Test automation is the use of software to control the execution of tests, the comparison of actual outcomes to predicted outcomes, the setting up of test preconditions, and other test control and test reporting functions.Commonly, test automation involves automating a manual process already in place that uses a formalized testing process.
Benefits of Test Automation
- Reduce Manual Effort : Can be reused on multiple deployed and releases.
- Seamless Integration with POM tools.
- Can be scheduled to run on Particular time
- Test report is much more than pass/fail data .
Maunual Testing VS Test Automation
Computers have taken over many functions in our society that were once "manual" operations. Factories use computers to control manufacturing equipment and have cut costs enormously. Electronics manufacturing use computers to test everything from microelectronics to circuit card assemblies. Since automation has been so successful in so many areas, does it make sense that a software program should be used to test another software program? This is referred to as "automated software testing" for the remainder of this article.
Software testing using an automatic test program will generally avoid the errors that humans make when they get tired after multiple repetitions. The test program won't skip any tests by mistake. The test program can also record the results of the test accurately. The results can be automatically fed into a database that may provide useful statistics on how well the software development process is going. On the other hand, software that is tested manually will be tested with a randomness that helps find bugs in more varied situations. Since a software program usually won't vary each time it is run, it may not find some bugs that manual testing will. Automated software testing is never a complete substitute for manual testing.
There has been plenty of debate about the usefulness of automatic software testing. Some companies are quite satisfied with the developer testing his/her own work. Testing your own work is generally thought of as risky since you'll be likely to overlook bugs that someone not so close to the code (and not so emotionally attached to it) will see easily. As soon as the developer says it's done they ship it. The other extreme is the company that has its own automatic software test group as well as a group that tests the software manually. Just because we have computers does that mean that it is cost effective to write tests to test software and then spend time and resources to maintain them? The answer is both yes and no. When properly implemented, automated software test can save a lot of time, time that will be needed as the software approaches shipping.
Approaches to test automation
GUI Testing :
GUI testing is a process to test application's user interface and to detect if application is functionally correct. GUI testing involves carrying set of tasks and comparing the result of same with the expected output and ability to repeat same set of tasks multiple times with different data input and same level of accuracy. GUI Testing includes how the application handles keyboard and mouse events, how different GUI components like menubars, toolbars, dialogs, buttons, edit fields, list controls, images etc. reacts to user input and whether or not it performs in the desired manner. Implementing GUI testing for your application early in the software development cycle speeds up development, improves quality and reduces risks towards the end of the cycle. GUI Testing can be performed both manually with a human tester or could be performed automatically with use of a software program.
Every software organization tests its softwares, still the end product always have some issues left. Testing team tries their best to find all the bugs before release of the software but still there are issues left in the product and they often re-appear as new modules are added to the software. Even the best of manual testing process struggle to deliver an effective, efficient, accurate and increased test coverage.
Manual testing is often error prone and there are chances of most of the test scenarios left out. Also with the project in development phase where source code changes appear every other day, manually keeping up with the pace to test each and every feature is a difficult task. More often then not the newly added features would bring regression along with them, so to accurately cover all the old test cases manually is very time consuming and error prone.
Automated GUI Testing is use of software program to detect if your desktop application is functionally correct. Automated GUI Testing includes automating manual testing tasks which are mostly time consuming and error prone. Automated GUI Testing is a more accurate, efficient, reliable and cost effective replacement to manual testing. Automated GUI Testing involves carrying set of tasks automatically and comparing the result of same with the expected output and ability to repeat same set of tasks multiple times with different data input and same level of accuracy. Implementing GUI Testing for your application early in the software development cycle speeds up development, improves quality and reduces risks towards the end of the cycle.
Automated GUI Testing is a solution to all the issues raised with Manual GUI Testing. An Automated GUI Testing tool can playback all the recorded set of tasks, compare the results of execution with the expected behavior and report success or failure to the test engineers. Once the GUI tests are created they can easily be repeated for multiple number of times with different data sets and can be extended to cover additional features at a later time.
Most of the software organizations consider GUI Testing as critical to their functional testing process and there are many things which should be considered before selecting an Automated GUI Testing tool. A company can make great strides using functional test automation. The important benefits include, higher test coverage levels, greater reliability, shorted test cycles, ability to do multi user testing at no extra cost, all resulting in increased levels of confidence in the software.
Code Driven Testing:
A growing trend in software development is the use of testing frameworks such as the xUnit frameworks (for example, JUnit and NUnit) that allow the execution of unit tests to determine whether various sections of the code are acting as expected under various circumstances. Test cases describe tests that need to be run on the program to verify that the program runs as expected.
Code driven test automation is a key feature of Agile software development, where it is known as Test-driven development (TDD). Unit tests are written to define the functionality before the code is written. Only when all tests pass is the code considered complete. Proponents argue that it produces software that is both more reliable and less costly than code that is tested by manual exploration. It is considered more reliable because the code coverage is better, and because it is run constantly during development rather than once at the end of a waterfall development cycle. The developer discovers defects immediately upon making a change, when it is least expensive to fix. Finally, code refactoring is safer; transforming the code into a simpler form with less code duplication, but equivalent behavior, is much less likely to introduce new defects.
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