What is Test Automation? Everything you wanted to know

 Test automation is a critical pillar of the digital transformation ambitions of today’s enterprises. Therefore, enterprise leaders need to know clearly why test automation is essential and about various best practices, test automation frameworks, and the challenges in test automation.

To succeed in the digital economy, it is not only necessary to roll out software faster, but it is equally essential to assure that the software is vetted for quality.

Interesting Read: The Evolution of Automation Testing

Studies estimate that by 2026, there will be a USD 49.9 billion worth of market for automation testing globally.

What is Test Automation?

Types of automated test initiatives

Test Automation Framework Best Practices

Challenges in Test Automation

Why is Test Automation important?

What is Test Automation?

Let’s begin with the basics. In simple terms, test automation is the automatic execution of software testing and management of test data, scripts, etc., without involving a human element.

It is widely used in enterprise application development initiatives worldwide to help accelerate the launch of apps or new features for existing apps. From startup firms to large businesses, an increasingly large number of enterprises have prioritized test automation in their digital maturity roadmap.  It leverages automation tools on which test engineers can create scripts and test cases that can be reused any number of times to automatically run testing activities for similar software functionality and reliability parameters.

The primary reasons for the migration of software test activities from manual to automation testing are savings in terms of cost and effort and the elimination of biased testing, which usually happens with manual testing practices.

Types of automated test initiatives

Just as with manual testing practices, test automation operates on a similar scale and diversity, covering a wide range of end-to-end quality assurance practices.

Let us take a look at the various types of automated test initiatives followed by enterprises:

Code Testing focuses on empowering developers or programmers to create and maintain sustainable and efficient coding practices. It helps to check for vulnerable code snippets that may pose security risks, or it can also be used to correct formatting and style discrepancies before the code is checked out for execution or compiling.

Unit Testing enables quality assurance for a single piece of code or code unit representing a particular software module or functionality. It works well when dependencies with other modules, databases, external APIs, etc., are not considered. It focuses on the code or code block alone and is usually very fast in execution.

Integration Testing helps ensure the quality of an application suite where different modules or sub-functions are integrated and constantly communicate via APIs and other messaging services. Automation of integration testing is complicated because there are a lot of dependencies that need to be mapped, test cases to be provisioned dynamically, and several resources and runtime environments to be set up depending on the number of integrated interfaces being tested.

Regression Testing ensures that a software or code block offers uninterrupted functioning after any change has been made to it recently. Automating regression testing through a tool or platform with a user-friendly interface can significantly help save time and effort.

Performance Testing caters to ensuring that the application serves its purpose under any condition of scale or utilization volumes. For example, a website’s performance under extreme web traffic can be a perfect use case for performance testing. It is a key pillar that ensures a sustainable future for any digital application as it grows and accumulates transactional volumes significantly higher than in the initial days.

Acceptance Testing deals with testing the scenarios for end-user acceptance of an application. This is one of the most critical areas of testing where actual end-user behavior is mimicked in the testing stage to ascertain whether the application can work without disruption under any stressed condition. It is the final stage where developers and project managers can verify whether all requirements laid out during the initial requirement study phase have been met by the final product or feature being tested.

Test Automation Framework Best Practices

A test automation framework enables better efficiency and fewer complications for enterprises in their QA initiatives.

It is advisable to follow a framework with the below best practices:

Identify the right criterion for automation

Create scripts aligning to business requirements

Involve all stakeholders from development to business users

Wisely pick tools, test data, and allied resources that cater to business needs

Extend coverage to all areas of development over time

Prioritize the type of testing to be deployed across each module or functional unit

Set standards for reporting

Enable continuous feedback integration

This is important to help improve the agility of the QA practice and enable faster roll-out of QA vetted software into the market for consumers and end-users.

Challenges in test automation

Test automation is not without its fair share of challenges. It’s not always a walk-in-the-park situation where test engineers design and deploy the most suitable test automation approach to meet all quality needs for enterprise applications.

Some of the most common challenges that plague test automation efforts at enterprises are:

Choosing the right testing approach

High implementation costs upfront

Inefficient communication and collaboration between the development and testing team

Selection of appropriate resources for test automation

Lack of skilled resources

Poor reporting

Why Test Automation is important?

Despite the several challenges with test automation, it is unwise not to implement it in your software development initiatives. This is because test automation brings in significantly high ROI in terms of long-term cost savings, faster time to market for software and features, better utilization of technology workforce, and above all, a reliable and efficient application ecosystem.

The best solution to mitigate the challenges in test automation is to use the right tool with the best architecture for seamless automation efficiency. Try ACCELQ and achieve 3x productivity and over 70% savings.

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