This weekend we released a new update to PractiTest.

As always it came with many small fixes and improvements, but it also included 2 major improvements that were high in our users’ wish list:

• Reports Module
• Improvements to the Test Batch operations

Reports Module

Even though it is still in Beta, we’re very happy launch the Reports module in this version.
What you see today is only a subset of the reports we’ll be having in the future, but we believe it already provides some great value.

The heart of the module, the Report Center, is where you create your reports and where you can see all the previous reports generated for your project:

In this first release you can create reports based on 3 templates: Tabular, Traceability and Detailed report; and you can use these templates for each of the PractiTest entities (Issues, Tests and Requirements).

This is how the new reports definition window looks like:

We will be happy to get your feedback as well as ideas for the additional features you like to see within this module. Please provide share with us your comments on our Feedback Forum.

Batch Edit & Batch Clone on the Tests Module

There are some features in the system that we know people use all the time, for example the batch edit and batch clone features within the Tests Module.

Still, until today, this feature had a small problem, there was no easy way to set a field to empty once it was already filled with data.  So on 95% of the cases this was enough, but we decided to go the extra mile and make this feature right 100% of the time.

We updated the edit/clone form in a way that let’s you decide what fields you want to modify by first selecting the checkbox next to the field name (if you want to leave this field “as is” just leave it unchecked).  If you want to set a field to “empty”, simply select to modify and choose the empty option (of the drop down, or un-select the checkbox for example).

We are already busy working on the next batch of features to be updated shortly.
So see you in our next update with more cool features!

We stumbled upon a report from Microsoft saying that Small & Medium Businesses using hosted services and solutions perform better financially than those using in-house software.  You can check their press release here.

To summarize their findings, the study performed by a third party research firm showed that companies using SaaS and Cloud Based products, such as PractiTest , showed higher revenues than those using traditional in-house solutions.  The research also pointed at the fact that both awareness as well as the migration of SMBs towards SaaS solutions is growing year after year.

Michael Korbacher, a director in Microsoft, said that “Using pay-as-you-go cloud technologies, small and midsize businesses can now afford and easily have access to enterprise-class, secure services across any platform.”

The study also quotes Dale Vile, research director of Freedom Dynamics saying that “This whole picture corroborates the notion that technology and hosted services can provide tangible business advantage, even for smaller companies, and it’s not surprising to see that investment in IT and hosting goes hand in hand with good financial performance.”

So what we always knew that makes perfect sense now gets a formal approval: SaaS solutions such as PractiTest are good for SMBs since they allow them to get the best possible products at accessible costs, and not only taking into account the price of the licenses but also the overall cost of installing and maintaining these solution in-house.