There is a rising expectation from customers for companies to come up with applications that are of excellent quality and the internal pressure from within the organization is to create these apps with the least amount of time, effort, and resources possible. Testing of apps in such a scenario needs to become faster and more accurate.
Automation of software testing has proved to be a boon for organizations. It enables quicker testing, increased scope and coverage, and enhanced results.
Testing, in general, forms one of the phases in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), which provides a basic guideline for the entire process of developing software.
In a similar fashion, Automation Testing Life Cycle (ATLC) gives an overview of sequenced steps that should be followed by testing teams to undertake automation testing in a successful way. This enlists all necessary actions and notes of cautions that teams should keep in mind before the actual testing can begin.
Stages that make up the automation testing life cycle:
- Determination of the scope of test automation
- Selection of the most appropriate automation testing tool
- Test planning, automation test strategy and automation test design
- Setting up the test environment
- Test scripting and execution
- Test analysis and reporting
Let’s dive right in to understand these steps in greater detail:
Determination of the scope of test automation
The starting point in automation testing is understanding the extent of automation that will work for the project at hand. This is the very first stage to be undertaken in the automation testing life cycle. The viability and feasibility of undertaking automation need to be understood here. There are several aspects to be covered while doing the assessing feasibility as part of this stage.
The factors to be addressed include the following-
- Identifying which of the modules of the application can be automated.
- Detecting which tests can be automated and also determining how to automate these tests.
- Considering other key aspects like budgetary and resource allocation, size and the skills of the testing team, among other things.
This stage involves undertaking specific feasibility checks, namely:
- Test case automation Feasibility
- AUT Automation Feasibility
Selection of the most appropriate automation testing tool
The main factor upon which automation depends is the testing tool being used. Identifying the automation tool that is best suited for the requirement of the project makes for the next crucial step in the testing cycle. Now, there are a host of automation tools and software at the disposal of testing teams. Hence, teams should consider certain key details while making a selection for the best-suited tool.
The budget, of course, becomes a driving factor for the selection. There are plenty of open-source tools available in the market apart from paid ones. Here, the required functionality should be balanced with the cost of acquiring the automation tool. In addition, organizations need to assess the familiarity with the usage of the tool, the technologies that are part of the overall project and see if these things gel well with the automation tool being considered.
Test planning, automation test strategy, and automation test design
Testing teams can now proceed to the next critical step in the test automation life cycle. As the title suggests, the approach to and the procedure for automation testing is decided upon in this phase. The test automation framework is worked out at this point. It’s important that the testing teams understand the product thoroughly and also be aware of the technologies involved in the project.
In this step, the testing teams need to put in place the test creation standards and procedure, and decide upon the hardware, software, and network requirements, along with the test data. Besides this, the testing schedule should be drawn up. The appropriate tool for detecting errors also needs to be chosen.
Following are a few of the pointers to be kept in mind for this test management phase:
- All manual test cases are to be collected from the test management tool and the ones to be automated need to be identified.
- Testing frameworks should be studied properly and the pros and cons of using them must be taken into consideration before choosing the framework to be used.
- The test suite needs to be built for the automation test case.
- It is essential to understand risks, backgrounds and dependencies between the testing tool and the application.
- Obtaining the approval of the stakeholders and the clients is fundamental to designing the test strategy.
Setting up the test environment
The next phase is all about setting up the test environment which basically involves determining the remote or virtual machines to be used for test cases. It’s important to note why we need virtual machines to understand the significance of this step in the automation testing life cycle.
The users of the application will be accessing it through a variety of different browsers, operating systems, and devices, along with their multiple versions. The application should be optimized for all different combinations that are possible between the various devices, browsers, etc. This is referred to as Cross Browser Compatibility, without which the user experience will not be consistent for all the users. It is for this reason that a virtual testing environment needs to be set up. This is an extensive phase that involves many details.
The testing environment should be thoroughly planned and it needs to maximize test coverage so that as many testing scenarios as possible get included. Towards this goal, the testing teams are required to schedule and track the setup activities, install the requisite software, alongside network and hardware setups. Over and above this, test databases need to be refined, test best scripts need to be built and environment scripts need to be developed.
Testing for cross-compatibility across multiple combinations of browsers, operating systems, and devices can be an immensely challenging task for testing teams. A device lab can provide a solution but it requires a huge investment by organizations. A cost-effective alternative to a device lab can be a cloud-based testing tool that provides for testing under a multitude of browser-device combinations.
There are some vital points that should be covered when working on the test environment setup:
- To avoid issues in the production stage of the application in case of eventual tweaks in the test, the data being fed into the test environment should be close to the production data.
- To be able to perform load testing and analyze how much capability there is to handle web traffic, there has to be a front-end running environment.
- The team has to build a list of systems, modules and applications to be put under test.
- There has to be a distinct database server for the staging environment.
- The tests need to be conducted on as many client operating systems as is possible. Moreover, tests should also cover a maximum number of browsers and their versions.
- To understand the website rendering time and application appearance in real time scenarios, the application needs to be testing under low and high network conditions.
- To ensure a seamless testing process in current and future setups, all documentation material including installation and configuration guides, user manuals etc. should be saved as a single central database.
The setting up of the testing environment is made up of the following tasks:
- Tool licenses
- AUT access and valid credentials
- Utilities like advanced text editors and comparison tools
- Automation framework
- Add-in licenses
- Staging environment for testing
Test scripting and execution
After the previous step of setting up the test environment, what now remains is to execute all the test scripts.
For the proper execution of test scripts, there are several factors to be taken care of, before the test scripts are built:
- The test scripts need to be based on actual project requirements.
- A common testing method should be used throughout the testing process.
- The test script should be reusable, neat and simple enough to be understood clearly and used by anyone.
- To ensure quality assurance, the codes used in the test scripts must be reviewed properly.
Once the test scripts are created with the aforementioned points in mind, the execution can take place. For the execution process to run smoothly, there are some important key points to remember:
- A test script must include all the required functional aspects.
- Teams should be able to run the scripts in all environments and on various platforms.
- The possibility of batch execution should be explored in order to save time and resources.
- Bug reports are a must in case of any errors due to functionality.
The testing team should construct a proper schedule for undertaking test execution.
The test outcomes are then to be evaluated. These should also be saved in a proper manner for future references. Using the outcomes, the test result documentation is to be prepared at this point.
Test analysis and reporting
Once the tests are executed and the test results are documented, then comes the final and in a way, the most critical stage in the automation testing life cycle, which is the analysis and reporting phase.
It is not enough to just conduct tests; the results coming in from all the types of testing done in the previous phase needs to now be analyzed. Based on the analysis, the functionalities and segments that are potentially having issues, are identified. These test reports can aid testing teams to determine whether there are any additional tests and procedures to be done. The reports help the teams in understanding how well the application is able to function in case of unfavorable conditions.
Analysis and reporting form the last step in the automation testing life cycle, and thus, the test reports are to be shared with all the stakeholders involved.
Automation testing life cycle Conclusion
We have seen closely the six stages in the automation testing life cycle. Automation testing can add immense value to the overall software testing requirements of the organization. It can help optimize the time and efforts that go into testing while cutting down the scope of human errors.
What is important to note is that automation will be truly beneficial when teams follow the proper sequence of steps that have been mentioned above. Automating tests without appropriate planning can result in a large number of scripts that are difficult to handle and may need human intervention as well. This would defeat the very purpose of incorporating automation into software testing.
Hence, to ensure a rewarding testing automation experience, testing teams must have in hand, an organized and well-thought-out testing automation life cycle.