Sanity Testing- Understanding the Basics

Sanity testing is often mixed with smoke testing, which tests a software build to detect if the critical functions function as they should before regression testing is performed. In contrast, sanity testing is a kind of regression testing, which concentrates on testing specific functionality after doing changes to the code and fixing any bugs.

What Is Sanity Testing?

As the name implies, this kind of testing tests the “sanity” of an application. The purpose is to ensure that any reported bugs have been eliminated and that the specified functionality works perfectly.

At this point, it’s essential to add that sanity testing is normally performed towards the end of a software testing cycle where the software build is stable. For this purpose, this form of testing is often unscripted. It is done to verify that functionality has been fixed where there were prior bugs. Thus, it is not a widespread form of testing that needs intensive documentation.

Sanity testing can be regarded as surface-level testing. Testers use it to determine whether or not the relevant piece of software requires to be passed on for further testing or not. In this way, this is a much faster and more cost-effective methods of checking software at certain key stages through the software development lifecycle.

The Best Way To Do Sanity Testing

As sanity testing is a mainly unscripted and undocumented form of testing and concentrates more on surface-level functionality, there is no strict rules for how to do it. As with any kind of business method, it is therefore up to your company to decide exactly how you’d like to carry this out.

However, there are several guidelines that you can follow to help you perform this form of testing.

Sanity Testing Steps

Step 1: Identification

The first step when conducting sanity testing, as with any other sort of testing, is to establish exactly what requires testing. This includes all of the functionality, features, and modifications that were added to the relevant code.

Step 2: Evaluation

In this step, the testers will review and judge all of the identified functionality, features, and modifications from the prior step. This is to see if they work as they should.

Step 3: Testing

In this step, testers will then review all of the functionality, parameters, and related elements that are connected with the functionality evaluated above. This will ensure that all of your bases are included when it comes to the right functioning of the software.

Sanity Testing Example

The three steps above give a very broad outline of how this method works. To give an example, if a user visits a website and requires to create an account, there is certain functionality in place to ensure that they can enter their details and set up a profile. This is a very straightforward method.

For argument’s sake, though, imagine that the software development team required to add additional features, like being able to add a profile image, or to be able to preview the user profile before saving it.

In this case, the team would append these features at an early stage of the development lifecycle, and then review them with sanity testing to ensure that they function accurately. This testing helps to ensure that the user is still capable to carry out the sign-up process without any part of the method being negatively influenced by the added functionality.

This example shows how in the sanity testing period, you would check to understand if the changes made to include the functionality of adding a profile image and being able to preview it would change the overall process of signing up for an account from a coding perspective.

Some Advantages Of Sanity Testing

As with any sort of software testing, there are relative benefits for each of them. In the case of sanity testing, there are various advantages. They include the following:

Time and cost-effectiveness. Since you are not applying intensive resources towards in-depth testing with this process, you save time and money.

Focus on relevant functionality. Instead of a wide and shallow summary of the functionality of the software, this particular method enables you to do a deep dive into particular functionality. This can help you to pick up bugs at a vital stage of even the most stable software build.

No requirement for scripting and documentation. Since this kind of testing is more surface-level concentrated, it does not need intensive effort into documenting the process. This can help you to save time and effort when examining for bugs.

Straightforward procedure. This process is a very straightforward way to monitor bugs and any other sorts of deployment and compilation issues.

Efficiency. This kind of testing is very effective as it concentrates  on very specific functionality. It gets right to the relevant and associated functionality and characteristics without taking a wide approach that could prove to be more time-intensive.

Final Thoughts

Above is a very wide overview of sanity testing and how to do it. Although each implementation of this method might be varied based on the software being tested, sanity testing can help you save time, effort, and money by concentrating on testing certain functionality at an initial stage of the software development lifecycle.

Need some guidance in performing sanity testing? Choose to team up with a QA services provider like TestUnity. Our team of testing experts specializes in QA sanity testing and have years of experience implementing tests with sanity testing software. Partner with our QA engineers who can help your team in adopting sanity testing best practices. Get in touch with a TestUnity expert today.

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