New Features - Alpha & Beta Testing

When Part3 was founded, we collaborated with our early customers to gather their input on our application, which was instrumental in building the Part3 you know and love today.

With every new feature, we still collaborate with our customers to give us valuable insights, feedback, and suggestions to ensure we continue to build the best CA platform in the industry!

This leads us to Alpha and Beta testing!

What does Alpha and Beta testing mean?

Alpha testing is typically carried out at the early stages of feature development and is the first time a customer will see and/or interact with the new feature. Typically, alpha testing is very 'bare bones', final user interface may not be in place, and bugs are to be expected.

Beta testing is the final round of testing before releasing a product to a wide audience. The goal is to uncover as many bugs or usability issues as possible.

With every new feature we work on at Part3, we always reach out to a group of customers to participate in testing, and provide us with feedback. Of course this isn't mandatory, but we love working with our users to get real world examples.

FAQs

1. Where can we test features? The project or organization where testing is being conducted may be on a live project, or a simulated project. The testing environment depends on the feature, and will be coordinated with Part3's product team.
2. Is Alpha and Beta testing safe? Absolutely. When you're testing a new feature, you will be in our production environment which has the same data and security standards as the rest of the platform
3. How long does testing last? This depends on the feature, but also, how involved you want to be. Just because you're an Alpha tester, it doesn't mean that you need to see the feature through Beta testing as well. We want to be respectful of your time, and understand that you have a full plate.
4. How do we give feedback? At the beginning of the Alpha/Beta testing phase, you will be introduced to Part3's product and development team. These individuals will be your point of contact during the testing phase. They will reach out with a questionnaire or request a short video call to ask questions and gather feedback.
5. Does this cost money? No, absolutely not. Participating in our testing phase is free, in exchange for your time and feedback. In fact, we often offer gift cards to show our appreciation to our testers.

Things to keep in mind when you're testing

Bugs: While you're testing, you may encounter some glitches (aka, bugs) in the product. This is common when developing new features because we are entering a world of new users outside of our own product team, with real life data, different browsers, requirements, etc...

If you encounter a bug, please report it right away to your product contact. We always aim for things to get fixed quickly so you can continue with your testing.

Feedback: At the end of your testing, we'll reach out for some feedback about your experience and results. Keeping notes during your tests is super helpful for us, but definitely not a requirement.

Features: While we're in the testing phase, we're still continuing to build out the feature in the background. You will likely see updates along the way, and maybe even some sneaky buttons that don't work because they aren't finished yet. When you start your testing, and as you go, we'll keep you updated on our progress.