As QA engineers gain greater domain experience and testing tools improve, automation testing is becoming a go-to choice for many organizations. Implementing automation is easier and more affordable than ever before, thanks to the abundance of open source tools and experienced engineers. The advantages of automation testing have been made clear, but several key questions still linger in the minds of those planning to automate in the near future.
Our expert team of automation engineers answers the top 3 questions about automation testing:
- What are the best practices for API automated testing services?
Competition within the software industry has yielded ultra-short release cycles and frequent changes to UI, so it makes plenty of sense to automate API testing. When developing a framework for API automation, follow these best practices:- Layered architecture: Your framework design should feature different layers that are loosely coupled. The middle layer should be a generic, common point for invoking services and retrieving results.
- Support for all data structures: Your framework must support all data formats supported by the API, such as JSON, XML, plain text, and any other applicable format.
- Cache implementation: A provision of the local cache should exist for temporary storage of API outputs and other test data.
- Inbuilt parsing mechanism: A mechanism for parsing API input and output to the relevant objects will be a great help to your automation engineer.
- Basic validations support: Inbuilt support for basic validations like verifying API response code, response headers and other data will also help your engineers.
- Minimal script changes: Design your framework so that changes to the API have a small impact on the automation scripts.
- Structured test data: Structured data makes creating test cases easier, and it helps the user to debug the issue in case of API failure during execution.
- Reporting mechanism: Implement a mechanism that defines the output in user readable format. This makes determining the failure/success rate much simpler.
- What factors should I consider when choosing an automation tool?
- Engineer proficiency with a given programming language
- Type of application requiring test automation services
- Availability of forums or other helpful resources
- Ease of use and implementation
- Support for various OS/browsers
- What are the best automation tools in today's market?
This answer depends on your specific project requirements. However, based on the findings of our own team of expert automation engineers, we can offer recommendations:- Selenium is the best tool if you'll be automating a web or mobile application.
- TestComplete and QTP are great choices if you plan to automate desktop applications.
- Appium is the best automation tool for solely iOS and Android applications.
Other popular automation tools include Telerik Test Studio, Squish, Calabash and Watir.
Do you have any additional questions about automated testing services? Leave a comment and let us know below! For more content from QASource, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook.
