One of the biggest necessities of software development today is to have access to an effective test automation system. Because it allows to conduct tests in parallel on multiple devices and helps enterprises get the faster release along with the best quality experience for their products & services.
In short, the reason for using an effective test automation system in the software testing company is to speed up the results.
It helps developers schedule a free time to create new test cases, develop tools for extensive testing, and lets them stay focused more when engaging in code review.
With Test Automation System, there is no need to run the same test again & again, as it allows engineers to write new codes and develop new scripts.
You may now clear that automated testing is critical for Software Development Organizations. Yet, you need to understand that some smaller companies face various challenges during test implementation and often consider this testing process very expensive and complex.
This blog post will explain the Types and Challenges of Automated Testing that you may find helpful if you’re a newbie tester who just stepped into the Software Testing Field.
Similarly, our blog post is ideal for those people who want to get a bug-free release experience for their software and applications.
Types of Automated Testing
Based on your application and business requirements, software testing companies perform different types of automated testing. Here, we’ve mentioned some of them.
- Unit Testing
- Smoke Testing
- Functional Testing
- Integration Testing
- Regression Testing
Unit Testing
The goal of unit testing is to test the individual units/components of a web application.
In this process, the developers and automation testers of the software testing company write various unit tests for the web app. After that, it implements them during the development phase.
Smoke Testing
Smoke testing is another type of automated testing performed by software testing service providers to ensure that the deployed build is stable.
During this test, the essential features of the web application can test and verify before jump to the following testing process.
Functional Testing
Functional testing helps in analyzing whether all the functions of the web application are working as expected or not.
In this test, various sections are covered from User Interface, Database, APIs, Security, Client/Server Applications to assure that the website’s overall functionality is fine.
Integration Testing
In Integration Testing, testers first integrate the application modules logically and later tested these modules as a group.
The main aim of integration testing is to verify the data communication between different modules of your web app.
Regression Testing
Selenium, TestComplete, Ranorex, Katalon Studio, Apache Jmeter are some of the automated testing tools, which companies use to perform Regression Testing.
In this test, they verify whether the old code is working in the same way as it was before making new changes. In other words, it assures that the recent change in code doesn’t affect the existing features of the web application.
Common Challenges of Automated Testing
Effective Team Communications
Maintaining effective communication between teams is one of the significant challenges of Automated Testing. However, there should be precise and proper communication between Quality Assurance Engineers, Developers, and Operational teams.
It is necessary to keep everyone on the same page; otherwise, the test automation experience can turn into a nightmare. And, it would be hard for you to achieve success, even if you have Agile and DevOps strategies in your kitty for test automation.
Thus, always try to communicate and collaborate more with automation teams, as this strategy can help you fulfill all your business goals and objectives.
Facing Difficulty While Selecting the Right Test Automation Tool
Selecting the right automated testing tool is crucial to the run the automated test in the right way.
There are various open-source and paid automation testing tools to check online for testing APIs, mobile app, and web applications.
Also Read: Why Mobile App is the only thing to invest in for business in 2021.
However, it is not necessarily that each tool is ideal for all types of software testing.
For example, the Lambda test is used to automate Cross-Browser testing. Similarly, Selenium is mainly used for Regression Testing, but its IDE doesn’t support Mozilla Firefox Web Browsers.
If you want to perform testing on Chrome Browser, you may choose its alternative. Otherwise, your users can experience compatibility issues in your application.
Thus, before selecting the tool for automated testing, you should ensure that it will fulfill all requirements, such as
- Environment Support.
- Database Testing.
- Ease of Use.
- Object Identification.
- Error Recovery Testing.
- Object Mapping.
- Image Testing.
- Multiple Testing Frameworks Support.
- Compatible for Several Types of Testing, including Functional, Mobile Testing, Test Management, etc.
- Less Training Cost.
- Scripting Language Used.
- Easy Debugging for Automation Software Scripts.
- Ability to Recognize Objects in any Environment.
- Extensive Test Reports and Results.
Finding the Right Skills
Just like if the automation tool is not appropriate for software testing, you will be unable to conduct tests. Having the right skills with the right people is essential to get the automated test done in the right way.
Other than automated testing, it helps you release the product faster and allows your customers to gain many benefits. On the flip side, if you don’t have the right skills for automation testing, you can choose a reliable Software Testing Company or experienced technical testers because they have the subject-matter expertise and knowledge to test your mobile & web applications.
Furthermore, they can help you meet your unique business goals and expectations.
Use an Effective Testing Approach
Apart from choosing the right test automation tool and people, you should have industry best practices to overcome test automation challenges to ensure the success of your project.
The Quality Assurance Team should have a habit of proper planning and mindset to adopt an approach that supports Agile & DevOps methodologies.
During the application under test, you may need to make changes in the development cycle, but that will happen if you have an effective testing approach. Otherwise, your efforts & resources can go to waste.
Tests Analysis before Automation
As a QA, you should think and analyze the test cases that are needed to be automated. If you’re a tester, you should know what test cases need to automate during software testing.
Also, your test cases should be well-defined to understand the user behavior for a particular product.
Winding Up
Quality products and faster releases are the new normal demand of enterprises and businesses & it will remain the same for the future. However, Software Testing plays a critical role in fulfilling such requirements. It also allows you to test the application early as possible and ensure that the application is free of bugs and will launch on time.
Whereas companies are using manual testing for many years, but when it comes to reducing business expenses, saving time, achieving higher test coverage & faster time to market, automated testing becomes the right choice. Though automated testing provides many features, it allows you to simulate hundreds of thousands of virtual users and helps you know how these users interact with your web application. Apart from that, you can easy to determine the stability of your build, get better insights, and improve accuracy & test efficiency.
Enterprises should consider automated software testing solutions to gain many benefits such as high-speed delivery and faster release of the product. Similarly, it allows testers to have spare time to perform repetitive tasks, different types of tests, reduce regression testing time, and use several automation testing tools to achieve quality results.
But can you believe that automated testing provides as many benefits without any issues? The answer is a big no because if you don’t know anything about this type of test, how can you expect such advantages.
While operating the automated test, testers have to face various challenges, as we discussed above. As a result, they experience frequent failures and the applications are left with bugs and full of errors.
Addressing the automated testing challenge is burdensome, yet it is possible if you have the right tools, skills, industry best practices, and communicative teams.
Being the software testing service provider, you should have testing capabilities, resources, and methodologies to turn client’s requirements into user stories or produce better output for people looking for better-quality products and faster releases.
Besides, if you are a person who just got started with automated testing, you should give a quick read to test automation and acquire a detailed knowledge of the subject.
Good luck!
Author Bio: Kanika Vatsyayan is Vice-President Strategies at BugRaptors who oversees all the quality control and assurance strategies for client engagements. She loves to share her knowledge with others through blogging. Being a voracious blogger, she published countless informative blogs to educate audience about automation and manual testing.
