures on developers. As consumer demand rises and more products become available across the market, companies have to act as quickly and efficiently as possible to stay afloat and gain maximum visibility. Yet, no matter how rushed production teams are, errors must be weeded out so that the products are a benefit – not a detriment – to the company’s reputation.

Agile testing is the beating heart of all of this – it can be viewed as the living vein that connects all the steps of lifecycle management. Like any testing strategy, it has its ups and downs. But, today, Agile Testing is widely accepted as the most adaptive and efficient methodology to guide a product from start to finish.

The Challenges of Welcoming Change

In product development, every lifecycle affects testing. Some Agile test strategies include risk-based testing, automated testing, and reactive testing. But, even properly chosen strategies do not alleviate all the testing challenges of Agile projects.

A huge Agile principle is to welcome changing the requirements of a product, even late in development. Risk-based testing, reactive testing, and careful automated testing can all accommodate change, though GUI-based tests are often more sensitive. Testing challenges still arise from changes in the definition of the product and its correct behavior. This includes keeping the test team informed of such changes and accounting for differential impact of changes on testing. Otherwise, changes can impose testing inefficiencies.

Some iterative lifecycle models allow substantial periods of time between each build. Agile methodologies help move this along faster. The pace and brevity further squeeze the test team’s ability to develop and maintain tests, and GUI test automation techniques can be particularly sensitive to this driving pace. Test teams are under a lot of pressure to develop, maintain, and execute tests in a risk priority order.

ZAP-fiX Opens the Doors to Conquer Challenges

In theory, the Agile movement promotes doing less work faster to get ongoing feedback. But this drive for speed does not ensure that your product will get to market faster or with fewer defects. If too much pressure is placed on testing teams, more errors will inevitably slip through the nets. For this reason, it is absolutely crucial to provide testing teams with the most modern and effective testing tools available on the market today.

ZAP-fiX is one such tool.

ZAP Technologies developed ZAP-fiX with the challenges of testing in mind. We know and understand the pressures that testing teams face every day and seek to meet those rough waters head on.

Features of ZAP-fiX that help make Agile testing easier:

-          The ability to develop test automation ahead of the application being released. With ZPX you can develop test objects using mock-ups or test object properties.
-          The ZPX 1Script  functionality  offers cross-platform execution with the ability to execute one script cross-platform.
-          Using ZPX’s seamless integration with HP Quality Center and ALM allows the execution of a script on multiple hosts simultaneously.

Using these market-first features and solutions, ZAP-fiX alleviates the pressure of the rigorous testing pace set by the modern market and assures quality software in the aggressive Agile development phase.

Visit our website to learn more about ZAP-fiX and how it can move your Agile testing forward with maximum efficiency.

Bridge Building for Success with ZAP-fiX!

Building a successful mobile application can be likened to building a perfect bridge to an isolated island. A successful bridge must be able to withstand many pressures from its surroundings, including variables such as climate. Of course, even if the bridge falls, it can be rebuilt. But, the setback of spending time on rebuilding and reconstructing can be harrowing.

Every day, test automation teams build bridges to reach new islands. New superhighways must be built at demanding speeds so that all islands can be interconnected and easily accessible to the average tourist. Device Under Test (DUT) is a crucial component of this, but in today’s testing environment, it is severely limited.

In the current market, there are too many ways of connecting to an application, including jailbreaking or rooting and instrumenting the Application Under Test (AUT) to allow the use of the app on any untouched device. These approaches come with a lot of controversy. On one hand, rooting/jailbreaking makes it easy for test automation teams to control devices and configure them once to automate any future applications run on them. But, by the same token, large enterprises are reluctant  to use this method due to the myth of its illegality. Although there is a minimal threat of repercussion for using this method, the perceived risk is too high and undesirable.

A second approach is instrumenting applications under test. On the surface, this method looks very straightforward, but in reality it’s a long, uphill, climb for testing teams. It limits what testers can do on their own, because instrumentation has to be performed by the application developers themselves. In many cases, development teams are hesitant to inject external development packages into their source code simply for the sake of testing the tool. Not only that, but only one application can be accessed at one particular time. Each application must, therefore, be instrumented separately.

One might look at this situation and say that there is no silver bullet to target all situations. However, ZAP-fiX has found a way to be that finely crafted tool!

We understand the nature of today’s industry and can empathize with the trials and tribulations that our customers face every day.  Therefore, ZAP-fiX offers a market-first approach to dual configuration of Devices Under Test. Using our tool, customers now have the flexibility of either jailbreaking/rooting a device or using ZAP Instrumenters.

With ZAP-fiX, users that choose to go with the jailbreaking/rooting methodology can apply the same scripts to instrumented applications under test and vice versa, while choosing the other method is a simple matter of using ZAP’s innovative Instrumenters to get the job done. And, best of all, more than one application – or island – can be accessed with a single script.

This revolutionary tool is reshaping the market and the way that testers perform automation. ZAP-fiX allows for the safe and risk-free removal of errors and weaknesses from applications and lightens the load of the bridge-building process. ZAP-fiX is the go-to central hub that houses all the materials the modern testing team requires.

ZAP Technologies is currently working on even more exciting innovations that will continue to revolutionize the testing world. Stay tuned for more updates and subscribe to our blog to stay in the loop!

Flying on Rooftops - A New Tool for Cross-Browser Application Testing

Creating a perfectly up-to-date application in the market can be compared to climbing a long set of stairs to reach the top of a building. Just when everything has been fixed to accept the latest version updates, a stair falls out from under our feet, hindering our progress towards our goal.

Engineering teams today face some of the greatest challenges yet because they have to make sure that their code is valid and working across all browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc. Developing an application like this is a herculean effort, but testing it on a living, breathing, and ever-changing environment of browsers is definitely the hardest part of trying to build a strong, reliable stairway.

Some teams have to force their end-users to stick with a particular browser. This greatly limits their consumer market and can result in a loss of clients. In today’s world, consumers need to be able to access material from many different platforms and browsers. It’s not too hard to imagine yourself in their shoes. Would the gaming industry go anywhere if the most recent games only played on Windows rather than on all platforms and even gaming consoles such as X-BOX and Playstation 3?

The answer is a definite “no”.

But, with industry leaders constantly forcing their users to ride the roller coaster of updates to the most important platform ever created – the browser – developers can’t be punished for having to adapt to agile testing in such unstable conditions.

In recent years, consumer demands have changed. No longer are most applications running on windows-based browser platforms. Today, we have to develop an application that is capable of being accessed and tested on many different platforms. With this new change comes the challenge of having to execute tests on all of these platforms to be assured that the app is working as expected. Having the right tool to help to address these testing needs is critical to success.

Conventional test automation technology cannot support testing and execution on all of these platforms due to the fact that it is API based. They are limited because they need to address combinations particular operating systems and technology under test. This multiplies the number of artifacts that have to be produced and maintained to address the same goal.

All of these parameters – limited tools and an extensive variety of environments – make our stair analogy very different. Instead of one building and one set of stairs, we have several that we have to reach at the same time. Walking is no longer sufficient. If only we could be like Spiderman and his trusty web, flying between these buildings at dizzying speeds. Our only option is to find a tool that makes cross-browser testing less of a hindrance and more of a benefit.

ZAP-fiX is just that tool. ZAP Technologies offers this solution to teams who are seeking to create a script once and test it anywhere. This directly results in a broader spectrum of clients and saves countless challenges and set-backs.  With ZAP-fiX, there is less room for error, and more room for progress. ZAP-fiX allows testing teams to automate cross-browser testing.

The ZAP-fiX unique object recognition system,  ZOE (ZAP ObjectConnector Engine) makes this possible. Today’s, users can develop a script once and play it across browsers without additional modification. This is a tremendous return of investment among test automation practices, especially when companies have put money into the use of the still leading HP QuickTest Professional. ZAP-fiX will help save time, budgets, and frustration while developing an application that holds its own in the vast ocean of the competitive market.
ZAP-fiX supports all versions of all browsers, including: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, etc.

Read more about our solution at www.zap-fix.com!

ZAP-fiX - The Go-To Solution for the Modern Tester

Over the past several years, the Mobile industry has exploded with inventions. If an interested client searches the keyword “mobile”, they will be bombarded with countless options to step out into the bold environment of modern communication. The world that previously saw the domination of the web may now discover that the rising success of such conveniences as tablets, apps, smart phones, and the Cloud may overtake the internet in popularity.

Yet, despite the lucrative mobile market, some companies still struggle to stay ahead of the game. The difficulty lies at the heart of the creative process. All applications must be rigorously tested for errors and hiccups before they are sent out into the public eye. Nobody wants their application to crash in the middle of an important task. But, with so many platforms and so many different outlets to cater to, testing an application and modifying it to fit all of them is extremely time-consuming and expensive.

ZAP Technologies recognizes and understands the complex needs of the testing community and seeks to provide flexible solutions to assist in their work. The most extensive and popular tool is ZAP-fiX (ZPX) that extends the HP Quality Center or HP Application Lifecycle Management desktop testing environment. ZAP-fiX seamlessly integrates with this environment, enhancing the scripting process and allowing testers to reach out to all platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile.





ZAP-fiX allows users to efficiently carry out various, critical, tasks including automated test emulations of mobile OS-based applications using HP QuickTest Professional and performance testing and monitoring with HP LoadRunner via a graphical user interface. ZAP-fiX also provides an ergonomically friendly environment for manual testing of mobile applications on a client site, using tools such a PC monitor, keyboard, and mouse instead of testing on the mobile device itself.

ZAP-fiX seamlessly integrates with this software, extending each tool’s capabilities by adding custom-support libraries for mobile application environments. ZAP-fiX is 100% keyword-enabled, giving QA engineers and analysts the ability to build logical test flows through drag-and-drop. ZAP-fiX test scripts are fully compatible with other environments, so it is easy to build end-to-end test cases that validate complete business processes.

The most recent addition to the ZPX solution includes the Instrumenter for Android and iOS. Instrumenter gifts the testing community with a much-needed choice of either rooting (jailbreaking) their current device under test or instrumenting the application under test to be tested on any un-rooted device.





ZAP-fiX also introduces cross-browser testing. Switching between Mac and Windows – Safari and IE – is now easier than ever. All testing can be done in the Cloud, and ZAP Technologies provides a private Cloud as part of our offerings. Scripts can quickly and simply be moved from one platform to another – no hassle and less room for error.

With ZAP-fiX, you can  now script once and play anywhere!





ZAP-fiX is an extension to several HP products:

-Application Lifecycle Management– provides a centralized platform for managing and automating the application lifecycle from inception to retirement. ZAP-fiX Viewer extends the development, execution, and results validation of the test framework by providing snapshots of the mobile AUT’s expected results.

-QuickTest Professional– enables building functional and regression test automation for software applications and environments. Featuring a graphical user interface, it captures, verifies, and replays user interactions automatically and quickly helps identify and report on application effects.

-Quality Center and Sprinter – is the market-leading Web-based quality management platform that enables you to manage application quality with a consistent, repeatable, process that reduces risk and costs while increasing efficiency across the entire application lifecycle. All of this is done within a single platform that provides traceability and visibility across your entire process – delivering the information you need to make informed application release decisions.

-LoadRunner – allows the prevention of application performance problems by detecting bottlenecks before a new system or upgrade is deployed. LoadRunner is one of the most widely used testing solutions in the world today. ZAP-fiX for LoadRunner enables performance testing through a GUI-based approach, extending the test strategy to include load and scalability testing.

Visit the ZAP-fiX page at www.zap-fix.com to learn  more about the ZAP flexible solution to learn more about this widely-used and flexible tool that can help push your testing to the next level.

ZAP technologies Shares Success with Interview at HP Discover 2012!

HP Discover 2012 in July was an exciting experience for ZAP technologies. Each year, ZAP attends this large-scale event to present revolutionary solutions and show off their new and innovative features.  This year, we were even asked to participate in a personal interview with Diane England of HP to help give some insight about ZAP technologies and our unique MOBILE application testing solution products. Here is an excerpt from the interview:


Interviewer:           Welcome, Alex, and thank you for joining us today at Discover 2012! I want to start off our conversation today with an introduction of ZAP Technologies and who they are.

Alex Chernyak:           Hello, Diane. ZAP Technologies has been an HP Software and Mercury partner for over a decade. We started as an extension of Mercury Professional Services Organization, focusing on test automation processes using Mercury and HP Software and Technologies. Today, over the years, we have emerged to be a software development company, implementing our rich experience in the field to extending HP ALM on the market. ZAP Technologies has a number of products in development, including ZAP-fiX. The ZAP-fiX Solution acts as an add-in for HP ALM and QuickTest Professional, extending QTP to different platforms, such as MOBILE, cross-product devices, Apple, UNIX, and also focusing on Windows Rich Internet Applications and Agile Test Automation.

Interviewer:            Great! So could you tell us a little bit about how ZAP-fiX integrates with some of the HP Solutions?

Alex Chernyak:           In summary, ZAP-fiX acts as an add-in for QTP, allowing developers to extend their automation functionalities onto different platforms. Thus, using ZAP-fiX, any QTP development team can flawlessly extend automation on mobile devices, on a Mac-based operating system. This includes cross-browser testing and encompasses browsers such as Safari and Chrome on Mac and different native applications, including iOS layers. Also, this includes UNIX and Windows cross-browser development with Chrome and Agile Test Automation.

Interviewer:            Great! And can you tell me a little bit about the most exciting thing that you worked on jointly with HP Software this year?

Alex Chernyak:           One of the biggest and most exciting deals that we worked on this year was a large retail vendor that was searching for a test automation solution to extend their latest portal development. ZAP came up as the leading expert in the process of using HP ALM as a main platform. Considering its diverse customer base, this particular retailer needed to extend their testing to multiple platforms, including MOBILE, Mac, UNIX, and also Rich Internet Application. As a result, ZAP-fiX acted as the main extension of HP ALM to address this need. Utilizing ZAP’s vast experience in the industry and the revolutionary capabilities of ZAP-fiX, ZAP and HP could jointly win the business of this retailer. Therefore, we added another happy customer to our portfolio.

Interviewer:            Good! Perfect! So Alex, how do you see the role of IT and the role of the C-level executive emerging or changing in the next three to five years?

Alex Chernyak:           Since the information exchange is very rapid today, the role of the CIO makes very big difference in impact for any organization.Since information is driving the business of today, the CIO is not just a technology expert. The CIO leads the company on the path it takes in terms of information exchange. Therefore, the CIO makes a tremendous impact on any company’s revenue and the success.

Interviewer:            Okay. Great! Well, thank you very much for joining us today!

Alex Chernyak:           Thank you for having me!

For a more in-depth look at this exciting interview, stay tuned to our Youtube channel for a complete video!

ZAP-fiX 12 Meets the Challenge of a Shifting Consumer Market Armed with New Features!

The mobile world of apps and their platforms is growing at a dizzying speed. Consumers are now relying on mobile applications for many things, ranging from entertainment to relieve a long wait in the doctor’s office to accessing bank accounts while waiting in traffic. Smart phones and tablets are continuing to steadily draw attention away from computers to mobile devices. The phrase “there’s probably an app for that” is tossed around among thousands. With such a demanding market for new ideas and new uses for apps, developers and testers have to rush to catch up at a breakneck pace to stay afloat among the maelstrom of mobile growth.
Developers be ware – the demand is shifting quickly!
Along with this visible increase in usage of entertainment and utility applications, social networking apps have also taken their place among the top used tools among consumers. Flurry quantifies this dramatic increase in popularity, showing that networking apps such as Facebook, Path, and Scout are now rivaling the previous leader in time per active user – games. By running an in-depth analytics study about the various amount of app usage in various categories, Flurry has given developers a direction to follow. In this study, Flurry Analytics tracks more than 180,000 applications for more than 67,000 companies across iOS, Android, HTML5, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. The chart below shows the fastest growing app categories:

The categories in the chart above (provided by Flurry) shows the top five fastest growing categories in mobile apps over the last 6 months. By following the indications and results given in this study, developers now have their work cut out for them.
ZAP technologies is with you every step of the way. With our many testing solutions, including our most popular ZAP-fiX, mobile application testing has never been easier. ZAP-fiX grows to accommodate all of the new demands and changes in the market and puts an efficient, innovative, and responsive solution into the developers’ hands. ZAP-fiX has evolved, along with its features!
What’s new in ZAP-fiX 12 –

• New look
• Workbench for easy test object management for local or remote access
• HP Quality Center Integration
• ZAP ObjectConnector Engine
• OCR Tool for simplifying the process of test object recognition
• ZAP Mockup Viewer with full rotating and scaling support
• ZAP Instrumenter  give the choice of jailbreaking or instrumenting

To view a full video describing the new features of ZAP-fiX 12, visit our Youtube channel here or click on the image below.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates as ZAP technologies continues to add more features and solutions to our portfolio!

Real Devices - The ZAP Solution

Mobile is the future.

The web hosts an endless valley of opportunity. Even though there are already seemingly countless horizons explored on the internet, there are still many more to be discovered. One of these is the frontier called “mobile”. Although the word “mobile” brings up an image of a cell phone or tablet device, it is a word that should go hand in hand with “web”. Starting from web design and spanning all the way across to mobile applications, the internet encompasses it all. Whether you are a web designer or an applications developer, you will, at some point, run across the challenges of the current times.

In modern 2012, it isn’t enough to simply post a sleek website to advertise your business. The website must also adhere to the rather high-maintenance requirements of the “mobile” industry. Is your website iPhone and Android compatible? Can users easily browse through your website on their mobile devices without a hitch? And don’t forget – the website must look just as astonishing on Firefox as it would on all three versions of IE, Opera, Google Chrome, and Safari! The climb continues past this, however; after conquering the internet browsers, it is time to face the challenge of making your app/website compatible with mobile browsers on systems such as:

• iOS
• Android
• Blackberry Webkit
• IE Mobile
• Opera Mobile
• Opera Mini
• Firefox Mobile
• Silk
• Ovi
• pre-6.0 Blackberry browsers
• WebOS Webkit
• Nokia Webkit
• Netfront
• UCWeb
• Dolfin
• and more!

Now, enter a new challenge – testing all of this on real devices!

After taking a step back and looking at the list above, you might feel more than a little overwhelmed. After analyzing your resources and the amount  of them you would have to expend to meet all of the above challenges, you may compare the statistics and decide to reach as far as making your website/app iOS and Android compatible (the two systems that make up more than half of mobile traffic).



Doing this would certainly cover many popular bases, but it would still leave other points untouched. It is vital to test products on every platform possible, because even though other browsers and operating systems may not be as popular as iOS and Android, they are still in use!

ZAP technologies recognizes the challenges that modern developers face and is offering a solution that will make testing on real devices easier than ever. This solution is called zapFARM. Along with ZAP-fiX, zapFARM is a powerful tool that makes testing on real devices easy, affordable, and efficient. Not only that, but zapFARM is there with you every step of the way, providing support whenever you need it most.

Read more about zapFARM at www.zap-t.com and find out how real device testing can be within your reach!