Checkpoint Technologies, Inc. provides expert services and best-of-breed software solutions with a focus in Quality Assurance and software testing. We enable organizations to deliver higher-quality applications to market faster. Checkpoint Technologies is Software Quality. Assured.
Checkpoint Technologies has unparalleled expertise in Quality Assurance and Software Testing. That is our passion. We specialize in functional, performance, mobile application, and application security testing. We provide services such as staff augmentation, consulting, training, and customized mentoring. Our vast knowledge in methodologies and best practices ensure our clients maximize the value of IT on their business.
To All Our Friends (including those we haven’t met yet):
In January 2003, Joanne and I founded Checkpoint Technologies with the primary objective of assisting organizations deliver high-quality applications to market faster by providing outstanding services, expert training, and leading software solutions focused on Quality Assurance and software testing. We’ve always been determined to have a company culture based on appreciation for our customers, passion for what we do, a desire to give back to the community, and uncompromised integrity.
During our nineteen years, we have grown and expanded our offerings, now addressing other areas of the Software Development Lifecycle. Just like the I.T. landscape, we have evolved and become stronger in assisting in the world of Agile, CI/CD, and DevOps. And we’ve added new partners to better serve our clients. Our culture, however, is unchanged and as strong as ever.
What we never envisioned however was that we would be so privileged to have had – and continue to have – so many cherished clients, trusted advisors, supportive partners (Micro Focus, Tricentis, Kobiton, and Eggplant), and outstanding employees. We NEVER would have achieved nor maintained this level of success without you! Thank you! We appreciate you all so very much.
Sincerely, Bob & Joanne Crews
Our “Professional Assessment Roadmap” provides a senior engineer that will evaluate your entire QA team, including individual QA and software testing skills and the utilization efficiency of your software tools. We’ll provide a gap analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of your processes. We cover all areas including requirements effectiveness and traceability, test planning and test case coverage, manual test cases, test automation, test execution, and defect management.
Our consultants provide expertise in all areas of Software Quality Assurance including process assessments, best practices, and software testing. We assist organizations in the development and implementation of a complete QA and software testing strategy. Checkpoint Technologies’ certified Solution Architects have the skill to install, configure, customize, and implement the software testing solutions of world-class software solutions – Atlassian, Micro Focus (formerly Hewlett Packard Enterprise), Tricentis, Mobile Labs, and Kobiton.
Checkpoint Technologies contracts with clients to supplement their team with reliable, knowledgeable, and professional resources that are experts in Quality Assurance and software testing. Whether it’s Business Analysts, Team Leads, Solution Architects with automation expertise, Senior Software Test Engineers, or Manual Testers – we can provide the resources you need, with the skill level and experience you require, to meet your aggressive deadlines.
Agile methodologies bring big advantages to software development teams! As described in an earlier blog. using Agile helps development teams improve their project management, transparency, and quality assurance (QA). As with any methodology, it’s only effective if used right. What is it that makes an...
Agile project management methodologies bring a lot of benefits to Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) teams, as we covered in our previous blog . No SDLC method is 100% accurate, but Agile is helpful for steering the ship in the right direction to stay on course....
Agile project management is essentially a methodology created from a culmination of decades of software development life cycle (SDLC) practices into a more iterative and incremental way of developing software. The Agile methodology breaks down a large software project into iterative cycles of 2-4 weeks,...
Micro Focus has switched things up again to make the names of their ADM (Application Delivery Management) solutions more intuitive. Always a good thing! First things first – the new naming conventions are: LoadRunner Professional (originally LoadRunner): Provides an on-premises solution for application performance and...
Following up my “wildly popular” LoadRunner update, I’m back for round 2! UFT has also been revamped with new, more intuitive names for the different flavors of UFT. New naming conventions: UFT One (originally UFT Enterprise): A comprehensive solution for functional test and regression test...
Introduction There is nothing like trying to explore an unknown city without a map. In every city we know we’ll find buildings, roads, bridges, and on and on. In the same way, when it comes to performance testing, we know the main features of the...
PART 1: (PART 2 IS SHOWN BELOW) Maps Are Invaluable Have you ever tried to drive in an unfamiliar city without a map? It’s next to impossible. Sometimes it feels like you’re never going to get to your destination. Never mind that you don’t know...
It’s impossible to test all possible criterion and scenarios when performing validation. Mathematically, it’s overwhelming! Because of our focus to reach this unobtainable goal a common error is the creation of too many test cases. Think about the issues and challenges this can cause. Without...
The following is a blog based on a previous the Quality in a Quick video episode “Creating a Testing Center of Excellence”. One of the most common requests our organization receives is to assess organizations quality assurance and quality control (software testing) efforts – people,...
Over the years I’ve learned that when starting performance testing on a new, unfamiliar application, it is invaluable to create a working test as soon as possible. BAKE A LITTLE CAKE! Let me illustrate with a story from Downton Abbey. The cooks needed to bake...
Blog Tom Horsfield, April 19, 2019 INTRODUCTION Have you ever wondered why some websites load quickly and others don’t? Have I got a tool to introduce to you! WebPageTest.org is one of several free sites which can help you appreciate and analyze this very thing....
The following is a blog based on the Quality in a Quick video episode “Don’t Overlook Improving Your Regression Testing” which aired on YouTube on February 12th, 2018. Watch the video here. Regression testing is a topic so common people tend to believe there’s not...
The following is a blog based on the Quality in a Quick video episode “What is Quality?” which aired on YouTube on January 8th, 2018. Watch the video here. A person’s definition of “quality” is influenced by their viewpoint and expectations. If we were to...
The following is a blog based on the Quality in a Quick video episode “Verification vs Validation” which aired on YouTube on January 15th, 2018. Implementing structured verification processes is one of the most cost-effective, efficient, and simplest ways an organization can improve their software...
As a Software Quality consulting company, we have the opportunity to discuss what is being done to build quality into development with many organizations. One of the latest discussions has been building Scrum teams with Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs). Some companies are converting...
During this holiday season, we’d like to thank all of our customers and partners for allowing us to assist you with your Software Quality initiatives. We are honored you continue to choose us as your “go to” expert advisors. From all of us at Checkpoint...
The Micro Focus “Web Services” Virtual User Generator protocol can be cryptic to the uninitiated, however, two ways to add content to this kind of script can become more understandable using the analogy of a student. Being a “Student who reads the Text Book”...
In “The Role of Testing in Fixing” blog post, the pattern below was introduced. Our Subaru had been starting poorly, the battery tested bad, was replaced, and we never lost the use of the car. BAD → Test … Fix … Test → GOOD...
Okay, so you’ve created a working software system, but then some functions aren’t working properly in production. How is testing useful when it comes to fixing things that are already made? Here’s a powerful, yet simple pattern to leverage. BAD → Test … Fix...
“Why do we need to test anyway?!” This is how many people feel in the business of creating software. One MAJOR reason is test helps us avoid problems in production! I submit that whether complex or simple, the following process is followed all over the...
The following is a blog based upon the Quality in a Quick video episode “Learning Important Risk Terminology” which aired on YouTube on 6/25/2018 One of my favorite topics, without a doubt, is risk analysis as it’s applied (or should be applied) to software...
The following is a blog based upon the Quality in a Quick video episode “Risk Analysis and Risk Scoring” which aired on YouTube on 1/22/18. One of the most common questions I’m asked by organization’s leadership is “what change, what process should we implement to...
The following is a blog based upon the Quality in a Quick video episode “Learn to Test What Needs to Be Tested Using Heuristics!” which aired on YouTube on 6/4/2018 Before I dive into today’s topic, I’d like to share with you the challenge, the...
We recently dealt with a particular application where the ability to upload various-sized images was considered mission-critical. We were not given response time goals. The only requirement here was the maximum allowable size of the image would be 3 MB. Immediately, my “spidy-senses” began to...
Welcome to the third episode of the Software Testing Happy Hour! This episode we sample scotch ales from around the world while discussing the importance of DevOps and the steps it takes to get there.
Today, we’re going to discuss regression testing, which is a topic that it is so common that people feel as though there’s not much more they can learn about it and, yet, it’s interesting because when it comes to strategic test planning, it’s an area...
In my career, I have had the excellent fortune of providing consulting and expertise to well over 260 organizations. One of the most common questions I get asked is if there was any one particular thing an organization can do to improve their software testing...
Welcome to the second episode of the Software Testing Happy Hour! This episode we sample local Tampa brewery, Coppertail, while discussing the top four frustrations of software engineers, our favorite presentations from the 2018 Automation Guild and discuss the automation solution, Ranorex. Recommendations from...
Join us for our weekly video series, Quality In a Quick, where we will be discussing all sorts of topics surrounding Quality Assurance and Software Testing in short segments. Episodes so far include: What is Quality? Verification vs Validation Peer Reviews and Walk-Throughs Risk Analysis...
Welcome to the very first episode of the Software Testing Happy Hour! In this series, we will discuss current trends and news in the software testing industry, recent or upcoming releases, recommendations and more, all while sampling themed beer. This episode we sample local Florida...
It seems like these days you can’t go a single day without hearing something about the DevOps movement. Like most things in tech though, people like to create new words or phrases for everything, which makes understanding things like DevOps more difficult than it needs...
At this point, I would ask someone to drop a beat, but I know how old I am and how ridiculous that sounds. Speaking of ridiculousness, UFT 14.02 has dropped like a bomb full of trinkets of gratitude. StormRunner Functional was included in this release...
Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection” – Mark Twain Let me just start by saying it’s becoming increasingly more apparent year after year how beneficial it is for organizations to adopt DevOps practices. This years State of DevOps Report by Puppet has some incredible statistics on DevOps...
The Three Ways DevOps is more than just automating the deployment pipeline. In the words of John Allspaw, DevOps is about, “Ops who think like devs. Devs who think like ops.” Elaborating on that thought, Gene Kim explains The Three Ways as principles of DevOps:...
My August 28th blog post discussed applying Agile project management principles and a Scrum framework within a JIRA Core customized Project to manage the selection, configuration and go-live launch of a calendar solution for a business team. Our objective is to create a custom JIRA Core Project to capture business needs and requirements using an...
Over the years, a set of four performance metric categories have become very valuable to me. Without the categories of 1) Workload, 2) Work, 3) Throughput, and 4) Experience, all the metrics that are available become a jumble. For example, somebody throws Average Response Time,...
Mergers can be difficult. For example, look at the Bank of America’s acquisition of Countrywide in 2008 for $2.5 billion. Now with a loss standing at $47 billion and counting because of the housing crisis and toxic sub-prime mortgages, Bank of America has withstood the...
As many of you know and perhaps know all too well, there can be many challenges when transitioning from a traditional or hybrid SDLC to Scrum or any other Agile methodology for that matter. Today I want to focus on what appears to be the...
Have you ever wondered, “What in the world is that Performance Tester thinking?” Let us enter the inner sanctum of the mysterious yet important world of a Performance Test Engineer’s perspective. To do this, we’ll peek into seven different viewpoints and a few actions within...
My July 18th blog post discussed two add-on Confluence calendar applications and an approach that would integrate a Teamup web calendar with a Confluence page. Also mentioned was the best practice of documenting key business, functional and administrative requirements to use as selection criteria to choose a calendar application...
Are you hankering to find a business application where stakeholders can realize significant tangible business benefits through the use of JIRA and Confluence? Begin by having a look around the workplace. Look for business practices and processes that make use of a spreadsheet to track...
As Atlassian Solution Experts, we love the Marketplace. It’s filled with lots of fantastic add-ons to enhance your Atlassian products or more importantly, bridge those gaps between your Atlassian products and other software you use during the SDLC. As a Micro Focus gold partner for...
If you are a UFT user you know there are a few ways to add objects to your object repository. In case you aren’t, the object repository is where UFT stores the test objects used to build automated tests which consist of steps created from...
Can we talk? I don’t know about you, but I hate not having a clue when it comes to IT matters. After all I’m an IT professional for crying out loud. The reality, though, is that IT is way too diverse to know everything about...
JIRA Administrators often times are asked to recommend a calendaring solution that will integrate with Confluence. The Atlassian Marketplace provides a variety of add-on calendar solutions, such as Work Time Calendar and JIRA Calendar Plugin, that integrate with JIRA and Confluence. So, how do you go about choosing the best...
UFT uses Datatables, spreadsheets native to the application, to store test values used for data-driving automated tests. Data-driving really means, creating a variety of test cases by supplying different test values to the automated test. So if UFT is executing against an application that can...
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? If we’ve learned anything from the “Three Little Pigs” it’s that there’s a time to plan and a time to play and bacon is delicious. That being said and bacon still being delicious, the time to plan is...
Many professionals make use of Google Sheets spreadsheets to track project information. Thanks to the ability to share a Google sheet with anyone that has a Google account, team members can easily collaborate on a project using a shared Google sheet. Did you know that...
I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said, “Mobile phones are the wave of the future” and that’s not the only thing he was right about. We are living in the age of mobility and if you’re not on the go you might as well...
This webinar will feature a discussion of key mobile industry trends and offer six effective testing strategies and solutions for enterprise mobility teams. Mobile Labs, a leading provider of enterprise-grade mobile testing and development solutions, will co-present a webinar with its alliance partner, Checkpoint Technologies on Wednesday,...
Checkpoint Technologies and Vivit Worldwide wanted to keep you up-to-date about some important questions that have been frequently asked by our user community members. Why is Microfocus Spinning and Merging with Micro Focus? Microfocus made the decision to spin-merge Microfocus Software with Micro Focus to...
Everyone knows the easiest way to complete a task is to get someone else to do it. This has been the way of the world since the beginning of time. Automation is no different with the exception that instead of “someone” you’re getting “something” to...
We care about quality. Quality cars. Quality buildings. Quality software. But what qualities do we care about? I’m glad you asked. There’s this guy I’d like you to meet. That is, of course, if you haven’t already made his acquaintance. That Guy in the Circle...
Designing and implementing a robust automation framework should be the goal of any test automation effort. The days of each engineer doing their own thing, using their own techniques and methodologies within the same organization are long in the past. This plan – or in...
What’s new in 12.53.16 ALM Octane 12.53.16 introduces the following new features and enhancements. General updates History – View when items were changed, and who made the changes in the item’s History tab Auto-fit column widths in grids New preview pane for items in grid...
In my former life as a software developer, leaders and colleagues would ask if I had tested my code. My reply would be, “Test is a four-letter word.” Clearly, my perspective of testing was based on the hassle and time required to test software well....
Next week at QUEST, I’m going to discuss many best practices to follow when performance testing. Today I’m going to talk about the importance of Performance Requirements. “What performance requirements?” has become a running punchline at many, if not most organizations. Admit it, you have probably...
Software creation is an involved process that requires the skills of a number of individuals in order to be successful. Quality assurance testers have traditionally been given the short end of the stick in terms of available time to complete their tasks and tool provisioning....
Nowadays, the risk of a data breach or security breach is higher than ever before! Especially for companies that posses some sort of critical information assets. Information assets such as customer data, trade secrets, intellectual property and corporate data are, at present time, often at...
Demos: Cross Browser Support MQTT Settings Test Combination Generator Documents: Compare Microfocus Functional Testing Software Products and Editions Upgrading+to+UFT+v14+Pricing+and+Licensing+FAQs+-+Feb+2017 Webinar Recording: What’s New in UFT 14 It seems that everyone fears change, everyone except for Microfocus that is. With the release of UFT 14, some...
Did you know that a car is manufactured pretty much 1 per second? This kind of productivity and efficiency is purely possible due to the automation using robots. There are several reasons why robots became popular. First and foremost, they don’t get tired easily, they...
This article is a guest post submitted by Zephyr to Checkpoint Technologies. Zephyr is a Checkpoint Technologies partner offering real-time solutions designed to transform how development and QA teams work and collaborate, helping them release higher quality software on time. In this blog, we take a look...
It was the weirdest bug that I had ever come across. I was the Lead Tester on a mobile project for a major paint company. One of the Testers on my team came to me complaining about a developer who was working from home. Apparently...
As I think back on the last couple years it seems the rate at which new trends are rising to prominence and forcing change in the world of software development and QA is accelerating. If your organization has not employed Agile as a SDLC at...
Imagine being blindfolded and transported to a location somewhere, anywhere in the world. The blindfold is removed and, having no idea where you are, you’re told to make your way back to your hometown. And by the way…you have a deadline. Impossible? No. Difficult? That’s...
Designing and implementing a robust automation framework should be the goal of any test automation effort. The days of each engineer doing their own thing, using their own techniques and methodologies within the same organization are long in the past. This plan – or in...
It was a matter of time, but don’t look now, your old LoadRunner just got an upgrade. LoadRrunner 12.53 was just released over the weekend. After reading the release notes, she is a beauty under the hood. There are so many enhancements, I don’t know...
