Pre-requisites for General Automation

Automation testing is the most preferred way to achieve our testing goals on time. But it is in turn has lots of dependencies on other parameters. We will see below some of them.

Why Test Automation?


Below are some reasons on why to go for automation:

• New releases and bug fixes in working module

So automate your testing procedure when you have lot of regression work.

• Testing web applications with multiple users simultaneously

Automate your load testing work for creating virtual users to check load capacity of your Web Application.

• Testing application where code is changing frequently

Automate your testing work when your GUI is almost frozen but you have lot of frequently functional changes.

Risks associated with Automation:


There are lots of risks associated with test automation. We need to give importance to each one of the below to reap the benefits out of automation.

• Skilled resources:

For automation you need to have resources having some programming knowledge.

“Do resources have sufficient programming knowledge for automation testing? “


If not, do they have technical capabilities or programming background that they can easily adapt to the new technologies?

• Initial cost for Automation is very high:

Automation cost is too high for initial setup i.e. cost associated to automation tool purchase, training & maintenance of test scripts are very high.

• Do not think to automate your UI if it is not fixed:

Beware before automating user interface. If user interface is changing extensively, cost associated with     script maintenance will be very high. Basic UI automation is sufficient in such cases.

• Is your application stable enough to automate?

It would be bad idea to automate testing work in early development cycle (unless it is agile environment). Script maintenance cost will be very high in such cases.

• Are you thinking of 100% automation?

You cannot 100% automate your testing work. Certainly you have areas like performance testing, regression testing, load/stress testing where you can have chance of reaching near to 100% automation. Areas like User interface, documentation, installation, compatibility and recovery where testing must be done manually.

• Do not automate tests that run once:

Identify application areas and test cases that might be running once and not included in regression.

• Will your automation suite be having long lifetime?

Every automation script suite should have enough life time that its building cost should be definitely less than that of manual execution cost.

This is bit difficult to analyze the effective cost of each automation script suite. Approximately your automation suite should be used or run at least 15 to 20 times for separate builds (General assumption. depends on specific application complexity) to have good ROI.

Conclusion:


Automation testing is the best way to accomplish most of the testing goals and effective use of resources and time. But you should be cautious before choosing the automation tool.
Be sure to have skilled staff before deciding to automate your testing work. Otherwise your tool will remain on the shelf giving you no ROI. Handing over the expensive automation tools to unskilled staff will lead to frustration.
Before purchasing the automation tools make sure that tool is a best fit to your requirements. You cannot have the tool that will 100% match with your requirements. So find out the limitations of the tool that is best match with your requirements and then use manual testing techniques to overcome those testing tool limitations. Open source tool is also a good option to start with Automation.

Automation Feasibility Checklist

Abstract:
Software testing is an activity aimed at evaluating an attribute or capability of a program or system and determining that it meets its required results. The difficulty in software testing stems from the complexity of software. Testing is more than just debugging. The purpose of testing can be quality assurance, verification and validation or reliability estimation. Testing can be used as a generic metric as well.
In this article, we came up with an Automation Feasibility Checklist (AFC) which would be helpful for effective and efficient automation testing.

Introduction:
Manual Test case is the entry point for any automation, but there are some criteria which hinders the automation process which includes:

• Lack of clarity in test steps
• Lack of test data
• Traceability coverage
• Identification of Dependencies/Pre-requisites of test cases in a business scenario
• Presence of logical closure

It is better to identify these problems earlier so that it can reduce the effort in manual execution thereby pave way for effective automation.

Automation Feasibility Checklist (AFC):
Automation Feasibility Checklist is used to identify whether the manual test case is feasible for automation or not. The following are the criteria to determine the automation feasibility of the test cases:

Essential Criteria

• Dependencies/Pre-requisites
• Detailed Test steps
• Test Data availability
• Expected results
• Traceability

Optional Criteria

• Meagre Application Knowledge
• Subject Matter Expert’s (SME) support
• Duplication of test steps
• Availability of multiple sets of data

Snapshot of AFC

Benefits of Automation Feasibility Checklist:

• Reduces the Manual execution effort.
• Improves Automation efficiency.
• Helps to derive effective Manual test cases.
• Control and avoid risks in Automation.

Read More about Automation Feasibility