About the client and the project
Our client from Europe (NDA) develops software solutions for business support systems (BSS) that communications service providers (CSPs) use. One of its key products is a corporate billing system, initially developed in the early 2000s. This system has become essential for delivering smooth financial services by automating billing and preliminary data processing across a range of industries, including telecommunications, banking, hospitality, and other B2B and B2C sectors. It enables processing data from external telecom equipment and automates billing workflows.
In our previous cooperation, we helped the client reduce delivery costs for the “Billing & Invoicing” module. We streamlined CI/CD processes, automated testing, and introduced reusable UI components. We also leveraged MEF.DEV for faster integration and applied caching to cut page load times from 15 minutes to 3 seconds. These optimizations reduced development time from 2–3 days to 2–4 hours, enabling faster, more cost-efficient feature delivery.
In this case, the client needed to meet the rigorous needs of one of the largest mobile operators and internet providers in Ukraine (NDA). With a workforce of around 4,000 employees and over 27 million users nationwide, the project required careful planning at every implementation stage.
To ensure superior development quality and product stability, the NetLS team designed a step-by-step test plan to coordinate testing efforts, reduce risks, and improve overall process efficiency.
What a test plan is, and why the client’s team needed it
A test plan is a document that outlines the strategy, scope, approaches, and activities required to test a software product. The included components: testing goals, items under testing, entry and exit criteria, resources, and the test execution schedule.
We developed a test plan to help the client organize the testing process, minimize risks, and ensure thorough validation. It included the following fundamental components:
- Testing Objectives – specified targets of what needs to be verified and which business requirements or features are being tested.
- Scope of Testing – identification of which parts of the system or product will be tested, as well as those that are out of scope.
- Testing Methodology – a description of the testing approaches (manual, automated), test types (functional, non-functional, regression, load testing), and tools.
- Roles and Responsibilities – allocating the duties of different testing phases to selected team members.
- Resources and Infrastructure – defining the needed human resources, hardware, software tools, and environments.
- Acceptance and Exit Criteria – determining conditions under which testing is considered complete.
- Testing Schedule – setting deadlines for each phase and their interdependencies to support time and resource planning.
- Risk Assessment – identifying potential threats or issues during testing, along with preventive measures.
Thanks to our plan, the entire team can seamlessly track progress, promptly identify blockers, and reduce risks:
- QA Engineers. The test plan is a core working document that defines the testing scope, functional areas to be verified, scenarios, methodology, and acceptance criteria. It guides testers on what to test, expected outcomes, and test priorities.
- Project Managers. They use the test plan to structure and monitor the testing process. It helps manage resources, track progress, and stay on schedule.
- Developers. The test plan clarifies which features will be tested and the methodology. Thus, developers can write test-ready code and align with QA requirements early. It encourages collaboration with testers and supports automation tools to speed up delivery and reduce bug occurrence.
- System Administrators. The plan outlines infrastructure needs for testing environments and monitoring tools. It prevents resource shortages, ensures stable system performance, and helps prepare for smooth deployment based on test results.
Key steps we took to build the test plan
- Studied project requirements and mapped them to test cases – analyzing business and technical requirements to translate them into actionable test cases.
- Outlined testing goals – verifying the correctness of billing processes to ensure system stability under different loads. Each test confirms its compliance with the business requirements and technical standards.
- Defined testing scope – to ensure all essential components of the system were thoroughly tested.
- Documented expected results – eliminated ambiguous or subjective interpretations by clearly understanding the outcomes
- Defined testing environment – understanding the required hardware, software, tools, and network configuration.
- Identified potential risks – helped the client develop mitigation strategies in advance, overcome unforeseen issues, and proceed with the testing process even while experiencing challenges.
- Maintained flexibility to adapt the plan if needed – allowed room for iteration and adjustments based on changes in project scope, requirements, or resource availability.
- Detailed testing schedule – allowed the team to stay organized, helped optimize resource usage, and avoid project delays.
- Included retrospectives to prevent future mistakes – enabled the team to analyze mistakes to identify opportunities for improvement with each new phase.
- Defined key performance indicators and metrics – supported a clear assessment of testing progress and facilitated informed decisions regarding product release.
Why a test plan was necessary specifically for this project, and its impact on metrics
We outlined different testing approaches tailored to the specifics of the system’s functionality. The key idea was distinguishing between cases involving physical devices for IoT data processing and traffic control, and analytics related to service management or billing operations. This distinction was essential due to the complexity and scale of the system, which required a clear, structured testing strategy to ensure reliability across spanerse use cases.
After implementing the test plan on the project, our client was able to:
- Reduce the time required for regression testing
- Decrease the number of critical bugs after release
- Structure test automation
- Improve reporting on QA processes
- Increase customer loyalty as a thoroughly tested and well-configured product improves how end users perceive its functionality
- Reduce costs through lower development expenses due to thorough testing and reduced manual testing costs when implementing automation in large-scale projects.
- Achieve improved quality of the final product
- Increase competitiveness due to enhanced product functionality
Required tools for the project
Our test plan included the testing strategy and specified the tools required specifically for addressing the unique needs of the project. With these instruments, each team member could fulfill their responsibilities according to the defined standards.
When selecting the right tools, we considered the type of testing, the operating environment, and the specific requirements of the project.
Results
The test plan we created as part of our QA and automation testing services allowed our client to strengthen their development process:
- All user stories were documented at the beginning of the project to ensure coverage of functional and business logic.
- After five regression cycles, these tests were moved to automation using Azure CI/CD pipelines for version or sprint delivery.
- Different test types for specific purposes.
- Precise alignment with requirements, thanks to a structured and well-documented test strategy.
- Improved end-user experience, enabled by a thoroughly tested and properly configured product.
- When testing demands increased, instead of adding a third manual tester, our team proactively developed automation scripts to handle the workload efficiently.
- Consistent and organized test execution, fully compliant with project requirements.
- A detailed test schedule with defined milestones and deadlines, providing visibility into progress and helping to keep the project on track.
- A reliable testing tool kit, including Trello, MS Teams, Redmine, Azure DevOps, MS SQL Server, SQL Server Profiler, SCEP Flow, and Azure, ensured effective collaboration, test management, automation, performance monitoring, and secure infrastructure support throughout the testing lifecycle.
NetLS offers comprehensive QA and automated testing services at every software development life cycle stage. We deliver manual, automation, and cybersecurity testing to enhance product quality and meet the needs of the end users, while helping businesses establish market authority as trusted, high-quality providers.
For an enterprise, it’s important to accelerate app migration to the cloud. And, our QA services ensure a seamless transition. With us, companies can modernize their infrastructure for scalable growth and successful digital transformation.
Look at our similar projects on QA and automation testing and see how organizations have already benefited from our services. Contact us to discover how our expertise can enhance your product quality!