When you’re developing software, the most important step is system integration testing. By amplifying and concentrating on this critical process, you can determine if the interfaces are correct, the applications can work without hiccups and if the overall software is functional.

Should you refrain from undergoing this rigorous process, you risk releasing an inferior product to the market and you could potentially suffer from a wide array of bugs that can go undetected if you fail to launch a series of tests. Even if it is just an in-house software, you don’t want to suffer lower levels of productivity.

As you establish system integration testing, you need a plan to ensure you have a successful software projects. This plan will guarantee that you’re honing on specific elements. Here are five system integration testing best practices:

1. Test Management Measures Should be Added

Before you foray into testing, you need to have a series of test management measures in place. Now, you can already have these measures written down or you can begin to come up with some of sublime methods to ensure that systems are fully integrated without any headaches. You must sit down with your team and brainstorm (see below).

2. An Office-Wide Test-Plan Document

Once you have the system integration best practices established, you should produce a test-plan document that should be handed out to the entire office. By doing this, you keep everybody in the know, and you can encourage feedback, suggestions and perhaps inquiries into certain aspects of the testing phase.

3. Data Are Kings & Queens of Software

In today’s software landscape, datum is essential. We have compiled so much data that it has become imperative to the software development process, and, thus, system integration testing.

With that being said, your team needs to understand that your data are properly crunched, calculated and comprehended. The data must be correctly documented and planned for as you begin to establish your software. You will likely suffer some setbacks with the data, but this should not dampen your efforts.

4. Yes, You Should Add Automation to Process

Let’s be honest: human error is inevitable in software development and testing. Therefore, it would be prudent to add some automation to the entire process. This enhances the process. You don’t need to substitute one for the other; you can instead complement both elements.

Automated integration testing can comb through specific details and spot errors that others normally wouldn’t – and it’s faster, too. This enables software developers to allocate their time and resources into other areas of development and testing – again, it speeds up the testing.

5. This is a Team Effort

Most important of all, you need to remember that this is a team effort. It isn’t a one-man show.

You have likely heard of the old adage: two minds are greater than one. Well, when you’re developing software, 12 minds are greater than just one or two. You want as much collaboration and input as possible, whether it is in the infancy period or during the testing phase. One set of eyeballs may detect something critical that another set of eyeballs could not.

Automation, team efforts, test-plan management. These are all factors that can play a crucial role in system integration testing. Without these inclusions, you can risk having a faulty and glitchy software – and you don’t want your company to risk that, do you?

Integration testing can help you achieve a wide array of aims: implementing the business plan, ensuring the application runs seamlessly on the user’s computer and that the software has been completed on time and on budget without any significant hurdles to overcome. Your team can do this!