Build or Buy a Software Testing Tool - How to Decide?

An organization can reap several benefits by using the right tool to support its software testing efforts. Along with reducing repetitive tasks, increasing test coverage, and achieving greater consistency, the tool will further help the enterprise in reducing the software testing time and cost significantly. Based on its requirements and goals, a business has option to choose from a wide range of open source and commercial software testing tools. At the same time, it can also consider build customized test suites. However, it is important for the business to focus on some key points while deciding about buying or building the software testing tools.

Emerging Trends in Software Testing for 2015

The new technologies and innovative development platforms make it easier for programmers to create user-friendly and modern software applications within a shorter time span. Most enterprises are adopting the new technologies to curtail both development cost and time. That is why; it has become essential for each organization to optimize its testing and quality assurance (QA) efforts to keep pace with the frequently changing software development requirement. It is also important for the company to keep track of the emerging software testing trends for 2015.

Independent Testing - Its benefits and risks

Independent Testing is carried out by testing specialists who are not involved with the development of the system. This is done to make sure that the software that is delivered is able to meet both functional as well as non-functional requirements. This process helps to avoid any type of author bias and is proven to be effective for finding any kind of drawbacks or failures. There can be several levels of independence, such as the tests can be performed by a person who wrote it; by another person belonging to the same team; by a person who belongs to another group or an independent test team and by a person who belongs to a completely different company or by an external body.

The Importance Of Software Testing For IT Businesses

Software testing is a crucial part in developing projects. Through this process information related to the quality of the software developed is evaluated by the programmer or developer. With rising competition it seems fair to launch the product before your competitors and fix the bugs later. It does sound appealing but this would not ensure success for your product. Rather comprehending the features of your product is more important in the daily activities and eventually, in the success of any business. At this stage, a developer can find out in details about the definite and expected outcome of its quality and this, further helps in debugging. Without testing it would be impossible to know about the consistency and overall performance of the product. Thus, in the software development lifecycle testing plays a crucial role.

Which One Would You Prefer? Manual or Automated Testing

The bugs, errors or flaws in a software application have a huge impact on the user experience, hence its popularity. So most enterprises, nowadays, deploy a dedicated team of software testing professionals to ensure that their applications are flawless. But most businesses find it a daunting challenge to choose the type of testing that effectuates the process of testing the software. As an enterprise has option to test the software manually or automate the testing process, it becomes essential for it to choose the right testing option. However, an enterprise can always consider automating its software testing process to avail a set of additional benefits.

Six Reasons Why an Enterprise Should Opt for Automated Software Testing

1) Quick and Effective Software Testing
Your testing team may need additional time to set up the testing environment and test cases. But they can complete the testing project in a quicker and more efficient way after writing the test cases. Further, the test cases can be reused to conduct regression testing each time the code is changed. Further, the testers are not required to submit the same information again and again, or remember to run specific tests. You can always consider test option to beat competition by launching the software on schedule.

2) Reduced Testing Cost
You can further curtail the project cost by automating the testing process. While automating testing process, you have to initially invest in software testing tools. But these tools can be used in the longer run to test several software applications. Further, the tools work much faster than human beings, while identifying defects in the software more quickly. Thus, test automation will help you in saving both time and money.

3) Visibility of Results
Unlike manual testing, automated testing allows the test results to be viewed and accessed by several persons at a time. As the manual tests are conducted by individual testing professionals, the results cannot be viewed by others during the testing. But testing systems can be accessed by multiple users at a time see the test results. Thus, test automation makes it easier for your business to enable the members of distributed teams to collaborate and deliver high quality software.

4) Keeps Testers Motivated
While testing software manually, testing professionals often feel bored after completing the same task again and again. For instance, many professionals find it boring and frustrating to fill out the same set of forms repeatedly. But test automation saves professionals from carrying out same tasks again and again. They have to put time and effort initially to write test cases. After writing the test cases, they will remain committed to the process by reusing the cases to carry out repetitive tasks.

5) Option to Test Things Not Possible Manually
In comparison to automated testing, the scope of manual testing is restricted. In addition to being quicker to run, the test cases further enable professionals to test certain things that cannot be tested manually. For instance, test cases can be written and used to decide if the software application can process a specific number of transactions at a time. Likewise, test cases can also be used to check if the application can be accessed simultaneously by a higher number of users. Also, these aspects of the software can be tested effectively without putting any extra time.

6) Wide Variety of Software Testing Tools
The availability of a wide variety of testing tools and frameworks has made it easier for enterprises to automate their testing efforts. A business can further use open source software testing tools to identify the defects in an application without investing extra funds. Based on the nature and requirements of your software, you have option to choose from a number of popular software testing tools like WinRunner, LoadRunner, WATIR, TestComplete, HP Quick Test Professional, IBM Rational Functional Tester and Visual Studio Test Professional.

However, it is always important for an enterprise to decide what, when and how to automate software testing. Also, it must choose the right software testing tools to automate the testing more efficiently.

You can hire testers from top offshore software testing companies in India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide software application testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Avoid QA Challenges with a Unified Test Management System

Enterprises often explore innovative ways to optimize the performance of their software applications. Some organizations automate the testing efforts, whereas others opt for test management systems. But a number of recent reports have highlighted how an organization can optimize quality assurance (QA) efficiency through a single or unified test management system. Agile project management approach requires organizations to build a cohesive unit by eliminating the barriers between the team of software developers and testers. As the efficiency of the QA process is affected due to diverse and incompatible systems, it becomes essential for each organization to avoid QA challenges with a single test management system.

QA Challenges that can be Addressed with a Unified Test Management System

Integration of Onsite and Offshore Business Units

A constant increase is noted in the organizations outsourcing their software testing projects to reduce operational costs and shorten release cycles. Many enterprises even develop and test software applications in a distributed environment. So the test managers find it a daunting challenge to integrate the onsite and offshore business units. A unified test management system will enable them to facilitate smooth and uninterrupted communication between in-house and remote teams regardless of their location.

Smooth and Uninterrupted Communication

An organization must implement an efficient communication system to identify and fix the bugs, errors or flaws in a software application immediately. The organizations that hire skilled remote QA engineers to curtail project cost must facilitate clear communication between the developers and testers. Often the absence of real-time updates affects the project negatively. When the members of geographically spaced teams cannot communicate with each other clearly, it becomes difficult to share real-time updates. A unified test management system will reduce both labor cost and production time by facilitating clear communication between the members of geographically spaced teams.

Provide a Single Framework

An organization can use a single test management system to provide a single framework to its distributed teams. In addition to facilitating clear and uninterrupted communication between the teams, the single interface will allow the teammates to upload test scripts, cases and metrics immediately. Further, the interface will provide each member with the tools required to carry out their activities. The QA managers can use the unified interface to monitor the progress of the entire development cycle by avoiding the unnecessary operations. The unified test management system makes it easier for enterprises to provide a single interface to the members of its distributed teams.

Automate the QA Initiatives

Each enterprise wants to optimize its QA initiatives by using test automation tools and frameworks. But organizations often find it a daunting challenge to automate the QA efforts in a distributed environment. A unified test management system makes it easier for enterprises to automate the software QA efforts. The offshore QA engineers can write test scripts based on the information received by them. The test scripts can further be reused to reduce the time and effort required to evaluate the software application. The unified test automation system provides a testing dashboard to users for storing the automated test cases. Thus, the existing test scripts can be reused for future projects. As the test scripts are accessible to members of the distributed, they can simply save the test scripts on their computer, and run these without writing new scripts.

With more and more companies working with distributed teams, it becomes important to use a unified test management system that allows the members to communicate and coordinate with each other without any hassle. A single test management system also allows organizations to optimize the QA process by using automated test tools and frameworks. At the same time, an organization can use the system to adopt Agile project management techniques.

You can hire testers from top software application testing companies in India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide software testing services. If you would like to hire certified software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Top 6 solutions to avoid software testing failures

During the application of some product under some environment, if there are certain defects then wrong results will be produced by the system which leads to testing failures. While the software is being designed and built, a programer makes some mistakes. There are some defects which may not lead to failures as they stay inactive and are hardly noticed. However, problems will be bound to crop up at some point or the other which makes it extremely essential to ensure that the testing procedure is carried out with utmost care and precision. While embarking on the evaluation procedure there can be many problems to be overcome- whether or not the budget will be overrun, etc. To avoid software testing failures as much as is possible, you can adopt some preventive measures. Here are the top 6 measures that you can follow.

Defining project success as well as the method to measure it- It is very essential to keep in focus the clear objectives and goals of the project or software. While doing that, you should be taking some basic factors into consideration-

• Time- Some or rather most of the projects run on a tight schedule with fast and hard deadlines; this fact should be made very specifically clear to everybody involved with the process in the first place. Interim deadlines should be set up; rewards may be given for meeting them.
• Cost- The planned as well as actual cost should be tracked properly. You should also decide that in case there is some work outside the original planned scope, there should be some means to reject or approve the cost.

Defining functionality- To determine the kind of testing needs to be carried out the kind of work that must be accomplished by the system needs to be described. For that read all text requirements, review the screen mockups as well as provide feedback along with clarification. This may be time-consuming and iterative but cutting it short is not a very good solution as that will also mean cutting short or decreasing the probability of success of the project.

Identifying correct team members- There are various roles in each phase of any project, so when choosing your team members for the testing process make sure that they are fully qualified for a particular step and that they know which segment of the process they are in charge of. Assign individual roles for each and make sure that they stick to it.

Testing- Whether a system is working or not according to the design is the main objective for determination in evaluation processes. The evaluation method should be such that it gives you quantifiable results; so choose accordingly. Some test plans created define all “use case” while some other test plans created by companies just test against some particular required document.

Deciding on the method of communication- This process is such that there is need for perfect communication with the team members at all stages so that maximum positive result is yielded without the wasting of time as well as money. So it is essential to be on the same page and be up to date. Decide on the method for communication as well as the frequency.

Putting off pressures and celebrating interim successes- Testers often face inappropriate external pressures from stakeholders and managers which force them to cut corners and ultimately compromise on the quality of the product that reaches to the consumer. However, this might lead to bad reputation as well as harm of goodwill of the company in the market. It is not harmful to remind of the pressing deadlines but sometimes it would be beneficial if few pressures are taken off the shoulders of the testers. It would not be harmful to encourage by celebrating interim successes; rather it would boost the morale and make them work better, faster as well as more efficiently.

So try to identify, understand as well as avoid a few common testing problems so that the process becomes smooth-flowing. Not only will it make everything easy, but it will eliminate chances of cost escalating as well as delay in project delivery.

You can hire testers from top web application testing companies in India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide software application testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Surviving the Top Ten Challenges of Software Testing

With the ever increasing innovations in the world of automated testing tools, a large number of organizations make the best possible choice, attempting to make the tools suitable for functioning in their environment. This article outlines the major challenges that are most often seen in organizations that struggle to make effectual automated testing a reality. The earlier these challenges are detected, the better prepared a company will be for the purpose of dealing with them.

Top Ten Challenges of Automated Testing and Solution Strategies

These challenging issues are presented from the least to the highest effect on the overall test automation system.

1. Purchasing the wrong tool

Solutions

• Take time before defining the tool requirements in terms of applications, people skills, technology, process and organization.
• Involve potential users in order to define evaluation criteria as well as tool requirements.
• Build an evaluation scorecard for comparing the tools' performance against a set of common criteria.
• Perform a POC (proof of concept) as opposed to an assessment.

2. Incompetent test team organization

Solutions

• In the testing team involve a test scriptor who is comfortable to work with code and capable of taking the basic testing which has been developed by a testing analyst.
• The person should also have the knowledge of converting it into an automated script.
• With basic scripting concepts initially start simply to add complexity later.

3. Lack of support management

Solutions

• Communicate that it takes planning and time to build a steady foundation of the right tools, processes and people.
• Present the challenges along with the benefits while making the case to management for acquiring testing tools.
• Reinforce management for carrying a good amount of influence in the way people are going to accept automated testing tools.
• Keep the management informed about tool progress and other related issues that arise.

4. Incomplete test type coverage

Solutions

• When evaluating tools, prioritize what types of evaluation are the most challenging to your success. Then evaluate the candidate tools on those criteria.
• Understand the tools as well as their tradeoffs. In order to get higher levels of type coverage of test, you may need to utilize a multiple tool solution. For example, you may need to combine the playback or capture tool along with a load test tool for the purpose of covering your performance test cases.
• Remind people that 100% test type coverage cannot be possible. However, after having 80% of the automation tests, you can manually deal with the rest.

5. Incompetent tool training

Solutions

• In the tool proposal include money for the purpose of training at least a core section of people.
• Choose the most applicable topics for training to match people.
• Organize tool training performed by a vendor at your location to use your own application as exercise.
• For 3 or 4 weeks, get a skilled consultant who is experienced in tool training.

6. Lack of acceptance and tool ownership

Solutions

• You are recommended not to cut the tool training. Training never guarantees success, but you may be at risk of technological abandonment without it.
• In your organization, include someone for the job of a tool smith. This person will be the resident expert on the testing tools.
• It takes the management to emphasize on the tool effort and usage is an essential part required for the testing process.

7. Lack of a basic understanding of test process or what to test

Solutions

Create a list of evaluation criteria for functionality that you are looking forward to considering while using the automated testing tool. These criteria include:

• Repeatability of tests
• Risk or complexity of applications
• Ease of automation
• Simplicity of operation
• Level of documentation of the functional requirements.
• Analyze your existing set of test scripts and cases to see which ones are most applicable.
• Examine your latest testing procedure and find out where it needs to be adjusted for applying automated testing tools.
• Try and make changes in the latest ways you execute tests.
• Involve professionals who will be using the tool for the purpose of helping in designing the automated testing method.

8. Lack of management processes of configuration

Solutions

• Consider the people as well as processes that are required to manage the test scripts or automated testing.
• Look for tools which accommodate changes gracefully to the user interface.
• Trace automated test scripts as part of the configuration set of an application.
• Include the potential automation test SCM person in evaluating testing tools and their respective offerings of test management.

9. Lack of tool interoperability and compatibility

Solutions

• Select tools having cross-platform capability as much as possible.
• Consider writing bridging scripts, as well as shell scripts possibly in non-proprietary scripting languages like Tcl.
• Critically evaluate whether the ability of performing cross-platform testing is a strong requirement.

10. Lack of tool accessibility

Solutions

• If obtaining a quality technical fit is an issue, find information regarding lesser-known testing tools by networking with other testers.
• Try and find tools that is going to work between platforms.
• Use free or low priced tools in order to investigate the possibilities of building your own testing tools.

It is important to understand that even the organizations that have developed core competencies in dealing with test automation also struggle with these challenges at times. Although, herein the challenges are only focused, there are a number of benefits that can be accomplished from test automation. Tools are a part of an efficient test approach, but not the overall approach. A workable process executed by motivated and trained staff is needed in a controlled environment. Successful software automation tests are possible if the basic issues are managed and addressed.

You can hire testers from top qa software testing companies in India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide software testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

15 Tips - How to make your software testing more efficient?

Software testing is a phase that is very much essential for a great software. Just the word software testing will not make your software error-free; you have to approach the entire process in such a way that they turn out to be free from all bugs, performing efficiently. The process of software evaluation thus not only has to be optimized but needs to be correct as well. Here are some tips which you should implement in your evaluation process so that any mistake can be avoided and the end result turns out to be exactly what you had wanted.

1. Good test plans- The most important thing in case of any evaluation is to have an excellent test plan. To guarantee that you have to make sure that an experienced tester like QA manager or lead writes out the plan. While writing, an organized approach should be taken. The plan should cover all things related to testing products, budget limitations, scopes of evaluation, deadlines, test objectives, risk identifications, test execution schedule, etc.

2. Understanding the product- The product or application in this case should be understood thoroughly so that the tester can understand the requirements which will result in detailed as well as complete test coverage. Even if you are not involved in development cycle, it would be a good idea to be involved in decision making meetings or processes. Hold conversations with developers so that you get to know about the application better.

3. Intelligent storing- Do not spread your documents over servers or even store them as emails. You will reap best benefits if all things are stored in a single place so that whenever you need to go back and find some record you will know where to find. Avoid keeping bug reports stored in emails.

4. Testing often as well as early- The evaluation should be done as early and as often as possible. Problems when identified early are easier to fix as compared to those identified later, which are difficult as well as expensive to fix.

5. Writing test cases early on- During design along with requirement analysis phases of Development Life Cycle you should start writing the test cases which will help in understanding whether all of the requirements can be tested or not.

6. Testing with a positive mindset- While starting the process your attitude should be positive; do not think there will be no errors or bugs in the code. If your intentions are to find bugs then you are bound to find them.

7. Writing effective evaluation cases- Test cases should be written with clear steps as that will become handy later on for the reproduction of test cases for testers as well as developers.

8. Understanding testing coverage- When testing, the application must be divided in a smaller functional module as that will help in the understanding of testing coverage. The modules should again be divided into yet smaller logical parts; write test cases in a single module.

9. Using good metrics- Choosing right metrics is extremely important as they will help in achieving of productivity along with efficiency. Metric chosen must be simple for execution as well as effective nature-wise.

10. Bug report should be clear, descriptive and good- This will ensure that the software testing conducted is more efficient. Since this job is creative as well as challenging you have to handle the situations well. Good bug reports will help you save company resources.

11. Going beyond the requirement testing- A good rule in this industry is to go beyond the requirements so you should be testing the application for something that it is not meant to do.

12. All teams should get test cases- While writing a test case the location must be kept central so that it can be accessed by all teams. Analyzing test cases will help in development of better quality application by developers.

13. Increasing communication with developers- During meetings, you should always discuss all points with developers and even ask for additional information on unclear aspects so as to avoid all kinds of misunderstandings. This will help you resolve problems quickly and easily. 14. Identifying regression test cases- You should identify and then group sets of regression testing cases as that will help in effective testing of manual regression.

15. Testing team should own test environments- Test environment and production should be exact replicas of each other. While developing, developers add configurations in run script, but failing to add them in configuration file or release document would result in failed application during production despite working in lower environment. So the test environment should be owned by testing teams so that things like these can be controlled.

For promotion of good software throughout the world, good testers must share experiences and best testing practices with fellow testers. You can hire software test professionals from top automation testing companies India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide QA software testing services. If you would like to hire software testing company or would just like to speak to one of our expert software testers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.

What should you choose - Manual testing or automated?

During the development process, we have to be sure that it is the right application being developed and after the process we have to test it the correct way to ensure positive returns on the testing investment. Evaluation techniques like behavioral, static and structural are adopted to find out some bugs but for the test suite there is a major decision that has to be taken- manual or automation. There are some tests which are perfectly suited for automation and manually they are not feasible at all. However, some tests are most effective if done manually. So, it is essential to check the pros and cons of both the types of evaluation to determine which is most productive or efficient.

Automated testing

This process uses automated tools for the running of tests, repeating predefined actions which compare the expected as well as actual outcomes of developing programs. In case the outcomes and expectations align, the project is likely to be bug free. If there is no alignment then some issue calls for address. The code must be looked at, altered and tests must be run continuously so that the expected and actual outcomes align. This kind of evaluation is excellent for large projects, in case of lots of system users or during filling out of forms.

It takes some time to set up the tests but after automating there is nothing to worry about. The tests can be reused and there is no need to fill out repeated information for constant changing of codes. Automatically, everything is done for you.

Though expensive in short terms, in long-term it is very cost-effective; more work is done in shorter time-period. In fact, defects are found faster as well so that the team can react far faster which saves both money as well as time.

Test automation solves the problem of filling out same forms repeatedly which can be very frustrating. While setting up the test coding, considerable thought is needed which involves your technical minds.

Automated tests have results which can be viewed by everybody, unlike that of manual testing. This allows better team collaboration, ultimately leading to better final products.

However, purchasing tools related to this is expensive which makes it imperative to use ones giving full or as full as possible coverage. In fact, the development of evaluation processes takes a lot of time; they have to be run as well. Most bugs in the system are detected by the tests. But despite that there are certain limitations. Some changes related to visual considerations such as font size or image color can be determined only through manual testing.

Manual testing
In this kind of evaluation process tests are run manually by software developers and actual outcomes are compared with program expectations so that software defects can be found. It is perfect for small projects. In fact companies that are short on financial resources can resort to this as well.

This kind of evaluation lowers the short-term costs. Issues that are likely to be faced by real users are discovered. Since they are done manually, the results are far removed from the robotic automation of automated tests. One of the most remarkable benefits of going manual is that it is very flexible. If you think that changing something will change the project’s course, then you will have no problems in accommodating that.

However, some actions will be very difficult to be done manually. The result might be prone to oversights and mistakes. In this case automated testing are better equipped. Also they can be very boring and repetitive- just filling out same things and forms over and over again, this results in not staying too engaged in the process, making room for mistakes. In case of automated testing anything can be added to the program, so that the tests are re-run instantly. But for manuals this is certainly not the case. For changes in software, tests have to be run by hand again, losing valuable time.

Both the kinds of testing have their own unique sets of cons and pros. To decide on which is the best, you should let your common sense to guide in your decision. But preferably both the kinds should walk hand in hand so that you can reap the benefits of both at the same time, making the entire testing smooth and error-free, delivering the best product.

You can hire certified automation testers from top automation testing companies India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide software testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us or would just like to speak to one of our expert software testers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.

What is the Best Test Case Design Method in Software Testing?

There are multiple test case design methods that are implemented and used by the software testing companies all over. The two most important ones are the Equivalence Class Partitioning and the Boundary Value Analysis. The methods imply that the evaluation case design managers must elaborate the required set of test cases. It has to be remembered in this respect that the conventional methods are not always used during the course of website testing and mobile application testing. However, prior to looking into the other methods and analyzing as to which one is suitable, let us delve a little deeper into understanding why sample evaluations are important and what is the procedure of writing the effective ones.

What are Test Cases?

Sample tests basically include components that elaborate on inputs, actions, events or an anticipated response. The components are meant to find out if the features of the application are working in the right manner. Now, the primary objective of writing the sample tests is to approve the testing coverage of the particular application. These are written down for the purpose of bringing certain standardization while also minimizing the solution- centered approach in testing. The stipulated standards are strictly adhered to by those working in the CMMI QA testing services companies.

Procedure of Writing Test Cases

Writing test cases is a matter of much skill as well as expertise. Various things have to be kept in mind and these include the test case id, the unit that has to be tested or verified, the assumptions, if any, the steps to be executed along with the expected results.

For any application, a variety of test cases need to be included such as negative, boundary and functional test cases. Simplicity is the most important thing when it comes to writing these validation cases.

The Cause-Effect Graphing Method

As already mentioned, the traditional methods are often not used for mobile application testing or website testing. It is here that the Cause Effect Graphing Method comes to play. The method was proposed by Bill Elmendorf. He formulated the question of why the evaluations were needed by making use of the related software. The software elaborates on the required set of test cases that facilitates the entire functionality of the system. The very same procedures that are implemented in hardware logic circuit, are utilized by the cause-effect graphing method too.

The method paves the way for finding both kinds of faults, one that cancels the other as well as those that are made invisible by the other right things. Requirement document is what is most important in the initial stages of this particular procedure of evaluation. The method implies that every input in the requirement is a condition, which can be true or false.

Quality of Software Testing

Any kind of software evaluation, done by means of the different methods as well as techniques, is meant to ensure the quality of the software. Considering the importance of quality testing, it is essential to look into the ways that lead to the development of quality software.

• To begin with, the developers should be entrusted with the responsibility of evaluating the quality. The lesser involvement of the developers often call for issues arising in the code and these issues are often quite difficult to fix as well.
• Engaging the users is one effective way of allowing an impressive flow of code from the developer to the user base. Users get the chance to provide feedback on the software and hence, steer further developments in future. Quick response to the feedback is equally important.

Software testing has an importance of its own and there is no possible way in which this task can be eliminated. The importance of the test engineers is increasingly realized by one and all. Alongside, a software test strategy also needs to be created while this should necessarily include the automated, exploratory and manual evaluations that are particularly helpful in reducing risks.

We provide software quality assurance services. If you would like to hire software test professionals from us or would just like to speak to one of our expert software testers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.