Jeffery L. Ross the master of Xactimate Software explains how to use Xactimate to create a staircase - the stair case tool. This tool looks like an easy tool to use until you really get into things. Then you realize that the simple little tool is actually very complex due to all of its components!

So let’s look at how to use the tool. Once you have a room in place and you want to add a staircase there is one major thing to remember. A staircase cannot be placed inside of a room. Xactimate recognizes a staircase as a separate room so you must think of this when constructing the room that has a staircase in it. Once you get past this, the tool makes much more sense and things get easier.

From one stand point the last statement is true. You select the staircase you want from the drop down list and then just drop it on area where you want it. This holds true for about ninety percent of the estimates you write.

Once you select the staircase from the drop down menus and place it in your drawing, don’t think you are done just yet. You must consider the rest of the components involved with a staircase. Does the stair case go up between two solid walls, does it have a balustrade, does it have a partial wall, is the ceiling slope or boxed, what are the tread depths, how many risers are there? I think you get the point. Any of these factors can change the entire deal.

Remember, it’s not just a matter of selecting a staircase and dropping it in place. The first steps actually begin when you are out in the field doing your inspection. Don’t forget to get all the measurements. So if you have to actually replace a staircase using Xactimate don’t forget about all the other aspects, especially when you are doing your scope.

At this point of your day trading career has been hours upon hours of studying the basics from leaders such as Chad Mullens and Jeffey.L.Ross. You have even purchased a few books from Rossfunds, but nothing is driving a home run for your stock picks. What if you could find a successful day trading software that can help you make thousands overnight?

Will you know how to use it effectively for a long-term solution? If not, maybe you should consider building an investing toolkit that will involve a day trading software, investment literature, and an actual business plan for consistent profit.

Take advantage of a software

Novice investors are always in the midst of finding a new position in the stock market. You can make money by taking advantage of a stock trading software that calculates potential, works in your favor, and continues to grow over time. If you ask an experienced investor, they will mention the amount of hours and days invested in building their portfolio. You can make money in day trading, but the basics must create the foundation you are looking for. Consider the advantages of using a stock trading software then make a decision of building wealth in a few weeks:

- Builds consistency in a progressive manner
- Controlled methods of picking profitable stocks
- Easy to use software
- Unique algorithm for calculating differences/possibilities

Using a stock trading software to make money can cut your research time in half while improving your chances of building a strong portfolio. Majority of today’s investment moguls have an interesting toolkit that includes software, seminars, and other web-based training opportunities to strengthen their experience. As a novice investor, you can do the same with the profits you earn while using a day trading software.

Build wealth in weeks

Test the likelihood of building wealth in weeks; a successful day trading system can provide the security needed to establish a plan. Your only investment involves time; you will need time to learn how to use the day trading software effectively.

Your potential to make money in the stock market does not end in building momentum - it includes calculating more risks that are going to drive you home in profits. In order to become an experienced investor, you have to start from the beginning by creating a foundation suitable for your business. Once you understand all of this, your wealth will show up in time for you to generate the leads you need.

Tweak performance for consistency

Your performance is key to success in day trading; a real successful trading software can provide information on different aspects of your trading habits. You may even develop a criteria or calculation that explains issues regarding your performance.

You may even notice the difference between your scalping and daily pivots that can change your trading habits. Consider this as a short warning - everything you do can determine the direction of your portfolio. With this in mind, your tweaks should be done only when necessary. A stock trading software can provide this opportunity if you take the time to learn how to implement it into your day trading career.

Free trials of software are very common in the software industry. But, how many software companies are so sure of their product they also throw in a free assigned set up coach also? You can use Appointment-Plus scheduling software 15 days for free. This is no watered down version of the scheduling software either. This is the full online version of Appointment-Plus and a free assigned setup coach will help you get the most out of the software for your company. They are so sure of their product they not only let you try it for free but throw in your own assigned setup coach for free.

Are you spending too much time just scheduling appointment software to meet with your customers? If you did not have to spend all this time scheduling could you be more productive? This would turn that unproductive time of scheduling your appointment to quality and productive work time. With Appointment-Plus online scheduling software you can let your clients schedule their own appointments with you. Just have your setup coach show you how to add your “schedule now” button to your Appointment-Plus online scheduling software site. Once your customer sets up the appointment you will be notified along with your customer and it is put on your calendar. Now how simple and easy is that?

Medical billing is complicated enough without having to know every inch of your billing software by heart. Because of all the complexities involved, medical billing software manuals are not only critical but they’re also enormous. As a matter of fact, most medical billing software manuals are shipped in parts. So you have a decent chance of finding what it is you’re looking for, we’re going to give you a general breakdown of how a DME software manual is put together.

The first section of the manual is usually where you will find your installation instructions. These will contain step-by-step procedures for installing the software on each type of network, with subheadings for each network. Usually, the table of contents will include the networks covered so you don’t have to go hunting for yours.

In your next manual, you’ll find your instructions for setting up your databases. This is where you will find out how to enter data for doctor files, inventory files, patient files and so on. This section of the manual will usually have diagrams of each data entry screen so the user will know where each field is. Also, a complete description of each field will be included as well. For fields that tie in to medical forms, the manual will also tell the user which forms the field goes to as well as where on the form, such as line number.

The next set of manuals will usually focus on how to do billing, whether it be through printing out HFCA forms or sending claims electronically. Some software manuals have these sections separated. In addition to that, most software companies provide a separate manual plus record specifications for each carrier that is being billed, such as Medicare and Medicaid. In many cases, where a company has a large customer base and bills many different carriers, they may have as many as five or six different medical billing manuals or more.

And if all that isn’t enough, there is usually a whole manual dedicated to troubleshooting the system in case there are problems. The reason a software company will go through all that trouble is to cut down on the number of support calls that they get, as each call takes up man hours, which is a lot more expensive than printing out a manual.

When all is said and done, a medisoft billing company can literally have a bookcase filled for just one piece of software. If a company does DME billing and then has another software for dental billing, that could mean another whole bookcase full of manuals. Because there are so many, usually there is a small manual that has the master table of contents so a person knows what manual to look in for what piece of information. Yes, medical billing software companies sure do kill a lot of trees.

Are you considering taking the ISTQB foundation level software testing certification exam but would like to know more about what topics it covers? This article provides a summary of what knowledge is required to satisfy the requirements of the foundation level certification.

The certification exam is based on a syllabus that is updated periodically by the International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB). The syllabus is freely available for download and it is what the training providers base their courses on. By reviewing the syllabus, we can understand what topics will be covered in the exam and what we need to know to have the knowledge required for the foundation level certification.

As the foundation level is aimed at those that may have no prior knowledge of testing, the syllabus starts with covering the fundamentals of testing. This includes being able to explain why testing is necessary and the basic test process from planning to execution and closure.

The syllabus then covers how testing activities fit into the software development lifecycle and the software development methodology being used in the project. You need to be familiar with the different levels of testing from component or unit testing to integration, system and user acceptance testing (UAT). You also need to understand the different types of tests, e.g. functional and non functional and if the test is related to a change, understanding what regression testing is.

It then covers how static techniques fit into the test process. Static techniques include reviews or automated analysis that is performed without actually executing the software. For example reviews of system related documentation including functional specifications, design documents, software code and test plans. Automated analysis refers to checks that can be done by tools on software source code to find any defects by comparing to predefined rules or standards.

The next topic is test design techniques. Here it is necessary to know the difference between specification based or black box techniques, structure based or white box techniques and experience based techniques. Using this understanding you need to know how to choose the appropriate test techniques for the test level and project situation. It is necessary to understand what is required to manage the test process. You need to be able to answer the following questions - How to organize a test team, plan and estimate test activities and monitor progress. How to ensure that all project outputs are version controlled and tracked to avoid any ambiguity (configuration management). How to determine, identify and manage project and product risk. How will incidents be managed?

The last topic covered is the tools that can be used to support the software testing and designing process. This covers not only tools that can support test execution but the whole testing process including test management, test specification, test performance and monitoring. Also, understand any risks associated with the use of a tool and what to consider before introducing a new tool into an organisation.

We have covered briefly here the topics that are part of the ISTQB syllabus for the foundation level software testing certification exam. As the exam is based on the syllabus, you should find it clear what topics are covered and what you need to study to have the knowledge to pass the exam. This article is based on information from the 2007 ISTQB foundation level syllabus. The syllabus is copyright by the ISTQB and its authors, Thomas Müller, Dorothy Graham, Debra Friedenberg and Erik van Veendendal.

Agile Software Designing

History: To understand the testing process in Agile development methodology, it is important to understand the paradigm of Agile development. The Agile Development paradigm is not new. Although Agile Software Designing Manifesto was launched in February 2001, the concepts existed well before this and have been expressed in different ways. Development methodology spiral is an example.

What is Agile Software Development: The Agile Software Development focuses mainly on an iterative development and delivery. Developers and end users to communicate closely, and the software is built. A working software is delivered in a short period of time and based on the comments more features and capabilities are added. The emphasis is on customer satisfaction by providing software quickly with minimal features and improvisation based on the feedback. The client is closely involved in software design and development process. Delivery times are short and the new code is built on the previous one. Despite this, the quality of the product can not be called.

What is the test in a scenario of Agile development? The test strategy and the Agile development approach could be very different from the traditional bureaucracy. In fact, it can vary with the needs of the project and the project team. In many scenarios, in May it make sense to not have a team of test. The above statement should be understood carefully. Failure to have a testing team, we do not consider the tests to be less important. In fact, testing can be more effective in short, by people who know the system and its objectives very well.

For example, some teams of Business Analysts could make a few rounds of tests each time the software version is available. Business Analysts understand the requirements of the company and the test software to check if it meets the requirements.

Developers test the software in May. They tend to understand the system and can verify the test results in a better way. Testing for Agile Software Development requires innovative thinking and the right mix of people should be selected for the test.

Software Testing Process Structure

Software Designing of a large project proceed as per the following team structure.

1) Team of Feature Owners: It is a top-level team in the hierarchy, which directly interacts with the prospective customers. It is responsible to minutely understand the customer requirements and groups them into several features. Various members in such a team may become the owners of some of such features. The team members take due initiative and actively interact with various teams become instrumental in providing necessary directions in developing the features owned by them.

2) User Interface Team: The User Interface called UI in short is extremely significant for the product. Even if a software product has series of excellent features, but its User Interface is not effective & convenient, the product is destined to fail.

Hence independent User Interface team is created. The members of a User Interface team are specialists in designing the User Interface for the software products and understand the difference among a good User Interface and a poor one. The sole objective of such User Interface team is to do extensive research in the User Interface.

The UI team designs UI for the product or its features. In the next step the UI team interacts with Feature Owners team to give a practical shape to the UI jointly. Such meeting may result into may be “Page designs” or some “Mockups” containing all elements of the UI as required in the page. The mockups are helpful in presenting the desired appearance or looks of the page. Actual navigation between various pages is also checked during such cross-functional meetings.

3) Development Team: Is entrusted the task of development of the Product.

4) Testing Team: Is entrusted the task of testing the product.

FLOW OF THE PROCESS:

1) Project Kick Start: The members of feature owners team kick start the process with the development of a design document at High level applicable for every feature & the same is released to all concerned.

2) Release of High Level Design Document: Apart from the High level design document prepared by features owners, the designs of the pages or the User Interface Mockups are released to all concerned for reference by the UI teams.

3) Software Development: Coding of the desired features is started by the development team as per the released documents.

4) Software Testing: The testing team kick starts the testing related activities in the following manner:

($) Preparation of a Document with Test Outline: This document describes details of flows of the test or Multiple-Test Scenarios projected at high level. Test outline shall have brief information as to what needs to be checked at which point during the flow.

In addition to the details of flows, this test outline document contains detailed matrix describing all the requirements from the High Level Design Document (HLD) down to the test flows. In HLD a unique ID can distinctly identify each requirement. The purpose of this matrix is to make sure that all requirements have been carefully checked for any deficiency.

($) Preparation of Test Cases: Every test scenario is further converted to an individual test case, which contains all the detailed information. It specifies exact steps for navigation, desired data and detailed information as to what needs to be checked. Detailed explanation in Test Cases is helpful especially when the persons writing the test case are other than the persons going to execute them.

($) Test Automation: Although not compulsory, test automation is optional step. This involves automation of the designed test cases with the help of some automation tool, best suited to the requirements of the company.

($) Concurrent Activities: Development & testing work is carried concurrently. The development team gets engaged in the main task of coding of the desired features. Development team sometimes does some sort of testing at their end as well. In the meantime the testing team prepares the test cases for manual testing and automation scripts for automating the test execution with the help of some automation tool.

($) Product Testing: The cycle of testing begins when the testing teams actively start the testing of the product and start logging the bugs in the defined bug repository system. Concurrently the developers are engaged in fixes of the bugs.

As a best practice, two separate instances of the application are maintained. One instance is earmarked for the testing team and the second one is meant for the team of developers or bug fixing team. However both the teams operate on the same code level.

($) Logging of Bugs: Prior to logging a bug in bug repository system, it is verified as to whether we can reproduce it in the instance meant for the developers or not. If the bug is reproducible, it is assigned to the concerned developer for necessary fixing. When the bug is fixed, then the code fix is applied on developer’s instance, thoroughly verified and then it is applied to the testing team’s instance for regression testing.

However if the bug can not be reproduced on developer’s instance, it may be inferred that it can be a problem related to some type of application setup. In such case the developer interacts with the testing team to ascertain if it is a genuine bug requiring changes in the code or it is some kind of application setting issue. Such application setting issues are quite common during testing of software suites of tightly integrated products.

($) Regression Testing: Code patching is done & the testers repeat the testing from the beginning. In order to fix the bugs, frequent patching of the system is avoided. As per the best policy for patching the bugs, involving for multiple rounds of testing, patching of all bugs accumulated between two testing rounds is done once only, The bugs are fixed and kept ready for patching together. This also does not have a hard & fast rule. Exceptions are there for bugs, which are considered to be critical & which can severely hamper the testing can be patched immediately.

($) Sanity Testing: After the patching is done, the application instance is subjected to sanity testing by the development team. Then it is released for the next testing round involving execution of all the test cases again. This includes execution of the test cases which happen to pass in the previous round.

($) Stopping the Testing Operation: In a scenario of multiple testing rounds, an important decision needs to be taken as to whether to proceed to the next round of testing or halt there itself. The vital decision to a large extent depends upon the number of bugs which had been logged during the previous round of testing. Two factors can help take such a decision are:

1) Further testing can be stopped when no fresh critical bugs are detected & when there is no further need felt for regression testing.

2) Further testing can be stopped when very less number of minor issues are left. The term “Less” is highly subjective and depends largely upon the application under test.

The activities for software quality assessment can be divided into two broad categories and they are static analysis and dynamic analysis.

1• Static Analysis: It is based on the examination of a number of documents, like requirements documents, software models, design documents, and source code. Traditional static analysis includes code review, inspection, walk-through, algorithm analysis, and proof of correctness. It does not involve actual execution of the code under development and it examines code and reasons over all possible behaviors that might arise during run time. Compiler optimizations are standard static analysis.

2• Dynamic Analysis: Dynamic analysis of a software system involves actual program execution in order to expose possible program failures. The behavioral and performance properties of the program are also observed. Programs are executed with both typical and carefully chosen input values. Often, the input set of a program can be impractically large and for practical considerations, a finite subset of the input set can be selected.

In testing, we observe some representative program behaviors and reach a conclusion about the quality of the system. Careful selection of a finite test set is crucial to reaching a reliable conclusion.

By performing static and dynamic analyzes, testers want to identify as many faults as possible so that those faults are fixed at an early stage of the software development. Static analysis and dynamic analysis are complementary in nature, and for better effectiveness, both must be performed repeatedly and alternated.

Tester generally use the below two methods for testing a software product.

1.Verification: This kind of activity helps us in evaluating a software system by determining whether the product of a given development phase satisfies the requirements established before the start of that phase. A product can be an intermediate product, such as requirement specification, design specification, code, user manual, or even the final product. Activities that check the correctness of a development phase are called verification activities.

2. Validation: Activities of this kind help us in confirming that a product meets its intended use. Validation activities aim at confirming that a product meets its customer’s expectations. Validation activities focus on the final product, which is extensively tested from the customer point of view. Validation establishes whether the product meets overall expectations of the users.