Sunrise Identity

It started out as a small screen-print company in 1976, but by 2003, Sunrise Identity had established a global presence in end-to-end branded merchandise solutions. Working with some of the world’s most successful brands, the company provides services around custom apparel, product design, direct import, distribution, fulfillment and others.

In late 2010, the company saw an increased demand for their web-based store services, prompting Technical Project Manager Tim Hogg to find an efficient method for increasing the company’s software testing capabilities. Would he hire more in-house testers? Contract with an off-shoring firm? Or would he leverage uTest, the world’s largest software testing community?

“With regular contractors, there’s always a lull,” explained Tim, who manages a team of QA engineers. “But with uTest, there’s never any downtime. They don’t stop until we tell them to!”

This case study will demonstrate how uTest was able to provide Sunrise Identity with on-demand functional testing ahead of a major product launch. Along the way, we’ll include details on the uTest platform, project management and more.

Testing Challenges

As alluded to earlier, Sunrise builds and manages web-based stores for a wide range of clients. Involving their team of graphic designers, copywriters, customer services pros and other specialists, the stores are designed to help companies deliver their brands to the masses – but what if the stores don’t work as designed?

This was a possibility that Tim and his team could not afford to leave to chance. So when a colleague introduced him to uTest – and their global community of software testing professionals – Tim immediately realized the main benefit.

“When internal teams test software they have been staring at for months, they tend to overlook bugs that uTest finds,” he said. “uTest is always able to provide a fresh perspective.”

But a fresh perspective on what, exactly? With the help of his uTest project manager, Tim specified the exact features and functionality that needed to be tested through uTest’s online platform.

“Our project manager really understood what we were trying to do and who we needed to test for us,” said Tim. “We even needed some of the testers to be Microsoft Certified Professionals, and he had no problem finding them. He really took care of everything.”