easily maintain test automation

Introduction

Digitalization is on the rise in every industry. DMEXCO study¹ has revealed that 70% of respondents expect the pandemic to accelerate the pace of the digital transformation. It has forced to adopt new style of working and emphasized the need to carry out activities digitally. The pandemic has put tremendous pressure on even the world’s richest and most powerful nations and their healthcare systems. Clinicians have been conducting clinics remotely and providing medical advises to patients using tools like AccuRX, Attendany where etc. Let’s understand, how can we easily maintain test automation

Organisations have encouraged employees to work from home. Education institutions have been conducting on-line classes using conference and streaming tools. People have been purchasing essential grocery items using online portals. Stores, be it small local kirana stores or super-markets, are now leveraging online networks to deliver essential items. Organisation has to reinvent their approaches to serve their customers in these different times and develop a different ethos of delivery.

Easily maintain test automation: Changes that pushes towards test automation

Changing times calls for a change in approaches too. With the digitization surge, it is now important to ensure that software applications deliver the functionalities to customers without issues. Considering the evolving business needs and dynamic changes to software. Along with keeping software error-free, it has also become important to test software applications rapidly. It also has to ensure that any defects are resolved quickly. So that customers have a seamless experience. Faster time to-market with no compromise on quality & reliability, at a lower cost, is the need of the hour. The challenges have increased many folds with non-availability of resources due to the lockdown.

Needless to mention that along with mighty challenge of dynamism, businesses continue to also face the typical testing challenges such as incomplete coverage, inaccurate test cases, inability to test on multiple devices and browsers using the same tools, and poor data. Manual testing and Time & Material payment models have proven inadequate than ever before, considering the unprecedented economic challenges. This is the time to push ahead with automation of testing.

Finalize your test automation platform strategy

Businesses are at the threshold of having to take decisions on the way forward in test automation. Whether to build it in-house or to look for a 3^rd party platform to support the testing and test automation needs, has become a critical question to answer.

Building it in-house can come with its own challenges of time and costs, both of which are currently required to be kept to the minimum. While choosing a 3^rd party testing tool may sound like entering unchartered waters, the choice allows organisations to increase their testing capacity without expensive internal hires. Using the right automation tool is essential to deliver high-quality test automation. With technological advancements, test automation tools can now merge with relative ease into an organisation’s existing development cycle and help quickly run thousands of tests at once.

When deciding on in-house or 3^rd party, organisations have to assess their current, pressing needs and also keep in mind the future strategy.

Points to consider before going for test automation

• Ensure that the platform has the capability to support Web applications, mobile apps, desktop applications, hybrid applications, chatbots and Robotics Process Automation. It should also extend the capability to test legacy applications as it consumes huge efforts in terms of testing and test maintenance.
• The platform should support UI testing, API testing and ETL testing. While UI changes occur rapidly owing to UX requirements, testing functionality using only the UI is not sufficient. So, testing at the API level is important. When it comes to predictive maintenance of devices, for example, testing the last mile using UI will be of limited value, and the platform should be able to help with ETL testing as well.
• The platform should offer uniform test model and processes across different types of testing as it will make test maintenance, training, and adoption easier.
• The platforms should not monopolise and should work in a federated environment. Users should be able to integrate it with their organization’s ALM. They should be able to use their choice of execution environment. They should be able to connect to CI/CD environment. Also they should still be able to generate reports in the formats that you have standardised on.
• The platform must align with the current 5^th generational test automation framework that leverages machine learning. Let me hasten to add that it’s not about technology for the sake of it. It must ultimately help with specific business goals. Look for platforms that help with regression suite optimization, execution time reduction, and that supports analysis of results.
• Last but not the least, the platform must be price sensitive.

Conclusion: easily maintain test automation

There were times when every company would have invested in an automation framework. But struggled to productize and could never achieve appreciation in automation. In the past years there has been a lot of innovation in the space of testing and test automation. Today, there are players including in the start-up ecosystem, that are focused on testing and test automation platforms leveraging cutting edge technologies. It is time for businesses to embrace third party platforms than having to build one so that they can achieve scaled test automation. This will enable organisations to focus on their core business and allow them to free up bandwidth and dollars at the same time. Collaboration and agility are the need of the hour!!