Software Test Automation Driving Maximized ROI and Reduced Time-to-Market!
In the current scenario, software development organizations have gone far from developing software through traditional models in order to meet the skyrocketing demand of new functionalities and features. Inevitably, it is creating immense pressure on organizations to improve test coverage while keeping shrinked deadlines and time-to-market in mind.
Manual Testing of all workflows and fields is time consuming & error prone plus any new feature added in the software means testing the entire software all over again to ensure its bulletproof behavior. Therefore, testing teams need to adopt a more pragmatic approach that can execute and monitor test coverages significantly within the required time & budget constraints.
Automation is Everywhere
Automation is the need of the hour with a view to accomplish a process with increased efficiency and reliability. Automation is everywhere from purchasing orders and manufacturing to streamline many tedious tasks involving a series of “if-then” conditions. Hence, businesses need to automate the testing mechanism as well to ensure flawless software application while optimizing workforce.
Test Smarter with Software Test Automation
Software Test Automation is a radical approach that entails use of automation tool for executing the test case suite and compare the outcomes with predicted outcomes. Testing Automation minimizes the cost of failure, saves testing teams from repeated testing verifications and ensures improved quality and productivity.
Building Blocks of Software Testing Automation
Delivering a product with zero defects while satisfying the customer is the main objective of testing. Following are the building blocks of testing automation:
#Choosing the Best Fit Tool:
Days are gone when you have to write the whole test scripts. There are so many tools available that provide you hassle free testing and ease of recording test scenarios. Analyze your testing requirements and list out the tools that provide you required features. Choose the best fit for your project based upon factors like tool efficiency, extensibility, licensing and maintaining cost, etc.
#More Agility:
Agile development demands testers to be more agile. Convert your manual test cases into automated test cases in order to cut down the time. This time box activity ensures development team about working and shippable software product.
#Setting Right Testing Environment:
Setting up the right testing environment is another vital component of testing automation. The rule of thumb for appropriate testing environment suggests that the testing environment should be having the same configuration of hardware and software as the development environment.
#Handling the Bugs:
Developing a bug-free software is a myth. For a quality software, bugs and defects should be tracked and fixed. Developing test cases to convert these bugs is the best approach to get unusual coverage in testing. It also ensures stakeholders that every bug has been detected and fixed effectively.
#Measure the Outcome:
Measure the outcome of each test case suite to ensure a robust automation. Utilizing proper test metrics and comparing the obtained results with predicted results highlights the quality standards of the software.
How Software Testing Automation Boosts Your ROI
Here are few tips helping you out to bring effectiveness in testing automation process and increase your ROI.
- Shortlist Test Cases to Automate:
Prioritizing test cases for automation guarantees the success of your automation strategy. Below are some test cases scenario that you must automate:
i. Tasks hard to perform manually
ii. Tasks that are more error prone
iii. Repetitive tasks
iv. Tasks required complex calculations
2. Select Tests Not Affected by UI Changes:
Create test scripts that are unaffected by UI changes and ensure smooth running of automation test suite. Provide unique names for the controls so that the test suite remains stable and unaffected by UI changes.
3. Analyze Tests Regularly:
Analyze your test cases time-to-time and identify test cases no longer relevant to current test cycle. Also, reviewing tests help you verify the test suites which are likely to have long-term effect on test automation.
4. Exploit Optimized Test Data:
Optimized data containing relevant information for application testing environment should be used for automation. Categorized data sets serve as quality data, thus you must make sure to update the test data periodically for conducting data driven testing.
Rounding It Off:
Software test automation has become essential approach for faster deployment and reduced time-to-market. Building cost effective automation strategy and properly measuring the outcomes is key to success. Above story describes some tips to accomplish result-oriented automation testing.
