To say that the digital analysts at RXA have QA experience would be an understatement. Quality assurance (QA) is often rushed or only takes place when bugs are identified by end users – but proactive QA is always an important step towards process improvement, quality control, and optimized results for your projects. Using QA as a standard part of every engagement will lead to long term positive impact for you, your clients, and your end users.

Here are some quick QA tips that our team has picked up along the way.

Create Robust Documentation

  • The first and most important thing is to document your results.
  • Highlight your specification document sections where errors were found along with documenting your QA results.
  • As you go through your QA, it is very important that you document issues as you find them. Don’t try to stuff them all in your memory for later. Try to record three or four at a time for further review.

Set Aside Dedicated, Uninterrupted Time for QA

  • Be very focused during QA. Remove the things that you know distract you. For example, you might find it hard listening to certain types of music when you work because your ears are distracted. Turn off Slack or Teams notifications for a while.
  • Be alert. Fortunately, no one is likely to die if you miss something, but it could cost your company money if they lose the ability to gain insight into their process or an invalid analysis is provided.
  • Make sure that you have the necessary block of time to get through your QA or at least a good chunk of it. It can be time consuming just to get set up for QA. Allow time for logging into the client’s VPN, accessing the correct page, setting up your QA results document and opening and configuring your packet sniffer.
  • If you find yourself running up against the clock, QA on your most widely used platforms and browsers first.

Use QA Management Software

  • Use a QA process automation platform like ObservePoint to automate your QA and perform regression testing. No one likes to test the same thing over and over with every release.
  • If you have a large or complex system to QA, a management software that includes project planning capabilities can help keep you organized and ensure you don’t miss any pieces.

Engage your Team in the QA Process

  • Before the project begins, talk to your project manager to ensure there is time set aside in the project plan to complete QA, and in case a bug is found, time to implement fixes once you identify the problem.
  • Follow up on your results to ensure they are fixed and that the respective parties are notified of unfixed bugs, how they will affect their reports and when to expect a fix.
  • Get a second set of eyes. It is very easy to simply miss a bug, especially if you were the developer. To borrow from the construction idiom, “QA twice, fix once”.
  • Last, be nice when you find bugs. No one likes to find out they missed something. Having a good rapport with your developers and other team members is a huge key to success in digital analytics.