The process of software development cannot be considered complete unless the developed product is thoroughly tested in a pseudo environment. The software can be released or deployed in any live system only when its passes the testing activity. Needless to say, every software development company maintains a team of trained professional testers who test the various functionalities of the newly developed software in a duplicate environment and certify the software as ready to get deployed only when it fulfils the testing criteria.
There are a number of criteria the software needs to pass before it can be termed as ready. The most important of all is of course user acceptance, i.e. the developed functionality fulfils the requirement of end user. However, other criteria such as browser compatibility, security and more are important too. Another criterion which no testing team can ignore is system compliance. This is the reason why every testing team devotes a dedicated timeline for compliance testing.
Compliance testing refers to a set of activities which determine whether the software and its functionalities fulfil technical standard, contractual standard and the regulations of the organization in which the software will be used. No software should be deployed unless it passes compliance testing. Otherwise, the software might create issue at the time of annual audit of the organization.
The management should understand that the use of any software which does not conform to the set policies and regulations is a corporate offence and actions can be commissioned against the same. Hence, the management should make it a point to check the compliance testing success report before it allows the installation or integration of any software.
Traditionally, compliance testing is held after the complete development of the software. Although it has been practised for decades, it cannot be considered the right thing to do. This is because in case the software fails the compliance testing, the entire effort of the development team goes into the vain. Re-developing the software would increase the cost by multiples. This is the reason why compliance testing is advised to be held along with the development activity now. This means that once a functional increment is developed, it should be tested for compliance. If any non-compliance is noticed, the same should be fixed immediately before the developers can proceed with subsequent increments.
The best thing an organization can do is hire a quality engineering firm to do compliance testing. There are a number of quality engineering firms operating in the market which conduct thorough compliance testing and provide elaborate reports of the findings.
