A basic principle I always try to stick to with Dialogue is to keep things as simple as possible (Keep It Simple Stupid).  If something looks too complicated to easily explain then it probably is.  Take the following example (using word Mergefields to define the content) from an insurance document I have worked on recently:-

The spec says:-

{ IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "SINGLE" "I" ""}{ IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "JOINT" "We" ""}{ IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "OTHER" "I/We" ""} agree to you asking any doctor { IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "SINGLE" "I" ""}{ IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "JOINT" "we" ""}{ IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "OTHER" "I/we" ""} have consulted about { IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "SINGLE" "my" ""}{ IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "JOINT" "our" ""}{ IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type } = "OTHER" "my/our" ""} physical or mental health to provide information so you may assess { IF { MERGEFIELD Policyholder_Type...

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 Of all the aspects of testing, preparing test data is probably the most time consuming and tedious. It is however, one the most important parts. If your test data isn't correctly prepared and doesn't tie in with your test plan then you are immediately at a disadvantage. Valuable time can be wasted examining code for bugs, when in fact it is the data that is at fault. So how can you make life easier for yourself?

 Apologies for the delay in publishing the next part of the testing series, it's been a busy few months  It's finally here though and the next parts should be coming soon...

Whereas Functional Testing test plans are generated from the Requirements documents, Structural Testing Test Plans are generated from the application itself.

Whilst there will always be a significant amount of overlap between the two test plans(Functional and Structural), both should still be created as there are differences in the types of errors captured by each.

We've already discussed how a lack of an effective test plan is one of the the major reasons why your implementations fail and discussed effective testing techniques so now it's time to get into the nitty gritty and discuss testing techniques in detail.  We'll start off with Functional Testing which, whether you know it or not, is probably the testing technique you're most familiar with.

 If you routinely set all of your variables to a reset time of “automatically” and your formula variables are all set to calculate “as needed” in Dialogue you could be creating a maintenance nightmare for you and your  Colleagues. Take your Dialogue knowledge to the next level and take control of formula calculation timing and variable reset timing.

Printmonkey Dialogue

 Last time we talked about the impact leaving testing to chance can have on your implementations (and it’s not good), this week we’re going to look at the different types of testing that you can use to give your testing the best chance of catching the defects it’s supposed to.

Printmonkey Best Practice

How many of your implementations are painless exercises in moving files?  In my experience not many and a major factor is the lack of an effective testing strategy.  Testing has been well documented in other forms of application development but for some reason the document industry is still catching up so how do you make sure your testing gives a good return on time and effort?

Printmonkey Best Practice

Changing your toolset can be a headache at the best of times, but when you’ve got multiple tools and potentially multiple platforms, handling large amounts of critical customer communications getting the migration right can become a juggling act of monumental proportions.

Printmonkey Business

Given that we're generally up against tight deadlines, often we're completely focussed on what the client wants rather than what we need.  However a little thought upfront can often save a lot of time later in the development and maintenance cycle...

Printmonkey Best Practice

 Well this is going to be a short post.  Just want to make sure everything is working properly and that I can post away.  Most of what you'll read here will be technical tips, shortcuts, and anything else I think will be useful.  I hope you enjoy reading and feel free to comment to let me know what you think.

Printmonkey Housekeeping