Calculate the right combination of Manual QA and QA Automation is the secret sauce to go live with a strong software product while keeping costs under control.
If your team is actually growing in Manual testing and you are exploring to go into QA Automation, this post will be useful for you.
After realizing you need QA Automation is hard to know which tests and how much effort demands a comprehensive QA Program.
What about the timing and benefits of QA Automation? take a look at my article When is the right time to start QA Automation?”
These are the Automated Tests you will need to adopt with hints for each case.
1- Automated GUI Tests
Used for testing user interfaces of the application. Tests are executed by robots running scripts acting as users of full functions of the business. This type of testing is the closest to what users will do with your application.
Because of GUI’s are highly subject to change, these tests are essential even if time-consuming and hard to maintain up-to-date.
Hints for doing more with less:
- Implement the Page-Object-Model (POM) to avoid re-coding tests for each view of the application. The underlying concept is that using technologies and abstraction in classes help make more readable, maintainable, and reusable test scripts.
- Do you want to know more about POM? Read my article here.
- Think about business processes instead of tiny business rules. By grouping a set of test scripts as a transaction you can test business processes that make sense faster. For example, a B2B Quote-to-order complete process instead of standard quote, proforma, payment, invoice and order fulfillment as separate processes.
“We at Teravision use Nightwatch / Selenium standalone server to define and run automated sequences of reusable tests that work as “transactions”. This helps a lot our customers to take go/stop decisions for going live.”
2- Automated Web Service / API Tests.
Functionality, performance, compliance, and security has to be tested in search of issues. The main goal is to ensure your application could integrate with others in a controlled way (no crashes, hangings or unmanaged exceptions).
Hints for doing it well:
- Define the scope of the tests only after understanding the whole functionality of the Web Service / API.
- Prepare your test data carefully.
- Write complete test cases using equivalence classes, boundary value analysis, and error guessing techniques when needed (expertise required).
3- Automated Stress Tests.
It’s about measuring the total capabilities of the servers to handle requests. The goals are to:
- Isolate bottlenecks.
- Identify load balancing opportunities.
- Avoid compromising overall performance.
Hints for saving time, resources and maximizing results:
- Use common sense for every test. You must verify your tests make sense, this means potentially they isolate issues.
- Start with the “usual suspects”. Plan the design and execution to start with well-known issue isolators.
- Take shortcuts by taking advantage of the tools. Use JMeter with server monitor utilities to measure Memory, Discs, and CPU in a timeframe of milliseconds instead of minutes. This will deliver the same results using less computing resources.
How can I put all the tests together?
In the path of building a comprehensive QA Program to cover well-known tests, everything starts aligning your current Manual QA practice with the upcoming QA Automation efforts:
- Automation of Regression Testing, Smoke Testing, and Data-Driven Testing takes Test matrixes and Manual test cases as inputs for coding equivalent Automated test cases.
- Load & Performance Testing takes coded Automated test cases to be repeated in those areas with the higher potential of bottlenecks.
- It’s healthy to run all the tests. However, the percentage of Manual tests, Automated Tests and Performance tests in your QA Program vary from one application to the other, depending on the business-specific needs:
- For example, most MVPs will need lots of manual testing and no automation while when making a new function for a stable core application, your major efforts will be probably addressed to Load & Performance Testing.
In the end, it is always good to count on a specialized partner to give you a hand on QA planning and execution.
Are you looking for better software products through QA Automation?
Contact us. We connect the dots to build your Applications QA Program and let your team know: When to stay on Manual QA, which functions qualifies for QA Automation and how to mix both approaches.
