The cloud-based on-demand plug and play ‘app certification platform’saves cost by nearly 50%.

A mobile solution provider, based out of Noida was faced with numerous challenges, such as, lack of- adequate device coverage and devices management, test apps in continuous integration mode, efficiency of mobile app testers, device sharing between teams, access of devices to geographically distributed devices, among others.
Keeping the organisation’s large scale of business in mind, pCloudy developed the most appropriate single platform hybrid solution to address all the above pain-points. This ‘Hybrid’ Lab included the conversion of the existing physical device to an on-premise mobile lab over cloud, thus enabling teams to access the devices from anywhere, anytime enabling them to schedule and book devices easily. Teams at the mobile solutions company could now schedule automated runs in a continuous integrated mode and also during regression tests.

In addition, pCloudy provided a single interface access to its public cloud for the Client’s team. Teams could now switch between public and on-premise clouds seamlessly, depending on the specific requirement, besides being able to access various devices during their release tests, thus finding a single-click platform for all the challenges it was faced with earlier.
Thus, pCloudy, the flagship product of Smart Software Testing Solutions Inc. in addition to business growth, brought about significant benefits to the mobile solution provider, much to the latter’s delight, including,
· 30% increase in productivity of teams
· 44% reduction in Test Cycle
· 25% increase in test coverage and reduction in production benefits

Another start-up Planet Gogo, in the mobile news space, funded by HT media recently, launched their Mobile App. To ensure success of their App, they wanted to test on variety of Low and medium budget smartphones. Moreover, they wanted to reproduce issues reported by their beta users. These issues were device specific where in pCloudy provided them the appropriate one-stop solution.

How the journey began?
Pankaj Goel, a technology Consultant who formerly worked at Oracle India, HCL Technologies and Adobe Systems along with Lalit Jain, also a consultant with experience in having worked with Wipro and Adobe Systems, co-founded CresTech Software Systems in 2006. The Company grew rapidly to become a trusted name in Independent QA and Testing space. Today it has 3 delivery centers at Noida, Bangalore and California and is a trusted partner of many Fortune 500 companies helping them accomplish their software quality management goals successfully.

Around 2009-10 the founding team conceptualized a ‘Commercial of the Shelf Solution’ called OpKey with Tool Agnostic Test Automation Platform. Very soon, this became a preferred ‘tool of choice’ for many customers, across the globe, who were looking to kick-start their Automation initiatives. In 2014,the three dreamers or the ‘tech nerds’ as they proudly call themselves – Lalit Jain (The Customer’s Voice), Pankaj Goel (The Open-eyed Dreamer) along with Avinash Tiwari (The Pragmatic Dreamer) decided to start another venture, with separate investment for OpKey and closed funding recently.

This new venture, Smart Software Testing Solutions Inc., was formed with the vision to create product and platforms for testing of Apps in a connected world. In line with their vision, they acquired, pCloudy Design Labs, a Bangalore based start-up that focused on Cloud Technology for a Mobile device. Today, pCloudy has been transformed as a Mobile App Testing platform and a separate entity in itself.
pCloudy is India’s first-of-its kind, plug and play app testing platform serving e-commerce, Mobile App based businesses, Mobile App Development companies, besides large enterprises. Besides serving the Indian market, its geographical expansion plans include catering to Australia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Introduction to iOS TestFlight

TestFlight is an online service used to distribute and test beta iOS applications. Developers can use Test Flight to evade the Apple’s bitter binding procedure for testing new versions of their apps. It provides over-the-air installation, testing, tracking and managing of Beta apps. In simple words, TestFlight acts as a link between the developer, the tester, and the Apple Developer Center.

How is it useful?

• Distribution of the app over-the- air to Testers
• Tracking and managing testing using TestFlight’s dashboard
• Receiving feedback from testers to improve the app
• To obtain reports about the device models, OS version used while testing the App
• Automatically records any crashes the testers encounter and sends it to the Developer

This tutorial will walk you through integrating TestFlight into your own apps.

What do you need to start?

You have to have your certificates, app ID, and provisioning profiles in place before distributing your apps using Test Flight. Here’s the list of items you need:

• A Developer ID to login to your developer account.
• A Certificate for Distribution to export builds and distribute apps
• An App ID
• A Device UDID
• Ad Hoc Provisioning Profile to distribute your app on testers devices
• Sign your app with a valid ad hoc provisioning profile

These items will help you obtain an .ipa file that can be distributed for testing in iOS devices with UDIDs mentioned in the provisioning profile of the app.

Uploading your app for Beta Testing

Open up your project in Xcode, make sure you have a correct Bundle Identifier and that you’ve chosen the correct Distribution Certificate:

Choose Product\Archive from the top toolbar:

Once Xcode finishes archiving your project, click the shiny blue Submit to App Store… button:

Choose your development team

Hit Submit

Wait for your build to upload. Once done you will receive a “Submission Successful message”

Inviting Testers

Choose the Right Testing Platform

As a mobile app maker, how sure are you about the success of your app? A small failure to recognize bugs can cost you thousands of dollars! A small mistake can turn you into a big failure among the users. Now, the question is, how to choose the best platform for testing.

Every mobile application is created differently from the other and the right platform to test can be the most important reason for your app’s success.

Choosing the right platform among the various competing ones require a set of clear evaluation.

• The nature of the targeted audience for your app. This will define the device matrix you should be targeting for your App Testing. Does that platform provide right device matrix for your testing needs?
• Cloud based vs in-house setup – Does you testing process allow Apps to be allowed on outside cloud? Does your App have functionalities which work with in a secured network?
• Type of Testing required for your App – Whether your current testing is manual or automated? Does your App require non-functional Testing?
• Reliability and Scalability of the platform- Can it scale with your needs? Can the platform integrate with your existing tools and frameworks?
• Return on Investment

pCloudy provides the necessary tools for convenient, effective and immediate mobile app testing. Our device is based on cloud and it enables continuous development and testing on real devices. Our unique debugging feature recognizes potential errors that will significantly reduce costs and time. Our platform provides single-click access to end numbers of real Android and Ios devices.

To experience the best with your app, we have developed three different types of cloud environments for you.

Public Cloud

With pCloudy’s publicly accessed cloud, you can perform tests directly from your browser. You won’t get confused to choose between manual or automated because both are available in our public cloud environment. We allow our users to test on a comprehensive list of real IOS and Android devices. You can also test your app over various network conditions like 2G, 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi. You can either configure your own browser or choose from our wide range of pre-installed browsers.

Private Cloud

This option is similar to our public cloud environment, except it comes with additional benefits of personalized security and dedicated access. Here, we would provide you a host of devices in our enterprise grade data center and you can choose your own device. If you have a geographically distributed team, then they will have secured devices over a browser. We make sure that your data is safe on our platform, as we allow only authorized team members to access.

On-premise cloud

In this option, we provide you with the necessary hardware and give you the freedom to set up your own secure device lab. You will have complete control of your own on-premise lab.

In addition to have exactly the same features of our public cloud, on-premise model contains supplementary benefits. On-premise cloud gives you the freedom of plug-in with your existing set of devices and provides you access to a geographically distributed team. Manual and automated- both the testing techniques can be used and with a simple plug-in, you can access it from any rack. Also, there is no limit for the number of devices which can be linked!

At the end of the day, the developer has to choose the best platform for his app. But choosing the right one saves so much of hassles.