Eggplant Digital Automation Intelligence Reviews

I'm a Test Tool Expert and we're customers of Eggplant Functional and have a good relationship with them. We were the first company in Switzerland to use them. We automate regression tests and there are eight people in the company currently using the product - some are testers and some developers. On a given day there would two or three people using the product, others might use it once a week or once a month. 

The most valuable features would be the image recognition and the OCR. We're also using the API now. we also made a POC for the Selenium WebDriver.

When comparing with other tools, the clear advantage of eggplant is that it is system independent.

When you have release branches and you make feature branches then you can commit. But you cannot make a push, that can only be done on the master and it's not very compatible.
It can also be difficult if you write a lot of scripts and have some images. If you change the name of one of the images then you have to figure out where it is in the script which can be difficult. I would say make the possibilities not only on the image recognition but also on text recognition, something which Tosca has. It would be helpful to be able to work with drivers like Selenium. The implementation of the Selenium driver is not very compatible.

In terms of additional features, it would be helpful to have one package for all testing. 
You have the manager, the AI, then you have functional, and about 10 different packages for installing. 

We haven't had any issues with the stability of this solution. 

Technical support has really been very good. 

We used to use UFT but not anymore, because we have a lot of legacy applications, and we use a lot of different systems that are dependent on each other and because we are independent from where the system hooks up.

The initial setup was very easy. The only thing, which is not so easy is the Eggplant AI integration because it requires an agent to make the connections between functional and the AI server. We had a problem with that but I was able to sort it out. In 99% of cases it works without any issues. 

We had a consultant to assist with implementation and we were very happy with that. 

The product isn't pre-installed. We use xCloud. It really is a very good product, very cool.

I would rate the product a nine out of 10. 

The OCR (Optical Character Cognition) is a very useful feature. It mirrors your phone or your device system.

The scripting is nice and easy to use. The use of the tool is great. You can recreate scripts as well. It can generate scripts based on your actions from the screen.

The setup process is quite lengthy. There's a lot of dependencies. Parts of it need to be centralized.

The reporting function is a bit shallow. The solution does not offer very comprehensive reporting in terms of your test results. The reporting time and the logs are very high level as well. These areas need improvement.

The tool is quite stable. The only issue is connectivity. The RDC connection might be problematic, but I think the call tool itself is quite stable. I haven't really experienced a lot of crashing, or time-outs, or things like that. The stability could be affected by the number of resources available.

The solution is based on a Windows model, where adding users is just a few clicks. It is easy to manage users and add them.

I would rate technical support at three out of five. I don't think they have enough coverage for support. The issues take too long to be resolved. There are also relational issues, location issues, or geolocation issues. For example, in my case, when the support person is in America the response will be the day after the ticket was originally issued. It's too slow of a response because the response team is in America.

The installation is easy, but configuration, based on our project at least, is quite extensive.

We implemented the solution ourselves.

Implementation depends on a lot of factors, but you do need a team that has technical knowledge of the tool. There's a lot of configuration involved when you set up the solution.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

I am not a fan because of the reporting functionality and the difficulty in configuring the solution.

We evaluated this solution and began writing code, but we are not comfortable coding in Eggplant so we are not buying it.

We are definitely moving to an open-source solution.

The most valuable feature is the ability to create code from a flow chart, and then run the code through it. 

We found that we had issues regarding the VPN setup, which is one of the reasons that we did not purchase this solution.

We found that the interface is not user-friendly.

We were not able to write code as fast as with the competing open-source software, so that needs to be improved.

We were not able to view all of the resources that were present.

We did not use the product for long enough to rate its stability.

We were in contact with technical support and we found them to be very helpful. They have good knowledge. It is just the product that we are not happy with, and do not feel that it is suitable for our industry.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

We did not evaluate other options before trying Eggplant.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

GUI testing is the strength of the tool. We have been satisfied with the tool, and not only the tool, but the service behind it. The tool works as expected, and the response from eggPlant, as a company, has been quick and substantial.

We are able to now automate tests, which so far have been manual. Now, it is possible to automate them.

• The availability of the support. 
• The internet presentation: If there are any questions, most of the questions can be answered with the web presentation and documentation. 
• The strength of the tool is we almost have no unwanted influence on the system of the test, because Eggplant is based on the reality approach. 
• It can be used for different operating platforms.
• It is easy to use.

A step forward would be to have event support; supporting different events. At the moment, it is more or less linear. We write the code, but from the tool, we do not have support of events in the system. E.g., programming timers where we have different actions in case certain timers expire. If one part of the program is running, we can get a key event. At the moment, we can implement everything in a linear manner, as predicted. 

The world is not linear and can have unpredictable events where you have to react, which should be allowed in a system on a test. The system on a test should be able handle different events at the same time with different elements or servers. At the moment, this is not supported in eggPlant, and it would be a big step forward.

Stability is okay, and has improved from version to version. However, it has not been 100 percent reached, and it will not be reached as long as the software is being developed, used, and new elements are being introduced. Errors and failures can happen, but if you detect them, the support is quick. 

I had a case that they improved over the weekend. Friday evening, I detected a bug, and by Monday morning, it was corrected. From this standpoint, the stability with the support behind it, I am very satisfied.

It is scalable, but it is a matter of money in the pocket. You can scale it, but then you have to have additional licenses. The licensing approach of eggPlant is not the best. 

The support is good. I would rate the technical support between an eight to nine out of 10.

Previously, we used C# based implementation. The reason that we changed was the instability and inflexibility of the tool. If the system on the test has improved and developed, then we needed a test tool which we could adapt in the same or even faster manner. Our previous tool did not help us in this direction. With eggPlant, we have this possibility and can keep all our tests up-to-date all the time.

The initial setup was easy.

I did the initial setup myself.

We did evaluate another US vendor, but I have forgotten their name. They reused something which were the property rights on eggPlant's site, which is why we did not select them.

You should be very clear about what your goals are. If you have this, then check the fit and the match. Afterwards, have a trial period and again check how the tool fits. 

When discussing eggPlant, it is important to use it, implement the scenarios, and run the tool in a regression mode, permanently. Then, you can see the benefit of what you have done and what it is improving. Working with it, this is the important part.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor is the product. The product has to fulfill our requirements. Then, the vendor should be one that we can trust in.

Object recognition on applications with minimal data input, and the fact that it is designed to run on a machine when you can install automation software on the actual device.

Prior to using the product, all regression testing was done manually for our POS system. Now regression test packs are 70% automated. We have also integrated eggPlant into HP ALM.

eggPlants data input is text based and does not easily conform to data driven test, and this makes data management painful. Integration into other vendor tools are important in today’s market, Even though Vendors would like us to use only their toolset, it is not always possible, Integration into JIRA, Mantis, and HP ALM etc. is important as most of us use a combination of them.

I've used it for two years.

Deployment went smoothly, installed on server and on the client with no problems, and upgrading to new versions were also seamless.

We did however have problems when we tried running the scripts on multiple machines concurrently.

We had licence errors even when we had the correct licences and we got connection issues as well when trying to scale.

Service has been impressive time wise, with basic queries I always got a working answer with more complicated questions (integration or data driven) I would get the “Sales answers” but after speaking to a more senior support person I was given a decent answer.

The set-up was straightforward.

We implemented with an in-house team.

I think the licencing model needs to be looked at as it is very expensive, other companies are using/looking at multiple models to assist with various sized companies.

I did evaluate other automation tools, the problem with the other tools is that you had to install it on the machine with the software being tested. At the time eggPlant was the only tool that could be installed on another machine other than the POS machine and create tests and the object recognition and methods were superior at the time.

If the company only writes systems like POS, and GPS – graphical systems, then eggPlant is a great choice. If the company writes a mix of systems POS, SAP, and insurance software, then I would advise you to use a different tool. The other tools are better suited for high data input systems and have built in mechanisms for tables and similar objects.