Test Automation Best Practices

Use of automated testing software is gaining popularity for many reasons. Automated software testing enables an organization to leverage technology to perform mundane repetitive tasks efficiently, saving both time and cost. Another side effect of automating your test is that…

Use of automated testing software is gaining popularity for many reasons. Automated software testing enables an organization to leverage technology to perform mundane repetitive tasks efficiently, saving both time and cost. Another side effect of automating your test is that It gives you more time to create tests, increasing overall test coverage.

However, these benefits come at a cost. Data shows that about 80% of Automation initiatives fail for various reasons. To ensure that the test automation is successful and offers maximum ROI, one should follow certain best practices:

Create An Automation Plan 

Develop a plan to identify what test cases should be automated. The plan should outline the strategy for identification and an approach for automation.

Identify Test Cases That Can Be Automated 

Not all the test cases can be automated and should not be automated. You need to segregate your test cases into broad categories such as: Test Cases that are always run, Test Cases that are run in only certain scenarios, Test Cases that touch a key piece of functionality and should be run before release. More such categories can be identified and your test cases put into these buckets. If you have access to historical data, the best approach will be to order your test cases by the time taken for execution. This will allow you to easily see where most of the time is spent. And as the 80:20 rule says, it may just so happen that 20% of your test cases are taking 80% of your time. So these become the first candidate for automation.

Develop Test Cases

After identifying test cases to automate, it’s important to write cases that documents the objective of the test, requirements, expected results, and criteria for failure of test. Also determine checkpoints to substantiate the success of test.

Test Early And Frequently

Start testing as early as possible for best results. Moreover, running tests again and again help you find more defects and they can be fixed early on rather than at the deployment stage. Identifying defects early on project saves money and time to organization.

Choose Appropriate Automated Testing Software And Tool

Automation testing software you choose should not only support your application’s technology, but should also be updated to support latest technologies. If you are testing your customer-facing portal, then one of the key tool selection criteria should be that the tool should work on all the platforms and browsers that your customers are likely to use. On the same lines, if you expect your customers to access the portal from a smartphone, then the tool of choice should support that too.

Ease of use and maintenance is another key aspect. If the tool generates or requires automation scripts, then you will have to maintain essentially two sources, one for the application and the second one for your automation scripts. Maintenance will soon become a nightmare and Automation will take a backseat.

Your team’s skills will also drive tool selection.

Segregate Your Automated Testing Skills And Efforts

Divide the tasks like writing scripts, writing test cases etc. based on the skills of your team.

Create Test Data

Test Data is an integral part of any Test Automation Effort. You should pay special attention to create appropriate test data that exercises most parts of your application, including boundary conditions and edge cases.

Create Test Cases That Are Reusable And Easy To Maintain

Reusability is a very important aspect. Ensure that the scripts are modular, easy to understand and maintain. Breakup your test cases in a manner that promotes reuse. Create small test cases that can be included in larger workflows. This will make your life easier.

 

Follow these above-mentioned best practices for test automation and make the most of your automation testing software.