Introduction to Automation Testing

Introduction to Automation Testing

In simple terms, Test Automation refers to the ability of a software to run all the manual test cases automatically without any manual intervention. Test automation can automate some repetitive but necessary tasks in a formalized testing process already in place, or perform additional testing that would be difficult to do manually. Test automation is critical for continuous delivery and continuous testing. Because automated testing is done through an automation tool, less time is needed in exploratory tests and more time is needed in maintaining test scripts while increasing overall test coverage.

Benefits of Test Automation:

1. Faster feedback: Automated testing assures higher efficiency of the development team by facilitating quick feedback cycles.
2. Reduced cost: Test Automation saves a lot of time as it takes less time to execute tests which in turn reduces overall cost.
3. Accelerated results: Test Automation allows for the testing to be carried out repeatedly, delivering faster results each time with lesser effort and time.
4. Higher Test Coverage: Using test automation, more tests can be executed for an application which leads to higher test coverage.
5. Reusable Tests: Automated test cases are reusable and can hence be utilised through different approaches.
6. Faster time-to-market: Test Automation greatly helps reduce the time-to-market of an application by allowing constant execution of test cases.
7. Early Testing: Automation helps you find bugs in the early stages of software development, reducing expenses and working hours to fix these problems as well.
8. More Reliable: Automated testing is more reliable and way quicker when running repetitive tests which can not be skipped but may cause errors when manually tested.
9. Volume Testing: Automated testing allows to run tests on thousands different devices. Testing all of them manually would be impossible.
10. Information security: Automation solutions can help with creating, manipulating, and protecting your test database, allowing you to re-use your data time and again.

Drawback of Test Automation:

1. Early Investment is higher: Time required to build an automation test suite, cost of tools and other resources is higher.
2. Skilled testers: Testers need to be technically proficient in order to build automated tests.
3. High Maintenance: Test Automation suites are difficult to maintain as the scripts have to be updated as the application changes.

Popular Automation Tools:

• Selenium: It is widely used for automation of web applications and it is open source tool.
• UFT: It is a widely used functional testing tool and it is a licensed tool.
• SOAP UI: It is the world’s most widely-used automated testing tool for SOAP and REST APIs.
• APPIUM: It is an open source test automation framework for use with native, hybrid and mobile web apps.
• TOSCA: It is a software testing tool that is used to automate end-to-end testing for software applications.