Time Machine® Accelerates Debt Management Application Testing at Wescot, Providing Peace of Mind and Confidence

Friday, November 15, 2024 at 12:00 PM EDT

Providing the level of confidence they need to commit to on-time client deliveries for long-term test scenarios within a tight schedule

Topic:

When the IT team at Wescot was tasked with upgrading their existing Collections and Recovery software due to the increasing complexity of the debt collection process, they selected FICO's Debt Manager Application (DM9) to sustain Wescot's position as a leader in collections space.

Challenge:

Prior to the DM9 implementation, the Wescot team realized that it would be almost impossible to complete the thousands of test scenarios and workflows across their multi-vendor system within their clients' ideal timeline. Just a single test would require several days to complete; ­they had over 1,500 tests, each with stringent requirements to follow. For this reason, Wescot didn't have the confidence to commit to: 1) on-time client deliveries and 2) their critical, time-sensitive logic functioning as expected into perpetuity.

Furthermore, Wescot decided to adopt agile testing methodologies across all non-production environments in order to support its application transformation. Those environments consisted of Dev, Test, UAT, Training, and Volume. Sharing the licenses across multiple environments seamlessly was another potential challenge, as each agile cycle could go through different environments at different paces, making needs dynamic and hard to plan for in advance.

The team needed a solution that would be fast, flexible, secure, and reliable as well as automated. Changing the system clock was risky, would take too long, and would result in only a small percentage of test cases being covered. It also contradicted its test automation process.

Time Machine Works:

Chosen for being fast, flexible, and safe, Time Machine delivered the confidence Wescot needed by testing all test cases within the time frame required.

Fast and Safe:

Time Machine eliminates all the friction and risk associated with changing the system clock (i.e. change requests, logging off users, shutting down and restarting servers, potential file time stamp corruption or impacting other shared systems and processes). With Time Machine, testers can set their own virtual clock to be immediately productive without application/database shutdown and restart; there's no need to wait for administrators to approve each time change. In addition, applications, processes, and users can be isolated, meaning end-to end-test cases can be executed with no risk of harm to other components.

Wescot's testing required daily processing of batch components (i.e. file ingestion, file production and internal workflows). The workflows spanned over complex processes that could take over 200 days to run. Time Machine allowed Wescot's team to run up to six days’ worth of processing per day, accelerating all testing scenarios.

According to Alastair Rennie, IT Director, "Time Machine enabled us to be part of a wider, multi-vendor delivery, and work within the time frames set by the client. We could not have completed sufficient testing without Time Machine; it has given us the confidence that the long-term scenarios are working as designed. There were no feasible alternatives, and Time Machine did all that we have expected

Flexible:

Wescot's deployment of the Time Machine Floating License Server (FLS), enabled Wescot to automatically provision Time Machine license keys from a pool of License Units (LUs), cutting out the need to manually apply license keys. The pool of LUs enabled Wescot to leverage a limited number of Time Machine licenses across all environments, providing on demand flexibility for both waterfall and agile teams.

Furthermore, with the Time Machine Sync Server, the team fully automated utilizing test scripts built in URL API.

Customer Support - Customer Satisfaction is a Key Priority for Solution-Soft:

"Solution-Soft's customer service and support has been excellent. We've had a fantastic response whenever we have requested support. Definitely geared towards the needs of customers," added Alastair.

Without Time Machine, it was literally mission impossible for the Wescot team to cover all test scenarios before going live. Time Machine continues to enable 100% test coverage,” what if” analysis, and gives customers the highest level of confidence that all releases have been adequately tested.

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About Wescot:

Wescot Credit Services (Wescot) is a leading provider of receivables management services in the United Kingdom, providing services to many of the UK largest companies across financial services, telecoms/media, utilities and home retail sectors.<

About Time Machine

Software Virtual Clocks for Time Travel Testing. Simulate past and future dates effortlessly with Time Machine®, enabling comprehensive testing of your date- and time-sensitive applications. Ideal for validating critical business processes like quarter-end and year-end processing, billing cycles, regulatory compliance (including Year 2038), and policy lifecycles during integration, upgrades, virtualization, cloud migration, and containerization. Eliminate the risks and downtime associated with system clock resets in complex environments like Active Directory and Kerberos.

About Solution-Soft

The Leader in Virtual Clock and Time Travel Testing Solutions

Since 1997, Solution-Soft has been at the forefront of virtual clock software and time travel testing solutions, empowering organizations in the ever-evolving digital world. Our flagship product, Time Machine, has revolutionized application testing, enabling thousands of companies, including 47 of the Fortune 100 US companies, to reduce costs and accelerate project delivery by an average of 3 – 10 times across traditional systems and containerized applications.

The Time Machine Product Suite extends these capabilities, optimizing cloud migration, test automation, Agile/DevOps, and containerization testing. Our latest innovation, Time Machine for Containers, supports standalone Docker containers and large-scale Kubernetes and OpenShift clusters (including a 16,000+ CPU core, 1,300+ namespace deployments).

Trusted by over 2,000 customers worldwide across diverse industries (including 3M, AMEX, BBC, Boeing, and more) and partnered with industry leaders like Accenture, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat, Solution-Soft, founded in 1993 and headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, provides cutting-edge solutions for your time-sensitive testing needs. Learn more at www.solution-soft.com or call +1.408.346.1400.

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