TestComplete Training Online

I joined Falafel Software a little over a year ago now and in that time I’ve done a lot of online training for TestComplete. For those Delphi fans TC is written in Delphi a fact I usually slip into the training sessions. Online training is, or perhaps more accurately was a new business (it’s no longer new) for Falafel that I was able to pioneer. One thing I looked forward to when I changed jobs was the ability to try and do different things and online training is certainly different! I’d been straight-up programming for nearly a decade at Borland/CodeGear and at Falafel I’ve had the opportunity to be involved and have influence in many different parts of the business which has been a lot of fun.

Presenter’s view of online training

When I sit back and think about all the technology used during TestComplete online training I’m really amazed. We use a multitude of software to present all of the different testing functionality TC supports including:

• TestComplete (of course, that’s obvious right)
• Microsoft’s PowerPoint
• GotoMeeting the software that powers desktop sharing
• AutomatedQA’s Remote Agent for Distributed HTTP Load Testing
• Virtual PC to demonstrate Distributed testing support
• NUnit to demonstrate TC’s integrated unit testing
• VS.NET 2008 to demo support for:
  • Web Services
  • Web Site Application testing (ASP.NET)
  • Testing of Open Applications
• Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005 to demonstrate Data Driven Testing (DDT)
• Visual Studio Team Foundation Server to demonstrate TC’s integrated support
• Automated Build Studio if/when the discussion leads to Continuous Integration
• Acrobat reader for the TestComplete Made Easy courseware (which I helped author) and that you can print for yourself from Lulu.

Out of all of this GotoMeeting is the software that facilitates online training and is very cool. It allows for sharing of one’s desktop to multiple PC’s at the same time in different locations. Connecting to GotoMeeting is very straight forward and I’ve yet to run into any problems setting it up which is saying a lot. Additionally, you can turn control over to an attendee as well as display an attendees desktop. In fact, I’ve conducted a number of classes with people scattered around the country which is interesting in and of itself. (Note to attendees, when you ask to share your desktop be sure you haven’t been chatting something in the GotoMeeting chat window you wouldn’t want others in the class to see ) Here is a screenshot of what things look like on the presenter’s end of things:

As you can see there’s quite a bit running not including any of the sample applications used to illustrate features.

Along with the online training Falafel provides the above book in PDF form as well as source code to all of the examples and additional TestComplete projects illustrating nearly every type of testing supported by TC.

Since referral commissions go in my pocket this post wouldn’t be complete without a plug right? So, if you or your company is interested in either online or onsite training on AutomatedQA’s TestComplete please contact me and I’ll be happy to provide you more information or help get you signed up!