What is the role of application support personnel in application beta testing? How can they best avoid becoming a filter on user feedback?

You can't avoid being the 'feedback filter', unless there is a test-manager that is the SPOC (single point of contact) for testers/users. All beta-testers should log feedback through some logging-tool like JIRA (atlassian.com/software/jira/, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JIRA_%28software%29) and the testmanager should perform a first filter, and correctly catalogue and address issues. As an App Support, you are second-line support, with the task to keep the application up-and-running AND judging the logged issues.

Some can be rejected, but some a very valid, and need to be addressed. It is then your task to forward these issues to the project or development-team for further analysis and possibly implementation. Of course there are also situations where the entire alpha/beta testing is performed/guided by project, and in that case your role as Application Support is merely keeping the app running, but as you become responsible for the application once the beta test is over, I would strongly advise to NOT stay on the sideline like that.

Participating in the beta test phase brings out all the good and bad of a new application or release, and as App Support, you want to know what that is. You might want to read up on a nice testing method, that describes many factors of testing: TMAP. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Management_Ap...) and some more reading: * TMap Next: For Result-driven Testing (2006) Tim Koomen, Leo van der Aalst, Bart Broekman, Michiel Vroon, Rob Baarda ISBN: 9072194802 * * Software Testing: A guide to the TMap Approach (2001) Martin Pol, Ruud Teunissen, Erik van Veendendaal ISBN 0201745712.

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