In today's business world, companies are looking for ways to improve their QA testing process and stay ahead of the competition. Creating an automation strategy is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. Test automation is crucial for businesses because it helps improve software testing efficiency and accuracy while reducing manual efforts and costs. It enables organizations to test software faster and with greater coverage, allowing them to identify and resolve issues quickly.
For example, an eCommerce company could use test automation to regularly check the functionality of their checkout process, ensuring a seamless experience for their customers. By implementing a comprehensive test automation strategy, businesses can improve the quality of their software and reduce the risk of software failures, ultimately leading to increased customer satisfaction and revenue.
The 8 tips mentioned below represent the essential test automation best practices. As you consider the right approach for producing robust software applications that will deliver on the consumer's promise, these plans will ensure you keep the key ingredients in mind.
But before we talk about the above mentioned strategies, let’s understand the test automation strategy.
It is a plan for incorporating automated processes into a company's operations to avoid testing failures. It outlines:
A well-designed automation strategy can bring numerous benefits to a company, including improved efficiency and coverage, accuracy, higher ROI, and cost savings.
Are you manually testing and encountering QA bottlenecks, errors due to human negligence, and increased production bugs? You may have tried test automation before but gave up because it was too difficult.
A poor test automation strategy may result in downtime, low customer satisfaction, and a bad reputation for the company. On the other hand, a well-designed strategy can help prevent technology failures and keep your firm competitive. Here are some scenarios when things could go wrong without an automation approach:
Now, let us discuss the 8 test automation strategies necessary for your business in detail:
Outsourcing your Quality Assurance (QA) refers to engaging an external agency to manage the testing aspects of software development. This strategy is chosen for several reasons:
Incorporating testing within Agile methodologies involves integrating testing activities throughout the software development lifecycle rather than treating them as a separate phase. This approach has several key aspects:
Knowing how to strike the right balance between the speed of automated testing and the human insights of manual testing is just one of the advantages of partnering with an external QA expert. Complementing automation with manual testing is the only way to ensure 100% test coverage, as no testing strategy alone can guarantee your product’s market performance.
Manual testing is necessarily more labor intensive, but there is no better way to simulate the end-user experience than through the eyes and expertise of a human engineer. If your users are human, there should be a human element in your test phase.
Your QA partners know how to strategize the intersection of manual and automation test cases for the best ROI in the long run.
It is impossible to automate all the testing scenarios; hence, segregating automatable and non-automatable test cases is equally necessary. Once you have the complete set of automatable test cases, it is time to evaluate the ones that run frequently and have high priority.
In QA, we first select the test cases for automation based on various parameters, like the tests that run very frequently or the ones that require a long time due to manual execution. After selecting the tests, we automate them based on priority.
In this way, you ensure high-priority coverage of your application features, which is critical from a business perspective.
With proper upfront documentation of the preferred automation approach, it is possible to anticipate the complete ROI of automation even before implementing any automation framework. This can also show how much time you can save with manual vs automation testing. Moreover, we can see how many resources must be engaged for automation efforts. Based on ROI and future goals, we can alter the count of automation and manual engineers within the QA team.
Manual testing won’t be replaced by automation soon. Still, the time savings offered by automated testing are too significant to ignore. This advantage has led to a proliferation of automation tools. As a result, there is enough flexibility within the market to find an automation solution that suits your unique product, the development environment, and the skills and preferences of your team.
QA experts can help onsite teams choose the best automation tool based on project and platform requirements and advise them to opt for the latest tools available in the market. Before starting the automation process, our QA team can evaluate the top 3 automation tools and their effectiveness on the client’s product and then choose the best option.
Your QA resource checklist does not end with the automation tools. When setting up your test framework, you have several choices to make. These choices can greatly affect how efficiently your development process. Current thinking favors modular, portable, and reusable frameworks designed to cover the entire life of your product. This framework is the foundation of your automation process, and hence, there is much to consider.
Use our Automation Framework Design guide to ensure you understand what is possible and optimal when establishing the basis of your QA efforts. No matter how strong your code is, your automated test is at risk of breaking if you don't have the right framework.
Your framework and tool selection should always be guided by strong test automation monitoring and maintenance elements. The former ensures that you and your team receive constant feedback on the progress and results of your automation testing. Some automation tools don't have an easy-to-understand reporting feature, so it's important to know which stakeholders should receive those reports before you decide which tool to use.
Similarly, there are differences in the ease with which maintenance can be performed across various tools. You want something easily amended and reused, including detailed failure logs, so that script errors can be fixed with minimal fuss. With a grip on maintenance and monitoring, your automation strategy is sustainable. Fortunately, offshore Agile teams are trained and prepared to communicate and report effectively, ensuring smooth workflows and a robust QA process.
Let's examine the main benefits of the QA automation strategy in more detail:
A time-saving and resource-saving feature is one of its advantages. Automated tests run much faster than manual tests and do not require the same level of human intervention. This means that teams can focus on more strategic tasks rather than spending time on repetitive and time-consuming manual testing, which can lead to time and resource savings.
Automated testing eliminates the potential for human error, leading to increased accuracy in results. Automated tests can also cover a wider range of scenarios and test cases, increasing the overall accuracy of the results. This can significantly impact the quality of a company's products and services, helping to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Automated testing has a significant advantage in providing quicker feedback. With automated testing, results are delivered immediately, helping to improve a product's quality and user experience.
On the other hand, manual testing takes a lot of time because the tester needs to find and fix problems before testing the improved features.
Automated testing saves time as it eliminates the need for manual labor, allowing for faster bug fixes and more time for serving customers.
Automated testing enables you to test many scenarios and conditions, leading to more comprehensive test coverage. This results in improved product quality and a better user experience.
Implementing a robust test automation strategy can be challenging, and one can face multiple issues or roadblocks while setting up an automation workflow. Here are some common challenges that should be avoided:
To design a test automation strategy that is effective and scalable, some best practices that could be followed are mentioned below:
Artificial Intelligence(AI) can help design automation tests in several ways. It has the capability to enhance the speed of test script development and reduce human efforts. It can guide you by providing a variety of different solutions for most of the challenges you might face. Efficiently using AI could be challenging sometimes, but once you learn to use it to your advantage, it can reduce the time and effort required for a task and increase your productivity. Depending on the application, you can use it to generate test scripts and test scenarios. It can also help locate dynamic elements, which could be a complex task sometimes. This can make your scripts more robust and reduce the chances of failure. Analyzing the application data can help with test data generation to get realistic data sets. AI can be used for most of your tasks, whether it is to create dynamic test environments or generate meaningful reports. Thus, it all comes down to how you use it to ensure maximum productivity.
Building your test plan around these 8 elements will go a long way toward executing a reliable, reusable, and effective QA process.
Your test automation strategy is the key to producing a quality product. As you follow these tips, pay attention to the important questions that arise. You can only build a firm and lasting foundation if you first consider all the relevant variables. You’ll run across questions to ask your team and QA expert for clarity. As always, the perfect test solution delivers against your specific deadlines, resource limitations, and product potential.
As a leading QA test solution provider, QASource can take your test phase from planning to launch. Getting a comprehensive QA process started properly is as simple as calling +1.925.271.5555.