The Benefits of Making an ATP
An ATP is a document that sets out a series of tests, which are useful to certify the proper operation of an application, a module or a simple process. Such document consists of several tests that lead us step by step into what is to be done and how those tests are expected to succeed. Once each test is finished, you must complete a field that will indicate its result (OK / FAIL). Another essential field to fill in is the comments field since on several occasions, the test obtains a favorable result (OK) but the client or the person performing the test can observe an improvement that could be made.
How do we use ATPs in our Company?
At Intraway, we perform 2 types of ATPs. The first one is called INTERNAL ATP, which is done by the Professional Services team before performing the tests with the client. The second one is called CUSTOMER ATP, and as its name describes it, it is the same document we run in Professional Services but this time the client runs it with the support of our team.
The purpose of these documents is to discover potential bugs and to know the procedures. It also helps the client to become more familiar with the platform we are presenting. It is essential to run an ATP with the customer because we can understand the logic of how the client operates, we can help to improve the procedures and we can implement the best possible solution we can offer.
The result of an ATP can be favorable but when it isn’t, tickets are created through an information system that administers them and they are related to the sectors affected by the bug, fix or improvements to be made. Once the tickets have been resolved, the ATP must be run again in order to validate the already fixed changes. After this process has finished, the ATP is considered finished as well and the project or phase can also be considered successful.
Once bugs, the Internal ATP and the Customer ATP have been closed, we proceed to implement in the production environment where the ATPs are executed again. We do this in order to verify that the platform is completely stable and to check that all functions and procedures are the same as the ones in the test environment, where ATPs have been run before.
Customer ATP has a very particular procedure, which is its acceptance. The ATP, where you can see the status of every test and the corresponding comments, is sent to the client, who is requested to sign it and send it back. In this way, there is evidence of the tests and comments and we are able to know whether what was originally agreed with the client has been achieved or not in the final version.
I hope this information has been useful for you. Please, do not forget to post your comments in the section below. If you need more information, do not hesitate to contact me at sebastian.panigazzi@intraway.com.
