Leaving the Selenium IDE Crutches

When we started the pilot, I would write tests in Selenium IDE (just recording actions) then convert those scripts to Groovy and pass them to the developers. These developers would then write out the actual tests.

The Architect has made a request today: He wants QA to start writing the acceptance tests.

I'm a bit nervous - this is entirely new to me. New ground... but, damnit i'm going to do it. I'm going to get this done. I'm taking the work laptop home tonight and I have these goals:
a) get eclipse installed
b) download our acceptance tests repository locally
c) get maven and maven plugin for eclipse installed
d) install groovy
e) load in the acceptance tests correctly

So I've been on the Pilot Program to achieve a foothold into the continuous integration/deployment realm.

We have an architect leading our work. His name is Josh. Josh has worked with Thoughtworks and has some interesting ideas.

Our main goal is to get a framework of acceptance tests that extend out as we create new features in this team.

As we get a new project, we will create the tickets with a format of: Given, When, Then. All projects are consumer driven.

These tickets with the Given, When, Then breakdown are then translated into acceptance tests.

The acceptance test framework is this built with each new feature or enhancement.

An example is this:
Feature ABC:
As a user, I want to see XXXXXXXX when I enter my XXXXXXXX.

Given a logged in user

When they enter XXXXXXXXX

Then they will see XXXXXXXXX.

This is how the ticket would be formatted.

From that, the dev's are writing acceptance tests in Groovy - using Spock - to keep the same framework.

It's been decided that we'll be using Groovy and Spock for the Acceptance Tests.