4. Workflow validation

Definition

Specific Keywords

offers a list of useful keywords to support the Business Expert. Those keywords are placed at the beginning of an action row.

Coloring

will visually show the test result by coloring each testing cell:

Standard form (without keyword)	Only the Action description will be colored.
Accept	Only the cell containing the keyword Accept will be colored.
Check	The cell containning the expected value will be colored. In the case of a failure, will show the expected and the returned values.
Reject	Only the cell containing the keyword Reject will be colored.
Display	A new cell at the end of the row will be colored containing the returned value.

Writing a Do With specification

When do we use the DoWithInterpreter

The DoWithInterpreter is used to express interactions with the system under development that must be performed in a particular order. This form of specification provides information about the business flow.

When a sequence of action is executed, confirms that each action has successfully been performed.

First row: Identification of the Do With

As for all other interpreters, the first row of the DoWithInterpreter specifies the name of the interpreter and the name of the sequence of actions to be tested. What makes the DoWithInterpreter particular is that it only have to be defined once for all the sequences of actions expressed in a page. Obviously, the DoWithInterpreter must be defined before any sequence of actions.

Example of a bank Account management system

Example context : The system under development must be able to manage two different types of bank account. The system should allow to execute the usual transactions within an account.

So the first line could be expressed as

or more simply as

Following rows: Actions & Verifications

The second and following rows are used to express specific actions or verifications. The business expert should express the action in human readable format rather than using computer like language.

The form of each row of a DoWithInterpreter must follow these rules: a row begins with a part of the action description. each parameter is isolated in a cell each parameter is separated by parts of the action description. an action description can be blank More visually: Action description part 1 parameter 1 Action description part 2 parameter 2 Action description part 3 Parameter 3 ...

Example: In our bank example, the first action would be to create a bank account .

If we want to take the account number as a parameter, we would have:

But, if we want to consider the type of account, the account number, the owner first name and last name as parameters, we would have:

Example: Verify the balance of an account

To verify the success of a particular action, we write the keyword "Check" prior to the first part of the action description.
In our example, there would be two parameters: the account number and the amount of balance.

Final expression of our example

Our first business rule says that a new account should have a balance of 0.00 dollars.

Our next rule says that the bank should not take any fees when we deposit money in our account.

The following rule says that a customer should be able to withdraw funds if the balance of his account is sufficient.

Execution of specification

Based on those executable specifications, the developers are now ready to code the functionality and the fixture (the fixture is the link between the system under development and the executable specification). Once this is done, the specification can be executed by clicking on the Execute button on the top of the page.

During execution, will color cells in green if the execution has passed and color it in red if the execution has failed. The colored cells depends on the type of action described:

• in a standard action row (without a keyword at the beginning), only the Action description will be colored,
• if the action begins with the keyword Check, the value tested will be colored and in the case of a failure, will show the expected and the returned values,
• if the action begins with the keywords Reject or Accept, only the cell containing the keyword will be colored.
• if the action begins with the keywords Display (NEW in 2.4), only a new cell at the end of the row containing the returned value will be colored.

The examples provided in this page are used to explain how to write the fixture for the DoWithInterpreter.