Challenge Overview
Project Overview
VTARC, in conjunction with TopCoder, has built a new research tool called Business Analysis Cell. It allows VTARC users to create research tasks, send them to the back end web crawler and search engine, and then view a report of the results.
The scope of this contest is to hunt for bugs and enhancements for the Business Analysis Cell application.
Contest Objective
The goal of this competition is to clearly identify the limitations of the provided application. We are not providing any formal requirements or architecture documentation, as we want this testing to simulate a new user testing the system.
The application is fairly self-explanatory. Here are a few notes to get you started:
- The basic flow is to login, create a task, add task specifications (search terms) and task sources/domains (urls to search), start the task, and then view the report when the task finishes. The main tasks page shows you all the existing tasks in their various statuses.
- There are two security levels, regular and admin. Admin can administer users and can also see the tasks of all users. Regular cannot administer other users and can only see his own.
- Once a task completes a report object is generated. Currently, though, the body of this report is just dummy text. (the client will be formatting the real search results into the report later) Thus, you will not be able to test the actual output of the searches.
- There's a known bug in the scrapy web crawler such that certain websites (including www.cnn.com) will result in an infinite loop. If you start a task and it gets stuck on ~3% complete, this is the infinite loop bug. No bug reports related to this will be accepted, as it is already known. Also, please do not intentionally start tasks that will result in this infinite loop, as it is very taxing on the server.
- The Analysis tab is just a placeholder for a future implementation.
Browser Requirements
The given application must be tested in all mainstream browsers.
Users
Login to the application with the following user credentials:
- admin user: testadmin / testadmin1
- regular user: create your own using the admin user
Contest Guidelines
The guidelines for this contest are given below:
- As issues are identified they need to be logged in JIRA under project VTARC and component BUGHUNT.
- Issues must include clear descriptions, test cases and steps to reproduce and expected vs. actual results in order to be counted.
- First competitor to find an issue gets credit, duplicates will not be counted.
- Reviewers will accept, reject or mark the issues as duplicate.
- Please DO take a look at the reported bugs, duplicated bugs cost your work time and the reviewer's time.
- Suggested enhancements will be accepted. Be sure to include a justification for your enhancement.
Important Notice:
You must also be the first person to report the issue and submit it while submission phase is open. JIRA will allow you to file issues before and after the submission phase, but these will NOT be counted.
Technologies
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- Python
- Scrapy
- Django
Documentation Provided
none (this is intentional)
VM
We have deployed the application on our VM and you can access it from the following link:
Additional Resources
Some of the additional resources helpful for the project are
Contest Prize Eligibility
For scoring, the submitter with the most accepted bugs will win. The submitter with the second most accepted bugs will receive second place. For submitters who submit but don't take first or second, if they submit bugs that aren't covered in the first or second place submission, they will receive $5 for each unique bug reported up to a maximum of the 2nd place prize
If two submitters submit the same bug report, the submitter who submitted the report first into JIRA will get credit for the bug. The second submitter will not.
Final Submission Guidelines
Bug Report Process
Bug Report Format
For each report of a limitation or bug, we need the following information:
- Steps to reproduce, including any needed information
- Screen shots (if applicable)
- Expected results after the bug is fixed
- Current results, before the bug is fixed
- Browser version
Important Notice:
- If you do not properly document your bug reports, they will likely be rejected due to lack of information or documentation. Also, make sure your bug reports are reasonably general.
- If you submit the same bug that is seen in multiple screens, for instance, you will likely only get credit for the original bug report. The others will all be closed as duplicates.
Ticket Logging
You will log your tickets here: https://apps.topcoder.com/bugs/browse/VTARC and when creating a bug you MUST select the BUGHUNT component. Bugs will not be counted if a selection is not made.
Scoring
For scoring, the submitter with the most accepted bugs will win. The submitter with the second most accepted bugs will receive second place.