Quality Assurance 

 

The end of 2019 marked the completion of the second full year of having a Quality Assurance team and the first full year of having a Change Advisory Board. While both are still relatively new, they are crucial on furthering our efforts to make sure that we provide the best services possible campus-wide.

The Change Advisory Board (CAB) meets weekly with a representative from each team within OIT, as well as other IT providers across campus, to review upcoming changes that may have extended impact. Throughout 2019, the Office of Information Technology reviewed 1,520 changes, most of which were fairly low-risk and low-impact.

A small percentage of those changes, however, had large-scale impact. Some of those major changes discussed in 2019 were the implementation of DUO security for all students, the potential internet downtime caused by testing our new internet pipeline, moving to a cloud-based email system, and upgrading all SharePoint sites. These conversations allowed for greater communication throughout OIT and across campus. Toward the end of the year, the group also started the migration to a new system for managing changes which will provide a chance for more units on campus to be involved. As the CAB continues to grow, we expect the service to campus to continue to grow as well.

The Quality Assurance (QA) Team works on projects across campus to determine that everything is functioning according to expectation and to make sure that users can get the expected results as they run certain programs. In 2019, the QA team worked on 16 projects in varying degrees and captured a total of 193 different requirements across those projets. Throughout testing, the QA team ran 1,195 tests to confirm functionality and located 342 defects that were able to be resolved prior to programs going live.

Some of the projects that the QA team worked on were upgrades to the Student Football Ticketing system, an application for students to sign up for Flunch mentoring sessions, the updated Campus Event Planning System, and a new application that will allow units to purchase hardware instead of leasing. It can be difficult to implement an upgrade or new system, but the QA team certainly made those processes a lot simpler and more streamlined.

QA Numbers At A Glance

1,520 total changes reviewed by the Change Advisory Board
30 major changes with large-scale impact
16 projects completed with quality assurance participation
1,195 tests executed to confirm functionality
342 defects found and resolved prior to going live, due to testing
 

Last Updated: February 14, 2020