Software testing is a labor-intensive task that has associated labor costs. So, automating the testing process seems like an instant go-to solution. But to leverage the benefits of automation like accuracy & speed, one should make informed decisions considering the circumstances & ability of the organization to allocate a budget for the process. Post-COVID, the software industry has been seeing a substantial increase in demand for upgrading existing software & introducing new software in the market. But the availability of human resources isn’t aligned with demand, and deadlines for software delivery have reduced. This leads to project failures. This article aims to deliver an overview of automation, its types, applications, techniques & full-fledged automated testing process. Automation testing Guide: Let’s begin with a few fundamentals and then dive into the details of the process. i. Consider the unpredictability of user interaction; no process should be fully automated. Testing of predictable user behavior should be automated, and manual testing should be done for unpredictable user behaviors. ii. Well-defined test process & test cases for automation. The process should start with a detailed overview of functionality and documented automation library. iii. Defining certain fundamental principles for what should be tested & which part of the testing should be automated will enhance accuracy & will save time. iv. Bugs are unavoidable, so automate fixing bugs that are more likely to appear. This will also add to the scalability of the software or functionality. v. Automate the process of document parsing, submissions, extraction of static content & alerts. vi. Features with the least user impact & relevance should not be allocated resources for automation. Automate the testing of features with the highest frequency of usage. vii. Pick up repetitive tasks and then set up an automation testing environment. The trade-off among tasks should be done on a case-to-case basis. viii. Set up some ground rules for overall test structures with well-defined test flags. It must include the test framework and scope of maintainability. This will result in easy adaptability across testing environments & enhance efficiency. ix. Automation should be adopted in an early phase of development, i.e., unit testing. Instead of automating the testing for the whole feature, one should set up testing environments for a specific unit that requires automation. Types of automation testing: Unit Testing: Unit testing, also known as granular testing, is carried out at a lower level of development. It is a part of white box testing, and is used for continuous testing processes, where the tester runs the test on smaller chunks of individual source codes or components. It can be refactored till all the test cases are passed. Integration testing: This is done at a mid-level or end-level of development. The significance of integration testing is to validate the behavior of the source code when smaller chunks of codes are tested combinedly. It is usually followed by unit testing. The approach to integration testing depends on case to case; it can be a top-down or a bottom-up approach. Regression testing: This type of testing is done to validate the behavior of the source codes when certain changes are carried out. These changes can be an upgrade or addition to an existing feature. Hence, it is also referred to as maintenance testing. In regression testing, test cases are repeatedly run to check whether the changes made are working as expected or whether those changes have affected the existing code. System Testing: This testing is used to validate the behavior and evaluate compliance with the system. Stating it in simple terms, it is done to test the system’s response as an application when all components are tested together. Major features like acceptance and delivery of requirements, security standards, maintainability, scalability, & reliability of the system are evaluated. Data-driven testing: It is an extension of the automated testing process. In this case, external data is fed to the system to validate the automated test cases. The data is usually stored in a tabular format. The best reward of this testing is data reusability. It offers to modify and redesign existing test cases to make them more efficient. Techniques of automation testing: Before we get to testing techniques, let's go through four major automation testing processes: i. Setting up a precise testing plan ii. Designing a testing plan iii. Execution of test cases iv. Final evaluation & analysis Techniques: i. Unified backup automation solution to aggregate backups in maintaining documentation, downloading claims, and synchronizing routine tasks. ii. Procuring an automation tool that can collaborate with the available resource. iii. Selecting a solution with higher versatility to ensure universal support extraction. iv. Increasing the frequency of automation testing & implementing it from an early stage. v. Choosing to integrate automation where the frequency of execution is high. Application of automation testing: i. Improves test coverage & offers easy scalability: Automation provides the scope of coverage in test cases that are in no way possible in manual testing. These solutions can read contents from memory and various states of internal code contents of files. ii. It can act out with millions of virtual users within a network and webs. iii. Expands test accuracy and allows the manual testing team to design efficient test cases with higher complexity in features. One of the tried & tested processes in reducing the overall cost of development. Conclusion: The concept of automation testing boils down to the delivery of efficient & best in class features and software products. So, one of the major tasks is to identify a unified & personalized platform that can figure out hidden requirements and run end-to-end test cases. Testsigma is your go-to solution that offers customized end-to-end test automation.
