Skip to content
Company
Management teamCareersNewsLocationsPartners
BlogCustomer Portal
  1. HomeArrow Icon
  2. Case StudiesArrow Icon
  3. Clayton builds a foundation for quality with Tricentis Tosca and qTestArrow Icon

Clayton

Clayton builds a foundation for quality with Tricentis Tosca and qTest

Company overview

Clayton, a leading single-family home builder, has a purpose to “open doors to a better life” by providing attainable, sustainably built housing solutions. To support this goal, the company is undergoing extensive modernization efforts across its technology landscape. By adopting Tricentis qTest and Tosca, Clayton is transforming its quality assurance practices, enabling faster delivery of high-quality solutions and improving the home-buying experience for its customers.

Clayton provides affordable housing solutions across the United States. The company’s operations encompass the entire home-buying journey, from construction and sales to insurance. Supporting this multifaceted process is a wide array of technologies, including on-premise, SaaS-based, and third-party applications. The quality assurance (QA) practice at Clayton plays a key role in refining these tools to deliver quality products for both internal teams and the end customer—the home buyer.

Challenges: Modernizing a complex technology landscape

Clayton initiated a wide variety of modernization efforts to improve its technologies across the board. The company’s technology stacks feature numerous dependencies and complex data flows, creating a need for greater transparency and scalability to deliver faster and with less risk.

Before adopting a new approach, the testing focus was largely manual. This presented challenges in keeping pace with development and ensuring comprehensive test coverage across integrated systems. According to Mike Mitchell, Senior Quality Manager for Enterprise Shared Services, the organization needed a solution that was “scalable across an enterprise that could work across multiple teams.” The goal was to move from a reactive to a proactive approach to quality, finding defects before they could impact the delivery lifecycle.

“We’re trying to work on modernizing to create transparency and scalability across all of those tech stacks, so that we can deliver faster and, with less risk.” – Mike Mitchell, Senior Quality Manager

Tricentis provides a scalable solution with qTest and Tosca

After evaluating various test automation tools, Clayton selected Tricentis Tosca. The decision was based on its ability to provide scalable, end-to-end testing across the company’s diverse and dependent systems. Paired with Tricentis qTest for test management, which was already in use, the integrated solution provided the foundation for a modernized testing strategy.

The implementation strategy focused on starting small and building momentum. Mr. Mitchell championed a “train the trainer” model, beginning with a few team members who were most eager to adopt automation. This core group received training, started building out test automation, and then returned to their teams to onboard and train others.

This peer-to-peer approach created a snowball effect of influence. As team members witnessed the success of their colleagues, excitement grew. Success stories from testers who initially had less technical experience were particularly powerful, demonstrating the accessibility of the tools and fostering a supportive learning environment.

“We are looking to be more proactive in our quality and provide a mirrored lens back to the software delivery teams into what is the quality that’s going into each step along the way.” – Mike Mitchell, Senior Quality Manager

Further value unlocked with an integrated platform

The combination of qTest and Tosca has enabled Clayton to achieve greater visibility and efficiency in its testing processes. The team uses qTest to gain transparency into business risks by tracking test coverage for specific application features. This allows them to identify high-risk areas based on historical failure data and make informed decisions.

The integration between the two platforms is a key component of their strategy. All scheduling of regression tests created in Tosca is managed through qTest Launch. This centralizes control and provides a unified view of testing activities. For Clayton’s quarterly release and maintenance schedules, the ability to organize test cycles and maintain coverage in qTest has proven highly beneficial.

The new tools and processes have also had a positive impact on team morale. While there was initial resistance to change, testers quickly saw the benefits in their day-to-day work. The platform has helped them organize their testing efforts and easily reference past work during regression cycles.

“Once team members start seeing what’s in it for them and how it’s actually improving their day to day… there’s just definitely been a lot more satisfaction in some of those team members.” – Mike Mitchell, Senior Quality Manager

Results: Faster delivery and a proactive approach to quality

While still in the early phases of adoption, Clayton has already realized significant improvements. The company has seen marked improvements in delivery around its regression and smoke testing in the areas automated with Tosca. The ability to leverage test data services has also been crucial for managing data as it flows between dependent systems.

The metrics available through qTest have provided valuable insights, enabling the team to track coverage and make data-driven decisions. The historical data has been particularly useful for identifying and mitigating risks. Most importantly, the shift towards automation has fostered a more proactive quality culture and improved job satisfaction among team members. Looking forward, Clayton plans to explore how emerging AI technologies can further enhance its software delivery lifecycle and continue to provide the best value to its customers.

  • Arrow IconMarked improvements in delivery around regression and smoke testing
  • Arrow IconIncreased transparency into business risks and test coverage
  • Arrow IconImproved team morale and satisfaction with testing processes

Get started with Tricentis

Get started

Arrow