The 4.5 release of QAT Wizard was the biggest release in the products history. It focused on the automation, tools and documentation required for customers to author their own standard patterns and corresponding Wizard Interviews without QAT services. The 4.6 release adds another element of automation that greatly simplifies one of the more challenging stages of pattern development… Testing. We've been developing pattern models for over ten years now and testing the patterns has always been a particular challenge. The challenge comes from the fact that each pattern offers many optional features in the form of “Wizard Features”. Since each pattern offers a variety of optional Wizard Features, the testing requires a technique to turn each Wizard Feature on and off between tests to make sure that each Wizard Feature works properly in combination with the others. In release 4.6, we set our sites on the automation of this testing with release 4.6 and I'm very please with the results.

Since the Wizard Interview is responsible for enabling these Wizard Features as the user progresses through the interview, it makes sense that the same Wizard Interview should be used to determine the features that are currently enabled as the patterns are being tested. In other words, we wanted to use the Wizard Interview to simulated the results of the Wizard by allowing the tester to choose the answers to all of the options (questions) presented by the Wizard Interview. To do this, a new automated test menu was developed into the starter pattern model that integrates directly to the Wizard Interview in a special mode that allows the tester to make the same choices they will be presented with during the Wizard Interview. These choices cause various Wizard Features to be enabled and disabled.