Streamline Processes: Develop Automation Strategies For Businesses

Easy Action: Build Automation Strategies For Businesses

Current market trends emphasize tightening feedback loops throughout the product development team. Automated testing offers several benefits in tightening this feedback cycle: one is reduced time taken for getting feedback: rather than waiting several days to receive your QA teams results, now they arrive instantly so your software can be deployed more frequently while receiving user input much sooner.

Automated tests can be an incredible resource when used correctly; when misused, however, they can waste resources and produce tests with limited return.

A product-wide strategy that prioritizes flows for automation while automating appropriate cases without antipatterns will yield optimal results - we will explore further some best practices in test automation here.


What Is an Automated Test Strategy?

What Is an Automated Test Strategy?

Software test automation can be thought of as following a recipe, like baking instructions. Therefore, to automate test scenarios effectively, you need a plan before automating them.

Product-wide test plans must incorporate an automated testing strategy as part of their plan to establish a uniform approach and uniform focus areas such as Goals, Testing Levels, Types of Testing Tools, Scope, Environment, etc.

Additionally, this strategy serves to establish priorities as well as an automation approach.


Types Of Automated Tests

Types Of Automated Tests

Automated tests: Types Automated and manual tests share many similar goals and types. What sets them apart is their implementation: manual testers conduct and interpret results themselves in one instance while automation scripts take over for another.

Here are some classifications.

Testing methods include two main categories. These are as follows.

  1. Functional Automated Testing - these tests verify whether an applications features match the expectations outlined in the requirements.
  2. Non-functional Testing - this focuses on testing all requirements aside from business applications and spans accessibility, performance, security, and usability testing. An example of a non-functional test is checking whether an application can handle high traffic.

The next distinction is based on the type of tests:

  1. Performance tests are used to measure a systems overall performance by examining its stability under load and reaction times. There are also subtypes like load and spike tests that focus on specific and challenging scenarios.
  2. Security audits - in these audits, the application is examined for security flaws and vulnerabilities that an attacker could use to steal or leak data.
  3. Accessibility tests are used to determine whether programmes are usable by those with special needs, such as those who are blind, deaf, or use other assistive technologies, screen readers.
  4. Usability tests - these focus on testing whether a system is easy to use and intuitive. Usability tests are performed by real users or take place under conditions matching real use; insights and feedback are collected.
  5. UI tests are those that concentrate on the graphical user interface that users interact with, including testing on various device kinds and resolutions (desktop, tablet, and smartphone).
  6. Smoke tests are used to ensure that the build is reliable and that additional testing may proceed by checking crucial functionality and pathways.
  7. Regression tests - these involve running functional and non-functional tests again, ensuring no new issues were introduced to a previously functional application.

There are also different testing levels that are usually presented in the form of a testing pyramid, trophy, honeycomb, or any other testing shape:

  1. Static - linters, formatters, and type checkers are employed to catch developer typos and code errors.
  2. Unit - focuses on testing the smallest isolated piece of code, allowing developers to find issues immediately.
  3. Integration entails testing separate modules or parts to ensure they function as planned.
  4. The importance of integration tests increases when an application is based on microservices architecture.
  5. API - focuses on testing API communication, ensuring requests are properly handled, and responses meet expectations.
  6. End-to-end - verifies multiple components at once by interacting with the GUI and testing specified flow paths. The most accurate way to test a programme is to utilize it as an end user would.

Test Automation Vs Manual Testing

Manual testing involves performing each individual test systematically under supervision from a quality assurance specialist or team and verifying and recording each result as it comes back from each experiment.

Manual testing offers several benefits compared to automation; feedback, in particular, may benefit greatly.

Manual testing works well during early phases of software development, such as user interface (UI), usability evaluations, exploratory analyses, and ad hoc assessments.

Automating QA tests involves scripts being run, providing greater speed and precision - never becoming tired, forgetful, or losing focus! Automation is an ideal method for regression testing, end-to-end testing, or automating user interface tests.

Now let us compare and contrast manual and automated testing techniques.

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Manual Testing Offers Both Pros And Cons

Manual Testing Offers Both Pros And Cons

Feedback

Automated tests only verify if a feature works, while quality assurance (QA) specialists offer more personalized feedback regarding improvements, changes, and user experiences to ensure a higher-quality solution.

Real feedback shouldnt be ignored!


Flexibility

Manual testing can provide a great way of adapting quickly on-the-fly. Qualified Associates (QAs) can use their product knowledge and intuition to successfully run test scenarios; automated tests, however, will fail until updated with any latest changes.


Maintenance of Documents

Document updates can be performed inexpensively without needing in-depth product knowledge or technical skills to be updated effectively, meaning even new QA members are capable of updating test scenarios based on Jira tickets.


Low up-front investment

Investments Are Low-Cost Manual testing doesnt require extensive setup or preparation; quality assurance teams can begin testing as soon as information such as designs, flowcharts, and applications are made available to them.

Setting up and creating automated QA test tools takes additional time but should still be relatively painless.


Rapid Changes And Short Projects

Automation Testing Framework can Be Used Effectively When User Flow Changes Rapidly mes Automated testing can provide some small advantage to short projects with frequent changes or short projects in general, although creating and maintaining automated test scripts could take more time than manual testing an app.


Accuracy, Reliability, And Accuracy

Quality analysts (QAs) may become easily distracted when encountering change or repeating scenarios repeatedly; one of automated testings greatest assets lies in its inflexibility - each action taken is exact, while some frameworks record failure sessions for easy tracking of problems discovered through automated testing.


Reduce Your Testing Times

Testing times are key to frequent releases. Automated tests can perform tasks that would normally take hours of manual effort to execute or verify, saving us valuable time when it comes to manual tests.

Automated tests also reduce manual test execution by hours or days!


Tests in High Volume

To maintain manageable execution times of larger test sets, costs, and test execution efforts quickly increase as large-volume sets become necessary to run successfully.

Furthermore, conducting large volumes can become exhausting, which increases the chances of bugs sneaking past and should therefore be automated so as to allow parallelization between tests run. Automation makes parallelization possible.


Reusability

Once your setup and configuration are completed, its benefits can be used again in future work. By adhering to design principles when writing test scripts for reuse with minimal modifications required, reduced maintenance will follow as an end result.


Fast

Long-running projects typically have higher returns on investments if frameworks are established early and tested thoroughly; thereafter, the focus shifts toward maintaining and testing new features, pre-made tests may increase returns even more significantly than new features created from scratch.


Large Volumes Of Tests

According to the information outlined above, both manual and automated testing have their own distinct advantages.

Manual testing can be especially valuable in situations that constantly evolve or require adaptability and flexibility; moreover, manual tests play an invaluable role when usability plays an integral part in project goals. On the other hand, automation offers great value when testing large volumes or lengthy projects.


Plan Your Automation Testing Strategy

Automation testing doesnt come in one size fits all form, but here are a few steps you can take in order to develop your testing plan and strategy.


Step 1: Establish Scope and Goal

An automation testing strategy needs a clear, measurable goal in order to be effective; otherwise, it would be hard to know when results have been reached.

After setting such an aim, all subsequent steps will focus on meeting this target, such as automating critical flow test cases.

Assigning scope early will save time in the future. Without properly outlining automated tests scopes, they may duplicate manual work done previously or fail altogether because no indication was provided whether these were to be tested automatically or manually; this risk poses severe implications for large QA teams; so make sure the scope definition is as precise and clear as possible.


Step 2: Gather Requirements

It is crucial that testing requirements are documented carefully in writing before discussing them with stakeholders or creating goals and KPIs for automation priority settings and KPI tracking.

Once defined, types of tests that will meet your requirements should then be selected later - tools will come later on!


Step 3: Assess Risks

Its critical that automation efforts prioritize areas with the greatest effect on your business first, and a risk-based testing approach is best utilized here.

Prioritizing helps create an orderly sequence of automation while stopping at just the right moment - automating tests of low priority may create unnecessary overheads or outdated software which are likely worthless in any event.


Step 4: Pick Test Cases For Automation

At this step, you should identify specific features and flows to automate. Prioritize high-value areas while considering complex or stable flows.

Automation of test cases likely to undergo significant revision during either sprint is often unnecessary; you could instead automate parts of them instead.


Step 5: Define the Test Environment and Data

It is often underestimated but of equal importance for test automation strategies to manage test environments and data appropriately.

With GDPRs restrictions on what data may be used, synthetic data is usually preferable and saved separately into files to ease maintenance if changes impact upon code directly. Likewise, your environment must remain stable throughout testing; any artifacts left from previous runs should be cleaned away upon their conclusion if applicable.


Step 6: Pick The Technology And Framework

Your selection will depend upon both the project at hand and your teams skill set; for instance, if they possess knowledge in both Python and Java development environments, choosing an approach that only supports JavaScript might not provide optimal solutions to testing needs.

At an early stage, conducting technology and framework studies is especially valuable. A proof-of-concept (PoC), on which your stakeholders can comment to decide if to continue with this framework.

When selecting an ideal tool to satisfy all requirements.


Step 7: Track Progress

Keep tabs on progress. It is also advisable to monitor the status of your progress so as to stay aware of where the process stands and any remaining tasks.

Here are two methods.

Track automation in any test management software of your choosing. At a minimum, three statuses - planned, automated and outdated - should suffice, although you may wish to add others as desired.

Ticket management systems allow you to organize work into an orderly backlog and track its progression easily, allocating tasks quickly.

Be sure to incorporate tracking data into your strategy for maximum awareness among team members of what method has been selected by you and ensure success for both of the endeavors involved.


Step 8: Reporting

Automating the process requires analyzing failed tests, reporting problems, and providing reports about them. Unfortunately, this often takes too much time; failed tests often originate in one or more of four areas and, therefore, must have their own processes implemented to address each one individually.

Create a DevOps ticket if there is an issue in a test environment; report bugs in applications to developers directly; notify QA of an outdated automation script or report an issue with it; create tickets relating to automation script updates as needed, etc.


Step 9: Define the Maintenance Process

Automating tests is not a one-off action but an ongoing task that must be managed over time. After writing tests, updating and verifying results become key parts of this ongoing process.

Formalizing the testing process is one way of making sure they remain up-to-date or forgotten: Create tickets to update outdated scripts as soon as they become outdated and set priorities/deadlines accordingly - each outdated test could contain bugs that end up on production systems!

Read More: Exploring the Benefits of Automation for Software Development


Automated Testing Its Finding the Best Automation Test Tool

Automated Testing Its Finding the Best Automation Test Tool

Selecting an automated testing solution may seem intimidating at first, so here are a few helpful QA test automation tool choices you might consider:


Newer Isnt Always Better

Does Newer = Better? While it can be tempting to opt for trendy tools or frameworks, reliable ones tend to provide greater community support if theres ever any issue that needs solving.

Experience of Your Team Selects a language most familiar to the members of your team. Consider teaming up with developers with more expertise in using it as well.


Costs

It is essential that the "costs" associated with both paid and free solutions be carefully considered before choosing either.

Paid tools tend to be easier for new users and set up. As test cases increase, however, costs could spiral out of control quickly if pricing is determined by snapshots (visual regression tools), time spent running tests, or the number of tests performed.

"Hidden costs" can make free tools even more costly; time spent configuring, writing tests, or solving issues may add up quickly over time.


Pugh Matrix

A Pugh Matrix provides you with the opportunity to quickly compare and analyze options, filter out what is most essential for each option, and then make an informed decision based on this analysis.


Pretest Before Commit

Always conduct tests prior to making decisions that affect you or the business. Conduct proof-of-concept tests as early as possible before spending hours and hours building frameworks without real progress made on them.


Consult Other People

Reach out to other developers and team members, even those not considered testers might surprise you with their knowledge of testing frameworks.

Maybe one can offer suggestions for suitable frameworks.


Automated Testing Tools

Automated Testing Tools

There is an array of QA test automation tools on the market, and finding one to suit your specific requirements can be difficult, but choosing one should not be challenging!


Cypress

Cypress is an automated web testing tool that enables you to control network traffic. What sets Cypress apart is its unique features - assertions about network calls and responses in edge cases can be made.

Furthermore, functions can also be modified. Due to the immense popularity of Cypress, there are various extensions, such as Cypress Axe, which specializes in accessibility testing, or Percy, which offers visual regression testing capabilities.


Selenium

Selenium has long been available on the market and continues to improve year after year, being compatible with multiple browsers and supporting many languages like Ruby, JavaScript, C# Python, and Java.

Now that we understand its value and purpose more thoroughly lets move on to the steps for creating and implementing a test automation strategy.


Step 1: Define High-Value Tests

To start out, it is crucial that we identify which are the most vital tests, especially ones that could threaten to bring down an entire business if their flow ceases working as intended.

An extreme example would be Knight Capital Group which went from fully operating to going under in 45 minutes due to software errors.

Work closely with your company in identifying their high-value tests, as this will enable you to identify suitable automation framework solutions suitable for their business scenarios while helping demonstrate real ROI discussions as part of discussions around return on Investment discussions.


Step 2: Identify Your Risk

Assess Risk A crucial element of any test automation strategy is understanding which tests need to be run first and last, with priority determined using risk analysis methods - taking account of business impact as well as failure probabilities can give insight into which ones you need to prioritize or risk more heavily than others.

Step Three: Develop a Test Strategy

Once identified, there should be three main goals when designing your automated tests: creating, automating, and running them against real-world tests with automation solutions such as Test Manager Pro or HP ALM Suite.

Step four will have been determined using risk calculations using the business impact estimation method that includes failure probabilities to calculate testing priority or risk associated with each individual test performed during the execution of automation strategy.


Step 3: Understand Your Technology, Tools, And Resources

Understanding what will need testing first or later is a key component when setting strategy when creating strategy test automation strategy using test automation strategies using risk calculation method determine the testing priority or risk calculation of testing priority risk calculations on test execution of testing automation Strategy will define test Prioritisation method of the method of selecting tests first or not taken into consideration along with its failure probability factors such as business impact vs.

failure probability when adding up this formula.


Step 4: Make Sure Your Data Is Good

Identify Your Risk Testing Priorities or Risk: To be allocated by which priority or Risk of Testing Priority or Risk-determining Priorities of Testing Priorities or risks is applied crucially needed and final.


Step 5: Define your DevSecOps

Testing Priorities = Priorities of Testing Priorities/risk evaluation techniques used should determine test priorities or risks.

Prioritize items with the highest business impact and highest likelihood of failure first; put those with lesser impact/lower likelihood first in terms of testing/reducing priority.

It will make for easier decision-making on where and what changes must come first.


Step 6: Consider Your Testing Environment

Since many testers can now work directly with servers or other build-and-deploy technologies, your testing automation approach needs to take that into account.

You need to ask:

  1. Where is the code stored?
  2. How are you deploying it?
  3. Are the open source libraries and programmes youre utilizing safe to use?

For any test automation framework, you must perform some level of security scanning and have a procedure for doing so.

As part of your testing environment documentation process, consider your test environment conditions carefully. What VPNs or tokens will you require, when and who are they for, and who manages their patching? Documenting all this will assist in onboarding new testers into your company as well as setting up logins - in turn, helping with onboarding new testers more smoothly into testing roles - plus being aware of where all your code runs in real-time - all crucially important elements!


Step 7: Tag Your Tests

Once your tests are tagged, it becomes irrelevant whether there are 20,000 test scripts or 50,000. As they can all be organized and tagged logically.

Without tags, however, more effort will be necessary to identify their intended purposes; creating an agreement beforehand ensures consistent tagging practices will occur.


Step 8: Look For Testing Efficiencies

Test efficiency is the eighth step. When increasing testing volume, apply similar logic across testing areas; this will save both time and money by decreasing testing resource requirements and times.

Assuming you are conducting unit, automation, manual, UI, or any combination thereof simultaneously - having one tester run all tests can save considerable time!


Step 9: Adopt Agile Tools

Prioritize documentation. Regular updates on testing automation strategies using cloud-based services like GitHub are vital in order to guarantee their success and dont need to document every minute detail; micro strategies should suffice instead.


Supertest

Supertest This library makes HTTP testing quick and painless with a user-friendly high-level abstraction layer that makes installation effortless and documentation complete.


Pact

Pact You can utilize this framework for contract testing. Contract tests enable isolated services to be tested quickly without incurring expensive integration tests; additionally, they contain information on data sent/received for easy comparison with actual states.


Appium

Appium is an automated testing platform used for native mobile apps, hybrid mobile apps, web-based mobile applications, and Android mobile phone platforms (iOS, Android, and Windows).

Appium supports cross-platform testing allowing developers to share code across these three environments and ensure quality across them all.


Optimizing Automation In Testing

Automating testing can be an efficient and cost-cutting way of increasing productivity, and carefully designed testing strategies and frameworks will keep release cycles smooth, enabling you to deliver additional features while increasing product quality.

Finding and employing an ideal software testing strategy are keys to successfully developing software products; there are various tools and considerations you must keep in mind during the development of any piece.

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Conclusion

Automation has quickly become one of the hottest topics in business today. Automation offers great potential to increase efficiency, reduce errors, streamline processes, and ultimately save costs and profitability while freeing employees up for complex tasks that demand creativity or critical thinking.

Although automation will continue to expand as technology progresses, its implementation should always take into consideration both employees best interests as well as those of both companies.


References

  1. 🔗 Google scholar
  2. 🔗 Wikipedia
  3. 🔗 NyTimes