Testing is a critical element of modern software engineering. With proper testing, you can identify possible behaviour of your application under normal and abnormal scenarios.
However, testing can be time consuming and expensive when dealing with USSD applications. One way to mitigate these costs is to use a simulator. A USSD simulator attempts to behave like a USSD live connection without delivering sessions to an actual device. Another advantage a USSD simulator provides is an opportunity to automate the entire testing process. Luckily, some USSD gateways have simulators available for developers to test with: AfricasTalking, LeibICT USSD-GW or Restcomm. Some gateways may not provide a simulator but you can mockup a simulator if you know the API functionality.
This USSD simulator is one that I built to interact with the Hubtel USSD gateway. It helps you to simulate a request your USSD application will typically have with a mobile handset and view the dialogue display on the mock device.
How it works
- Enter your application service details in the form on the right hand side and click on submit.
- Interact with the dialogue to view the response from your application.
- You can click on the reset button and restart the process.
Note that you’re required to enable Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) for development purposes. I hope you find this useful, otherwise just let me know if you are having issues by tweeting @aagalic