What is Automation Testing? Automation Testing Tutorial
A test case suite is executed using specialized automated testing software tools as part of the software testing technique known as automation testing. It decreases the amount of manual testing needed when properly applied. Before test automation, all tests had to be performed manually, which was time-consuming, prone to error, and expensive.
Why Automation Testing?
You must make sure that the updated software fixes are released; let your application have its new releases and patches. Therefore, such testing requires preliminary verification and is always possible using manual methods. Therefore, automation testing is useful. It becomes challenging to manually test all software features before or after fixes are applied. In terms of resources, expenses, timely product delivery, and smaller personnel, the automated test appears to be quite beneficial.
Testing Automation Life Cycle
An organization should follow the step-by-step Automation Testing life cycle to provide the highest quality product in order to succeed in the market.
Automation Tool Selection
The best industry-standard tools and frameworks are chosen that best suit the project at this phase, which also involves evaluating a variety of automation technologies. For instance:
- Use Selenium Webdriver to automate the web.
- Using Git for code repositories, etc.
Test Planning & Design
The team decides on the technique during the planning phase by developing guidelines and standards, software, hardware, and a network to support the test environment, as well as the requirements for test data and flaws in the tracking process, among other things.
Test Environment Set Up
Remember the actual needs while you write the test scripts.
- Deciding on a functional strategy that will be applied consistently throughout the testing process.
- Make sure to build a script that is structured, reusable, and simple enough for a third party to understand.
- Reviews of the scripts’ source code utilizing improved reporting to improve quality control.
Automation Framework & Script Development
During this stage, test cases that have been submitted and identified by the team are used to develop the automation framework and scripts. After review, the framework’s codebase is uploaded to the code repository. The automation team works together to maximize the product’s test coverage.
Script Execution
Before writing a test script, the following issues must be resolved for it to function properly:
- To write the test scripts, keep in mind the actual needs.
- Establishing a consistent functional approach that will be used throughout the testing process
- Make sure you write a script that is easy for a third party to understand, reusable, and structured.
- Reviews of the scripts’ source code for better quality control using enhanced reporting
- Test Analysis & Generation of reports.
Analyzing test results helps determine whether the test scripts or techniques used were error-free. All test reports must be shared with customers or other stakeholders at this point because it is the final part of the automation testing life cycle. Analyses reveal any need for extra procedures or tests.
Analysis and the Generation of Test Results and Test Reports
The testing life cycle’s final phase is this one. Here, you will examine the test results to decide if further testing is necessary or not. After then, test results are generated to verify that the test scripts can find application faults. The test findings are finally distributed to the clients and team members who are working on the project.
WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF AUTOMATION TESTING?
Here is a list of test kinds that can be automated.
- Unit Testing
When you isolate a single component of your program from the rest of the software and evaluate its behavior, this is known as unit testing. These tests don’t rely on any external databases, APIs, or other resources.
The basic goal of unit testing is to determine how each component of your program will operate independently of other components. The initial level of testing, unit testing, is carried out during the development phase.
- Regression Testing
Repeated testing of a modified program that has already been tested to find any flaws that may have been caused by the changes made to the tested software or to other connected or unrelated software components. Therefore, due to frequent code changes and the inability of humans to complete tests on time, regression testing is best suited for automated testing.
- Load Testing
It is done to ensure that the system or application can manage the anticipated volume of transactions and to check how it will behave under both average and peak load scenarios. When it comes to load testing, automated testing is also the most effective technique to finish the testing quickly. It works best for testing automation.
- Smoke Testing
To determine whether the system build is stable or not, smoke testing is done. In a nutshell, it checks to see if the key features perform properly so that testers may move on to the next phase of testing.
Automation Testing Tools
Katalon Platform
A thorough test automation platform that covers API, Web, Desktop, and mobile testing is called Katalon Platform. It includes a comprehensive set of functions, including the ability to record actions, construct test cases, produce test scripts, execute tests, report findings, and integrate with numerous other tools at various stages of the software development lifecycle.
Given that it functions on Windows, macOS, and Linux, the Katalon Platform is flexible. Additionally, it enables the testing of Web applications across all current browsers, iOS and Android apps, and API services. A wide range of additional tools, like JIRA, qTest, Kobiton, Git, Slack, and more, can be linked with Katalon Platform.
Selenium
It is the most widely used open-source tool for automation testing. With the aid of test scripts—which can be written in any programming language, including Java, Python, C#, PHP, and others—this tool is used to test web-based applications.
QTP
The web-based application’s functional regression test cases are tested using the QTP tool. Quick Test Professional, or Micro Focus UFT [Unified Functional Testing], was formerly known as QTP. The fact that a fresh test engineer can quickly comprehend this tool is quite beneficial. To automate an application, QTP was created using a scripting language like VB script.
JMeter
JMeter, commonly referred to as “Apache JMeter,” is a graphical, open-source application built entirely on the Java programming language. It is made to evaluate and assess the functional behavior of web applications and a range of services under load.
Playwright
Playwright, a Node.js library created by Microsoft, automates Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with a single API. Developers who are building JavaScript code can utilize these APIs to build new browser pages, go to URLs, and then interact with page elements. Additionally, Playwright can automate Microsoft Edge since it is based on the free and open-source Chromium web framework.
Cypress
The open-source and cost-free test automation tool is called Cypress. Front end and application programming interface (API) test automation are also possible with it. Cypress was created specially to speed up the work of developers and QA engineers.
Test Automation Framework
A framework is a collection of rules that aid in upholding test structure and consistency. Additionally, it aids in maintaining the code’s scalability, reusability, and maintainability across test cases. The four main categories of frameworks used in automated testing are as follows:
Data Driven Framework
A test automation framework that is data-driven maintains keywords and element locators in an external file, such as an XML file. Since object repositories are not necessary, this makes it simpler for testers to create test cases.
Keyword-driven
Data-driven frameworks and keyword-driven or action word testing frameworks both store the data and the script independently. In contrast, developers use keywords that reflect specific actions when writing code for keyword-driven testing frameworks. For instance, the term “clicklink” will instruct the system to click on a specific link within the GUI. Users of this framework are not required to have advanced programming skills, but as more new keywords are added, the framework becomes more sophisticated.
Page Object Model Framework
You will establish an object repository for the web UI components within the POM framework. You can use it to call these functions in the future without having to write new code. Thus, writing test scripts takes less time and results in less verbosity, code reuse, and complexity.
Modular Framework
A method for testing a piece of software separately is the modular testing framework. In order to test numerous modules with just one line of code, each module is tested using the same testing framework.
What advantages does automation testing offer?
Automation can help the employment and time-consuming process of testing in several ways, including:
- Enhancing Testing Efficiency
A major percentage of the entire life cycle of developing an application is taken up by testing. The testing stage can be made slightly more efficient to increase the timeliness of product delivery. It eliminates any missed errors that cause a delay in the delivery of the product by eliminating or greatly reducing human interaction in the testing cycle.
- Swifter Feedback
It goes without saying that test case execution is sped up by test automation using frameworks like Selenium and Cypress. Repeated tests like integration and regression testing benefit from the quicker work of machines.
Teams may receive feedback more frequently with faster tests and quicker findings, which enables them to identify problems and enhance functionality. Agile life cycles include frequent and quick feedback loops as a necessary component. Developers should publish code, solicit criticism, and subsequently improve the code. Each sprint of this iterative procedure is required.
- Increasing Test coverage
Automation testing allows for the allocation of extra tests for any application. As a result, testing coverage is increased, and software anomalies are decreased. Additionally, it makes it possible to test more advanced features and applications. However, a large crew and strict time limits would be needed to do the same thing in a manual testing situation.
- Reusability
Due to the nature of its test automation scenarios, test automation is repetitive in nature. In addition to being simple to configure, it offers software developers a chance to gauge how the application will respond. Since automated test cases are completely reusable, they may be used to test every component of the code according to importance and using a wide range of different techniques.
- Detects bugs earlier
Developers can perform unit tests on their workstations before committing code to version control. Other automated tests (regression, integration, etc.) are then automatically run after that. Each patch of code is thoroughly tested as soon as it is created. Bugs are discovered early on, when they usually have a small impact and are simple to solve.
Conclusion
The automation of the operations in the software sector is expanding. As a result, testing is a crucial phase where automation techniques can be used to shorten software development life cycle times. By lowering the cost of product development, cutting down on application problems, and enhancing product quality, automation testing solutions reduce barriers to manual testing.
