Here is a look at the top 10 best practices and methods for test automation. This is the last part of the series on test automation.
Some of the best practices we talked about in earlier articles may be repeated here. Still, I needed to name a few of them again, the best practices of Automation, so that you can use this article as a guide.
People who are good at tests, like Michael Bolton, James Bach, and Cem Kaner, have written about these techniques, and I have used them myself. In every robotic project, these steps should be taken.
Best Test Automation Strategies and Practices
#1. Hire a Dedicated Automation Engineer or Team
This can easily be accomplished. undertake not ask your human testers to undertake automated tests. Stop assigning them manual tasks if you want them to participate in test automation. Automating testing is a full-time occupation. Specialised equipment is required.
One automation engineer is required for a successful test automation team. It’s possible to staff a test automation architect with a team of automation specialists. The quantity and size of your products will determine the number of automation engineers you’ll need.
#2. Automation tools are essential, but it is not the solution to everything
We talked about where to get tools. Being careful to pick the right tool is only the first step. Some managers think that anything can be easily automated if they pick the right tool. Watch out; robotic tools don’t give you everything. It helps with the process. You will need trained people to finish the process, though.
Automation tools often have bugs that make it impossible for them to find complex objects in a program. As long as the people you hire are skilled, they will find a way to move the process forward. Otherwise, tools alone won’t promise success if you don’t hire the right people.
#3. Select an automation tool that is comfortable with your resources
If the people you’re working with know C# and the app you need to test was built in C#, there’s no reason to choose a tool that doesn’t let you write scripts in C#.
Getting better at a language takes time. You can avoid this learning curve by getting a tool with a short learning curve.
#4. Know that the application is being tested
The technology in your offering has a lot to do with the tools you can use. Learn everything you can about your goods before you start automating them.
If it’s a web app, know which computers it will work with. Learn about the tools that are being used. Find out what language the desktop app was written in, if it’s one. What settings from a third party are being used in the app? This will help you choose the right tools and make Automation easy in the future.
#5. Good Automation is an excellent manual test case
We don’t have to automate test cases that are easy to automate but don’t find bugs very well if the human test cases are well-written and robust.
This is an excerpt from the book Lessons Learned in Software Testing:
“Automating without good test design could lead to a lot of work that doesn’t add much value.”
It is always a good idea to write the test case out by hand first. List all the requirements and test results. Make the steps clear, and put the results you want at the beginning of each step. One test case should have a clear goal and only depend a little on the other test cases. Automation engineers should run this test case by hand at least once to make it clear what items need to be identified and how the navigation will work. Ask the human testers things.
Bugs can sometimes be found with this task before the automation script is even made. According to experts, most bugs are found during the planning phase of test automation rather than during the execution phase.
#6. Identify opportunities with Automation
If someone gives you a human test case to automate, don’t just do it the way it is. Instead, look for other ways to increase the scope of this test case through Automation.
In this case, the human test case might say that you need to log in to a website. Making this test case data-driven will let you add more to it. Write down all the possible ways to log in, such as an invalid or empty password, an invalid or empty username, an invalid or empty email address, a blank username, “remember me” checked or not checked, and so on.
Make a list of all the possible outcomes and what you think will happen in an Excel file. Then, use this file as a source of data for your test case. After being automated, this one human test case can now test all the possible outcomes at once.
Always look for chances that can’t be done by hand and need to be automated. It can be challenging for manual testers to do things like Memory Leaks, High Precision Tests, Performance Benchmarks, Load Testing, and the same tests in different locations with different settings.
#7. You cannot automate everything
It means running fewer tests more often when you automate them. It would help if you started small by doing smoke tests. Then, it would help if you did your build acceptance tests. Then, move on to the tests you take often and finally to the tests you take for a long time. But make sure that every test is automated. This will give a human tester more time to work on more critical tasks.
Automation is not meant to take the place of human testing. It saves manual testers time by not having to do the same work over and over again. This lets them focus on finding new bugs and testing cases. (Read my piece on false ideas about test automation)
You should automate a few valuable tests, save time, or are hard for human testers to do. That will finish the job of automating it.
#8. When a better option exists, GUI automation should be avoided.
It’s always harder to perform GUI tests than other types. This means that if you can reach your goal without automating the GUI but through other means, like command line inputs, then it is best not to automate the GUI.
For instance, check how the app is installed. Checking to see if the program is installed in a particular environment is the goal. One way to do this is to use your automation tool to start the download and click “Next” more than once.
It can be challenging and take a lot of time, and it needs to be maintained if this UI changes. The other way is to use a batch file with silent arguments to start the program installation. The app will run without any noise and a GUI. In less time and with more reliability, the goal will be reached.
#9. Use Automation for other practical purposes as well
The ability to automate things is excellent. It can help you do things you wouldn’t usually think of. Setting up a human test case is one of many things that Automation is. Instead, you can make different tasks more accessible in your organisation by automating them.
For instance, you can use Automation to make master data and set up settings for manual testers without them having to do anything. in order to begin their tests as soon as possible.
I can use my own company as an example. Our test case management tool was getting old, so we wanted to move. It was called “Test Director” and is now called HP ALM. We wanted to move to TFS (Team Foundation Server). In Test Director, we have about 4000 manual Test Cases and Bugs. It might take about a month to move them by hand to TFS. My boss told me to try some automation.
After researching, I discovered that Test Director uses SQL Server to keep track of its information. I discovered a tool for TFS that can import test cases and problems from an Excel file (if the Excel file is formatted in a specific way). It can be reached from this point on.
Writing the SQL query to retrieve all of the test cases and problems and then exporting them in the proper format to an Excel file was a time-consuming process. Then, I used a programme to import the Excel file’s test cases and bugs into TFS. It was completed in just three hours. The results wowed my employer. I think you’ll get my meaning.
#10. Automation is a software development
Best practices are needed to make good software. To write good code, we need code reviews. You have to follow a framework or design pattern for it to work. It needs to be maintained all the time.
Automation is a lot like making software. So, the same best practices you use when making software should also be used when automating things. The Framework for Automation should be there. Code checks need to be done. The bug folder is where you should report bugs in Automation. The source code for Automation should be kept in source control, among other things. The more you treat Automation like making software, the better it will work.
Conclusion
This is the end of the piece and the series on test automation. Writing these guides taught me a lot, and I hope they did the same for you. Being a test automation engineer is a fun and fulfilling job. Not only will doing it right help you, but it will also help the company.
As I work on test automation and its methods every day, I come across new and exciting problems to solve. The goal of the series was to show what might happen along the way of test automation. I hope that I can say it correctly and clearly.
