As applications and systems grow larger and more complex, test automation is moving beyond a luxury and becoming a necessity for them. As technology changes, testing must also change and adapt. So start small, by using different approaches on a small scale to see what works best before attempting to spread further.
Successful test automation needs both ingenuity and perseverance.
What are the main factors that contribute to success in test automation? What common factors most often lead to the failure of an automation effort?
There are no simple universal answers to these questions, but some common elements exist. Two of them are management issues and the testware architecture:
Management support for automation, such as setting realistic objectives and providing sufficient and appropriate resources to achieve a planned return on investment (ROI).
Performing a daily check of the test environments (9 environments, in place for 1 year)
manually \~30 minutes/environment
With automated tests, we are able to identify, within minutes, major configuration issues (e.g. deployment problems, services not started).
We sometimes find bugs that are not found by manual test execution.
Manual testers have more time for exploratory testing since they don`t have to perform the tests that are already automated.
Functional (test cases) coverage.
Number of releases/ year.
2013(regression testing done manually) - 4 releases/year
=> GAIN: doubled the number of releases in a 2-year time span
Automation testing is part of the development life cycle (with continuous delivery)
Independent team, working with Scrum (testers & developers)
Defined and documented way of working
Pilot - goal: Define Strategy and Approach by trying to automate various parts of the systems
Phase 1 - goal: Automate first subset of tests, which forms environment morning check [\~30 tests]
Phase 2 - Goal: Extension of morning check [400+ tests]
All development environment + Integration + Acceptance
Team City
Are done by clicking links and comparing elements
All tests are independent
Can be executed for each browser
Tests are written based on A-A-A (arrange-act-assert) pattern
Usually, it's a check if an element exists or if an element contains a certain value.
Tests are written based on A-A-A (arrange-act-assert) pattern
All tests are independent
Ping tests check if a call can be made
Happy testing!
by Bogdan Bucur
