Follett

Client:
Educational technology tool

Type of work:
Team Augmentation / Quality Assurance and Testing

Industry:
Education

Website:
follettlearning.com

Technology and Platforms:
Java/HTML, AngularJS, WebDriver, API, Selenium

Traditional curriculum is being replaced by personalized learning methods that offer greater affordances for the varying needs of individual students. Digital education tools help teachers free up administrative time and increase student engagement with instruction and learning.

Follett is the world’s largest provider of educational books, materials, and entertainment and provides educational technology tools supporting more than 80,000 US schools daily. Follett’s technology makes it easier to evaluate student performance and create adaptive, personalized learning models that tailor support to students’ needs.

To fully utilize its tools’ potential, Follett wanted to create a streamlined quality assurance (QA), testing, and continuous integration (CI) pipeline to improve the quality of two education management products. Forte Group made it happen.

Background

Follett Aspen Student Information System is an all-in-one system for hosting and managing secured student data required outside quality control expertise.
Aspen eliminates the need for multiple databases and streamlines student data reporting and analysis.
Destiny Discover’s is a cloud-based library that allows students and educators to search, share, and collaborate with print and digital educational resources.
This library includes e-books, audio and interactive books that teachers and students can access and share anywhere through a web or mobile app.

Business challenges

Introduce industry-wide digital transformation to educators and students
Modernize and improve the internal software products, Aspen and Destiny Discover Follett through a testing overhaul
Evolve the organization’s degree of technical competency to streamline the processes of accessing and analyzing data
Make Follett services and strategies data-driven and fit for the long haul

Solution features

Improved logging and reporting:

Test results were only visible in a development environment, limiting access to test reports and constrained test execution. The QA team built a custom test log and a custom reporting extension which provided anyone on the team with an HTML-based report detailing test results

Scalable test execution:
With a redesigned, improved test automation framework, the team expanded the number of tests it executed to multiple browsers and UI environments. As a result, the number of tests grew from 100 to more than 1000. The reporting from these tests provided analysts with a snapshot of product status across all platforms in less than an hour.

Stabilized test setup:
The QA team stabilized the testing environment by migrating the test setup process to the database level. This improved data-load times, resulting in accelerated test performance and greater stability. Increased stability allowed for an increased testing load as both products scaled.

Continuous integration implementation:
With improved stability and speed, the QA team could move to the continuous integration of testing. The results of each test could then influence the next stage of code deployment.

Redesigned test automation framework:

Generic code was refactored to match the UI of both products, enabling automated tests to run faster and more smoothly.

Mobile and web testing optimization:
With an improved continuous testing (CT) pipeline established, the QA team could optimize tests for web, mobile, and hybrid testing environments, establishing a scalable testing structure across multiple platforms.

Results achieved

Follett is an example of how society and public institutions can benefit from digital transformation.
With a state-of-the-art QA structure in place for Destiny Discover and Aspen, Follett focuses on the continuous delivery of improved tools to educators and students.
CT pipelines helped Follett ensure that predictable delivery occurs at the highest quality, faster.
Follett has maintained a rigid focus on delivering value to schools and educators.

Outcome

Custom test automation framework

10x increase in test coverage

Evolution to a continuous testing pipeline