BANGALORE, INDIA: Websites, such as business portals, are generally used by registered user communities where users login, perform various activities of a business process, and subsequently log out. Generally, these business processes are performed by a single user end to end. There could be many different user types, for various business processes.
However, once a user logs into a particular user role, the user is expected to complete all the activities before he logs out. Within this type of process flow, generally there is no need to bring in another role.
On the other hand, online sites involved in such activities as insurance claim processing, banking processes, account opening and other processes in the financial domain require multiple roles to complete a business process.
This means a process might originate with one user role and then be passed on to another role for the next activity and so on. This process is generally called a workflow scenario, where multiple roles are involved within an end-to-end business process.
Performance testing for Web-based applications generally falls into two categories, single-user business process and multi-user business process (also called a workflow process).
A single-user business process requires one-time authentication followed by a series of defined activities. For example, a user, after logging in to a banking portal, performs different kinds of transactions as an activity and after completion of the transactions logs out. Similarly, a registered user booking tickets through an online site searches, selects, confirms and purchases a ticket.
In both these examples, the user type remains the same across the process. The following diagram indicates the single user scenario where a user logs in once, performs several repetitive activities and finally logs out.
