Overview of testing and development processes

This page outlines how we implement quality control in relation to changes to the Lawmaker application during the development process and as part of the release process.

Testing during the development process

All new features and bug fixes are implemented by a multi-functional development team operating in an agile manner.

To ensure the quality of those changes, we implement the following steps:

1. The initial developer working on a feature or bug fix will, at the same time as writing the necessary code, write automated tests (“unit tests”) or modify existing ones, that can be run in future to ensure the feature/fix is still working as intended.

2. A second developer peer reviews the codes changes made by the first developer and the tests, before they are merged into the development environment.

3. When a change is merged into the development environment, all existing unit tests are run against the updated version to ensure that they still pass. If they don’t then the change will not be merged.

4. The new feature or fix is then tested by a QA engineer or another developer in the development environment to ensure it works as expected. A member of the Lawmaker service team tests feature/fix to ensure it meets the original specifications/expectations (this is effectively “user acceptance” of the change within the agile cycle).

If an issue is found at any of these stages, either it is passed back to an earlier stage in the process to be resolved or a separate task is created to resolve the issue.

Testing as part of the release process

Before any significant or minor release, a series of additional testing is carried out to ensure the quality of the release. The aim of this testing is to ensure that all new features and fixes work as expected when integrated together and also that no regressions in existing functionality have been introduced.

It is impossible to completely rule out any possibility of a regression being introduced somewhere but the testing aims to ensure that all business critical paths through the application work as expected and any defect introduced has only a minor impact on users.

So far as possible all issues found during release testing will be rectified before the release but work is prioritised as follows:

• if an issue affects a business critical paths then it will be fixed and retested before release,

• if it otherwise has a non-minor impact on users or could significantly erode user confidence in the robustness of the Lawmaker service then they will be fixed and retested before release,

• if it has a minor impact on users or is a pre-existing issue that is not being introduced by the release then it may be recorded in our issue-tracking system and addressed in a later release.

As part of the release process, the following steps are taken to ensure the quality of the release

1. An updated version of Lawmaker incorporating all changes is deployed to the Staging environment, which (apart from scale) is an exact replica of the Production environment.

2. Each new feature and bug fix included in the release is re-tested in the Staging environment.

3. A series of “end-to-end” test scripts are run through to ensure that the business-critical paths through the application work as expected. These scripts cover, in particular:

   1. Drafting and managing a Scottish Bill

   2. Drafting and managing amendments and the amendment process for a Scottish Bill

   3. Drafting and managing a UK Bill

   4. Drafting and managing amendments and the amendment process for a UK Bill

   5. The “ping pong” process for UK Bills

   6. Drafting and submitting an SI/SSI

4. A series of specific tests on particular areas of Lawmaker functionality are carried out, including:

   1. individual features and functions within the Editor,

   2. PDF generation,

   3. converting inline amendments to traditional amendments, and

   4. automatically applying amendments to a Bill.

5. Additional ad hoc testing by the Lawmaker Service Team also takes place in relation to any aspect of the application that is considered to be at particular risk of regression as a result of the changes made.

6. A series of automated load tests are carried out to ensure that the changes made in the new release do not have an impact on the robustness of the application.

7. Senior users within each user group are notified when the updated version of Lawmaker is deployed to the Staging environment and given the opportunity to view the changes and carry out ad hoc testing if they have capacity. Any feedback received from those users is reviewed and may either feed into further changes before the release (e.g. if a bug is identified) or will be recorded so that it can be addressed in future releases.