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Automation Testing

About About

What is Automation Testing?

Automation Testing is a software testing technique that performs using special automated testing software tools to execute a test case suite. On the contrary, Manual Testing is performed by a human sitting in front of a computer carefully executing the test steps. The automation testing software can also enter test data into the System Under Test, compare expected and actual results and generate detailed test reports. Software Test Automation demands considerable investments of money and resources.

Successive development cycles will require execution of same test suite repeatedly. Using a test automation tool, it’s possible to record this test suite and re-play it as required. Once the test suite is automated, no human intervention is required. This improved ROI of Test Automation. The goal of Automation is to reduce the number of test cases to be run manually and not to eliminate Manual Testing altogether.

Test Automation

Test Automation is the best way to increase the effectiveness, test coverage, and execution speed in software testing. Automated software testing is important due to the following reasons:

  • Manual Testing of all workflows, all fields, all negative scenarios is time and money consuming
  • It is difficult to test for multilingual sites manually
  • Test Automation in software testing does not require Human intervention. You can run automated test unattended (overnight)
  • Test Automation increases the speed of test execution
  • Automation helps increase Test Coverage
  • Manual Testing can become boring and hence error-prone.
  • Backup & Data Recovery and More…
IT Management
About

Which Test Cases to Automate?

Test cases to be automated can be selected using the following criterion to increase the automation ROI:
  • High Risk – Business Critical test cases
  • Test cases that are repeatedly executed
  • Test Cases that are very tedious or difficult to perform manually
  • Test Cases which are time-consuming

The following category of test cases are not suitable for automation:

  • Test Cases that are newly designed and not executed manually at least once
  • Test Cases for which the requirements are frequently changing
  • Test cases which are executed on an ad-hoc basis.
  • Test Cases which are time-consuming

Automated Testing Process:

Following steps are followed in an Automation Process

Step

1

Test Tool Selection

Step

2

Define scope of Automation

Step

3

Planning, Design and Development

Step

4

Test Execution

Step

5

Maintenance

Test Automation Process

Test tool selection

Test Tool selection largely depends on the technology the Application Under Test is built on. For instance, QTP does not support Informatica. So QTP can not be used for testing Informatica applications. It’s a good idea to conduct a Proof of Concept of Tool on AUT.

Test tool selection

The scope of automation is the area of your Application Under Test which will be automated. Following points help determine scope:

  • The features that are important for the business
  • Scenarios which have a large amount of data
  • Common functionalities across applications
  • Technical feasibility
  • The extent to which business components are reused
  • The complexity of test cases
  • Ability to use the same test cases for cross-browser testing

Planning, Design, and Development

During this phase, you create an Automation strategy & plan, which contains the following details:

  • Automation tools selected
  • Framework design and its features
  • In-Scope and Out-of-scope items of automation
  • Automation testbed preparation
  • Schedule and Timeline of scripting and execution
  • Deliverables of Automation Testing

Test Execution

Automation Scripts are executed during this phase. The scripts need input test data before there are set to run. Once executed they provide detailed test reports.

Execution can be performed using the automation tool directly or through the Test Management tool which will invoke the automation tool.

Example: Quality center is the Test Management tool which in turn it will invoke QTP for execution of automation scripts. Scripts can be executed in a single machine or a group of machines. The execution can be done during the night, to save time.

Test Automation Maintenance Approach

Test Automation Maintenance Approach is an automation testing phase carried out to test whether the new functionalities added to the software are working fine or not. Maintenance in automation testing is executed when new automation scripts are added and need to be reviewed and maintained in order to improve the effectiveness of automation scripts with each successive release cycle.

Framework for Automation

A framework is set of automation guidelines which help in

  • Maintaining consistency of Testing
  • Improves test structuring
  • Minimum usage of code
  • Less Maintenance of code
  • Improve re-usability.
  • Non-Technical testers can be involved in code
  • The training period of using the tool can be reduced
  • Involves Data wherever appropriate