Parasoft SOAtest Room for Improvement

AZ
Presales Solutions Architect at PT trinet primasolusi

The performance could be a bit better. It uses up a lot of resources, like memory.

It can be a bit difficult to set up.

The support could be a bit better.

It is expensive. 

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Ajit Kumar Rout - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Quality Assurance Engineer at Wabtec Industrial

From an automation point of view, it should have better clarity and be more user friendly. Some aspects were difficult and therefore less useful for us, perhaps we lack the coding knowledge on that. 

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Ujjwal Gupta - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Lead at Mphasis

UI testing should be more in-depth. Right now, they only have one feature: record and play. We need to have a bit more in terms of functionality. We hope they will improve on this in the future. 

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Functional Testing Tools
March 2024
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Milind Parab - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Principal Software Engineer at Cadence Design Systems

Tuning the tool takes time because it gives quite a long list of warnings. Going through that is a challenge. It only happens in the initial stage when we are setting up the tool, but it can be improved.

Parasoft SOAtest could add code coverage, which will help us do the coverage in a single tool.

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Milind Parab - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Principal Software Engineer at Cadence Design Systems

The summary reports could be improved because sometimes it is not very concise. The waiver process can also be improved because Parasoft SQAtest doesn't have a method to waive off one rule. Additionally, adding some guidance on providing standard templates could be helpful for new engineers or in complexity reduction. It could be sustained in a better way because it currently just gives the number that is a level of looping or callings. Hence, if something can be improved to refactor the code, then it should be code restructuring and all the information that can be provided to look at the complexity of the code.

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it_user638688 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Manager - Quality Engineering at a tech company with 201-500 employees

I was having trouble with the browser automation on my Mac laptop. They need to make it easier, so as to configure and run this tool on Mac.

I have tried to automate purchasing QuickBooks from our corporate intranet. I could not signup for the Free Trial from the below URL, due to security certificate issues:

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/...

I got busy on other projects and did not revisit this. Apparently, I did not have similar kind of issues while using the Windows OS laptop, in the past.

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Ujjwal Gupta - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Lead at Mphasis

Reports could be customized and more descriptive according to the user's or company's requirements.                                     

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it_user642171 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Test/Quality Assurance at a media company with 10,001+ employees

The feedback that we received from the DevOps of our organization was that the tool was a little heavy from the transformation perspective.

However, Parasoft seems to be working on a solution to make the tool slightly lighter. That is one of the things that could be improved.

Of course, it is a technical tool, so perhaps the interface could be better. We all have our struggles with any tools that we learn.

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it_user458397 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

1. We face issues when working with datasource. In my project we used a CSV file as an input test data files. However when the test data file (CSV) is empty then Parasoft stops abruptly. A workaround we found is to fill some dummy data into the datasource (CSV). We filed a case with Parasoft support about this issue. 

2. Parasoft has lots of limitation when integrating with ALM. We tried with a VAPI script, however it did not work as we expected. I personally feel this is the area to improve in order to compete with the other tools on the market. 

3. We noticed that our project workspace is sometimes corrupted without any reason. Without backups it creates lots of issues. It needs more focus in this area by giving the valid reason for the corruption.

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it_user653586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Sadly, almost everything needs improving. Don’t get me wrong, the tool is very powerful and immensely useful for day-to-day usage. But certain things are missing or are set up in a way that makes it unnecessarily complicated. Here are some examples:

  • Replacing part of an XML request by script requires a variable in the scenario folder. This variable needs to be prepared before the SOAP request tool with the partial XML to be replaced in the request. This variable can then be set to replace a subtree of the XML request. It would be easier if we could directly set a script in the SOAP request tool as a replacement.
  • Enabling/disabling an optional element of an XML request is only possible if a data source (e.g., Excel sheet) is connected to the test. Otherwise, the option is not available at all in the drop-down menu.
  • True parallel testing is currently impossible.
  • There is a separate product ‘Load Test’ that has parallelism built in. But this is only to multiply a scenario with all test cases by a number of users executing all test cases. In a future release, there should be the option of running all test cases of a single test run in parallel to speed up testing.
  • To build a modular scenario, you can reference test suite files and execute the test tools contained therein. But every test contained in the referenced test suite file will be executed, as it is set up in the test flow logic of this scenario.
  • Sadly, there is no way to setup single operations of a web service and then combine those operations into a scenario. This is how SoapUI does it.
  • SOAtest is a plug-in for Eclipse. But actually, it comes bundled with its own Eclipse and several other Eclipse plug-ins like PyDev. Although this ensures compatibility of all contained tools, it also means that every part is a little out of date. For example, PyDev is available as v4.5.5, which means you get Python v2.5.2.
  • You can manually upgrade to a newer version, but this means every installation using your scenarios, and especially scripts, must be updated as well.
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it_user458502 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Test Automation Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

1. The Parasoft reporting feature needs to be more effective in terms of status graphical representation. Parasoft report doesn’t provide graphical representation, meaning summary of report which indicate - how many test scenarios passed or failed, basically the management is expecting this kind overall summary report. So far, the Parasoft report will be prepared manually and sharing with other stakeholders. 


2. I personally feel that 50% of Parasoft features are provided by SoapUI free of cost. However, not all the webservices protocols.SoapUI is an open source tool that supports most protocols such as SOAP, REST, HTTP, JMS, AMF, and JDBC. From a business perspective, why should a company invest money on Parasoft licensing which has a high cost

3. We cannot use the WebUI testing in full mode and we need more focused improvements in that area. I tried to use Parasoft for functional testing (web testing), such as clicking a button and selecting a value from a dropbox, but I figured out that the tool is mostly built for web service automation and User Interface automation. For instance, HPE UFT is a tool with a bundle of features(web service automation and functional automation). I know Parasoft supports basic WebUI automation but with limitations.

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it_user660015 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Oriented Architecture at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Memory Management suffers when using solutions other than the data repository for managing the test cases.

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it_user664629 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior testspecialist at a government with 10,001+ employees

During the process of working with SOAtest and building test cases, the .TST files will grow. A negative side effect is that saving your changes takes more time. The bigger the .TST file, the more time it costs. Sometimes a few seconds! An option is to split up the file into separate files, but often that’s no realistic option because you want to keep the test suites together.

TST-file is the container file in which all testsuites and teststeps are stored. It often happens that you have to change a teststep and want that change to be saved. Saving your teststep in an almost empty container (with only one testsuite and a few teststeps) will go very fast (within 1 second). Saving your step in a container with multiple testsuites and teststeps takes a lot more time. In my case sometimes five seconds.

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RS
Performance and Fault-tolerance Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees

More descriptive reports are needed.

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it_user102126 - PeerSpot reviewer
Independent Test Automation Professional at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
  • The features of SOAtest used for testing (web) applications on user interface level suffice for very basic web applications, but there are better tools on the market.
  • The report output could use some work. It contains a lot of technical details which are quite clear to the person or team that implemented the automated tests, but they are not really suited for distribution to, for example, a management team.
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LS
Testprofessional at CloseSure

In general, its user-friendliness needs a little improvement since there are a few bugs that still remain. It needs to be (possibly) more lightweight and have more validation options. The bulk changes in the test cases are not always easy. But all in all, these are minor details compared to the benefits that we have.

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it_user638676 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jr. Test Analist at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees

Parasoft SOAtest has an internal refresh function where you can refresh the software to show the changes you’ve made in your projects. Unfortunately this function does not work properly, because it often does not show the changes after you’ve hit te refresh button a few times. I have to restart the software for it to see the changes I’ve made. I have been in contact with the Parasoft Support Division and they told me that it was a known issue and that it has something to do with Java.

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it_user626076 - PeerSpot reviewer
Bigdata Consultant & Engineering / Continuous Delivery Architect & Coaching & Engineering at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I would like to see more concrete examples, easy to download studies of very simple Java projects, or TIBCO stuff. Now, I’m sometimes stuck and only finding whitepapers or other reading material, without having concrete examples.

Sometimes I’m stuck, and in that case, it’s useful to have simple examples. I see some shipped examples that are good, but I focus more on the Test automation as part of Continuous Delivery.

For example, yes, there is maven integration and the plugins are explained on a high abstract level. I would to like see simple examples just to showcase and give people a jump start. I found it out by experimenting, I will make this public on my blog in a couple of weeks, just to help the community.

Normally, I’m looking first for some git-repo’s supported with wiki’s, this is what I sometimes miss with Parasoft.

Another topic: SOATest is an integration testing tools, so I was expecting more examples around Tibco BW. Since it commonly just in combination.

Bottom line, modernize the way of documentation.

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it_user881568 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Automation Developer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The product is very slow to start up, and that is a bit of a problem, actually. It is not as fast and it's a bit clunky, especially if you use it for the whole day or for a long time, it doesn't save the data, for example. So, it's a bit clunky and slow.

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it_user154116 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Performance of the tool

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it_user111027 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
The GUI should get a facelift to make it more user-friendly. In some cases, there are simply too many windows/tabs/etc that make it difficult to get to the info you need. View full review »
it_user458379 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

1. More descriptive reports are needed. Very high level reporting is not available.

2. Also the price is a little expensive in terms of users when compared to other similar tools available in the market.

3. WorkSpace is getting corrupted very often.

4. Integrating with other test management tools is really difficult.

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it_user700116 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
  • Web-testing facilities. This was not very good when we were using version 9.2, so we built our own Selenium framework and integrated this with SOAtest (this being possible at all is a very positive point in my opinion ;-).
  • The user-interface is not very lightweight or friendly, sometimes buggy and cumbersome. The product has a steep learning curve, but very well worth the effort.
  • There is virtually no (online) user community, except for an outdated forum. When having issues you have to find everything out yourself (or call in help from Parasoft).
  • Reporting facilities can be better.
  • Last but not least: using the tool in current continuous integration/delivery practices is not very easy or straightforward.
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it_user364998 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Analyst/Test lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

The need to refresh 'Test Case Explorer' when adding a data source or environment file, can be improved.

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it_user457398 - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation Test Coordinator at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Work file [tst] gradually increases in size due to saving or updates of workspace.  I can see a major improvement in that.

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it_user692265 - PeerSpot reviewer
Testconsultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Compatibility with HTTP 1.1 and TLS 1.2 needs to be improved.

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Buyer's Guide
Functional Testing Tools
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about Parasoft, SmartBear, Tricentis and others in Functional Testing Tools. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.