Automation Testing

AUTOMATION TESTING means using an automation tool to execute your 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 software can also enter test data into the System Under Test, compare expected and actual results and generate detailed test reports. 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.

Automated software testing is important due to the following reasons:

1. Manual Testing of all workflows, all fields, all negative scenarios is time and money consuming
2. It is difficult to test for multilingual sites manually
3. Automation does not require Human intervention. You can run automated test unattended (overnight)
4. Automation increases the speed of test execution
5. Automation helps increase Test Coverage
6. Manual Testing can become boring and hence error-prone.

Which Test Cases to Automate?

Test cases to be automated can be selected using the following criterion to increase the automation ROI

1. High Risk - Business Critical test cases
2. Test cases that are repeatedly executed
3. Test Cases that are very tedious or difficult to perform manually
4. Test Cases which are time-consuming

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

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

Automated Testing Process:

Following steps are followed in an 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 cannot be used for testing Informatica applications. It's a good idea to conduct a Proof of Concept of Tool on AUT.

Define the scope of Automation

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

1. The features that are important for the business
2. Scenarios which have a large amount of data
3. Common functionalities across applications
4. Technical feasibility
5. The extent to which business components are reused
6. The complexity of test cases
7. 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-

1. Automation tools selected
2. Framework design and its features
3. In-Scope and Out-of-scope items of automation
4. Automation testbed preparation
5. Schedule and Timeline of scripting and execution
6. Deliverables of Automation Testing.