How do I start smoke testing?

Starting smoke testing involves a series of steps to ensure that the core functionalities of your application are working correctly before more detailed testing is performed. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started: ### 1. **Understand the Scope** - **Define Critical Features**: Identify the essential functionalities of your application that must work for the software to be considered usable. - **Set Objectives**: Determine what you need to verify through smoke testing. Typically, this includes the most basic and important features. ### 2. **Prepare the Environment** - **Set Up Test Environment**: Ensure that the environment where you’ll be performing smoke tests (e.g., development, staging) is correctly configured and stable. - **Deploy the Build**: Make sure the latest build or version of the application is deployed and ready for testing. ### 3. **Develop Smoke Test Cases** - **Create Test Scenarios**: Develop simple, high-level test cases that cover the critical paths and functionalities. For example, if testing a web application, test cases might include: - Launching the application - Logging in with valid credentials - Navigating to key pages - Performing essential actions (e.g., creating a new record) ### 4. **Automate or Execute Manually** - **Automate (Optional)**: If you have an automation framework, you can automate your smoke test cases using tools like Selenium, JUnit, or other relevant frameworks. - **Manual Execution**: If automation is not available, manually execute the test cases. Follow the steps outlined in your test cases and record the results. ### 5. **Execute Smoke Tests** - **Run the Tests**: Execute the prepared smoke test cases. - **Observe and Document**: Carefully document the outcomes of each test case. Note any failures or issues that arise. ### 6. **Analyze Results** - **Check for Critical Failures**: Determine if any of the critical functionalities failed. If they did, this usually means the build is not stable enough for further testing. - **Report Issues**: If issues are found, report them to the development team for resolution. Provide detailed information to help in troubleshooting. ### 7. **Verify Fixes** - **Re-Test**: Once issues are resolved, re-run the smoke tests to ensure that the fixes are effective and that no new issues have been introduced. ### 8. **Proceed with Further Testing** - **Move to Detailed Testing**: If the smoke tests are successful and no critical issues are found, proceed with more comprehensive testing such as functional, integration, and system tests. ### Best Practices - **Keep Tests Simple**: Smoke tests should be simple and focus on core functionality, not exhaustive testing. - **Regular Execution**: Run smoke tests regularly, especially after each new build or release. - **Automate When Possible**: Automation can speed up the process and make it more consistent. By following these steps, you ensure that the most crucial parts of your application are working properly before investing time in more detailed testing. read less

Hey there! Smoke testing is a type of software testing that checks whether the most crucial functions of a program work as expected. To start smoke testing, you need to follow these steps:

 

1. **Identify Critical Functions:** Determine the key functionalities of the software that need to be tested during smoke testing. These are usually the essential features that must work for the software to be considered stable.

 

2. **Develop Test Cases:** Create test cases that cover the critical functions identified in the first step. These test cases should be simple and focused on verifying that the basic features are working.

 

3. **Set up Test Environment:** Prepare the test environment where you will conduct the smoke testing. Ensure that the environment is clean and ready for testing.

 

4. **Execute Test Cases:** Run the test cases that you have developed on the software build. This is to check if the critical functions are working without major issues.

 

5. **Review Results:** Analyze the test results to see if the critical functions pass the smoke test. If there are failures, investigate the issues and report them for fixing.

 

6. **Report Findings:** Document the results of the smoke testing, including any failures or issues encountered during the testing process. Share this information with the relevant stakeholders.

 

By following these steps, you can effectively start smoke testing to ensure the basic functionalities of the software are working correctly. Let me know if you need more details or have any other questions!

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