Dart Container's journey to test automation excellence

Dart Container, a renowned leader in the foodservice packaging industry, embarked on an innovative journey to transform their IT department into a cutting-edge test automation factory. This transformation was not just about adopting new technology; it was about revolutionizing how they approached software development and testing. With 10 years of test experience and six dedicated testers, the QA automation team at Dart Container knew they needed to adopt a new tool and testing strategy to keep pace with technological advancements and escalating market demands.

Facing the challenge of an automation wall

Before implementing UiPath Test Suite, Dart Container had a library of roughly 400 test cases on an old test automation framework with a multitude of systems under test, including SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft Office, and web applications. The old framework created an automation wall where maintenance efforts began to match the team's total velocity.

“Even though our total velocity for new development was going down, the demand for new automation was going up,” said Tyler Reinelt, Senior IT Test Automation Engineer at Dart Container.

This issue was exacerbated by the perception of test automation as a "black box," resulting in process owners feeling unconfident about automation results.

“We had to completely rethink how we did automation at Dart so that we could fully eliminate and break down the automation wall between the silos within IT,” said Reinelt.

The UiPath Test Suite fit

To tackle the challenge of a major automation wall, the IT team at Dart Container first curated a list of their ideal features in a test automation solution. These requirements included tool customization, developer tools, robust reusability, ease of use, test execution support, and technical requirements and support. The team then reviewed various test automation tools and ranked how well they provided the desired features.

The tool that came out on top? UiPath Test Suite.

Having a low to no-code solution was a huge advantage for us. Along with low and no code, UiPath also supports coded automations, which allows more technical people to customize and tweak things as they want. We felt like UiPath gave us a great opportunity for people who don't have that developer background to interact with the tool, and people who did have that developer background to really harness its full potential.

Tyler Reinelt, Senior IT Test Automation Engineer

Beyond the versatility of UiPath Test Suite for both technical and non-technical users, the QA automation team also found Test Suite to be a great fit due to its effective source code management, such as strong integrations with GitHub and Azure DevOps. They also found success with data services offered by UiPath.

“Data services allow us to parameterize different runs so that we can run multiple sets of data through a single test case. That's a huge plus,” said Reinelt.

Another big selling point? A test execution front end.

“UiPath Test Manager is a GUI that has everything you would need in it. And it's not overly complicated. It's got your test sets. You can build test cases. It's wonderful,” said Reinelt.

Breaking down silos with UiPath Test Suite

Equipped with a highly customizable, versatile testing solution, the QA automation team at Dart Container quickly reconfigured their test automation framework. They set up a centralized approach by ensuring that every test case object used across different process areas linked back to a single object repository.

“This setup allows us to maintain those objects. And if something breaks and we have to fix it in a hundred places, we fix it in the object repository. The technical folks then push the fix through, and then that change gets pushed to our end users,” said Reinelt.

With these object repositories, the QA automation team can develop custom libraries and activities tailored to their specific needs. These libraries include validations and calculations that make testing easier for their end users.

It's a way for our developers to continue to develop complex solutions, and then still deliver those to our end users who are accustomed to that no-code test building.”

Tyler Reinelt, Senior IT Test Automation Engineer

One of the biggest transformations the team experienced through this new framework was the shift in responsibility for test case creation. The test automation team no longer needed to develop end-to-end test cases; instead, they focus on automating parts of processes, building libraries, maintaining the object repository, and ensuring the framework is robust. End users could now take ownership over building test cases, enabling the entire IT department with the ability to engage in test automation.

“This is a huge benefit, because now, the people who know their process, who are running that test, who are responsible if something breaks in production— they're the ones building those tests. They're the ones maintaining it. They're the ones who own it. They can run it themselves. They can look at the results. They understand it because they built it,” said Reinelt.

Incorporating test automation into the software development lifecycle

With UiPath Test Suite, the QA automation team has also been able to seamlessly integrate test automation into the IT software development lifecycle. As new features, enhancements, or applications are built, analysts and business users can either directly create test automation or request it from the QA automation team. This ensures that testing is considered from the outset, rather than as an afterthought.

Leveraging UiPath Test Suite has also helped eliminate testing gaps. Prior to implementing Test Suite, the QA automation team struggled with a gap of about a month between when enhancements moved into production and when automated regression tests were ready. With UiPath Test Suite, the team can now have regression tests prepared as soon as the new features go live, and in some cases, even before they hit production.

This allows us to create test automation for integration testing, which is a huge deal because we've never been able to really hit that mark. We're also starting down the path to push that even further to the left. Ultimately, we want to use this to get into test-driven development.

Tyler Reinelt, Senior IT Test Automation Engineer

Reaping the benefits of test automation

Since implementing UiPath Test Suite, the QA automation team has experienced many benefits, such as:

• A 40% increase in automation development speed through the empowerment of end users to create their own test automation

• An annual savings of $200,000, with even greater savings anticipated

• A reduction in library execution times by 20-30%, leading to additional savings of $20,000 to $40,000 within the first four months of implementation

• A significant reduction in maintenance efforts through the integration of test automation into the development cycle

Among these quantitative benefits, the IT department has also experienced a significant cultural shift, with increasing confidence and excitement among teams about test automation.

“Test automation is seen by the IT department as something crucial that we need to do before we even deliver a service into production. It's broken down those virtual silos and it's kind of pulled the curtain back on test automation from being this big intimidating thing down to something that everyone in IT can do,” said Reinelt.