Top Challenges faced in Automation Testing

There is a crave for Automation now, as organizations, enterprises grow they feel the importance of automation which helps in delivering a quality product for their business. As business requirement grows, so does the pressure on IT sectors to deliver richer and customized products with fewer resources available, in lesser time and with high quality.

Some major challenges faces in automation testing are quality, timeliness and relaiblity. Does every application need a full end to end automation suite built out or just enough to satisfy the quality assurance and business development departments.

The trend of today is going agile. How fast we can change to flexible demands of our users is our main concern. Testing on timely basis increases the feedback which drives the success of many agile projects. But, in order to be agile, testing team should respond to the changing requirements quickly, efficiently and effectively. To overcome test coverage problem, the modules that were changed needs to be analyzed for ensuring that all the changed codes are properly tested. In other words, a product tested with agile, delivers software faster and with high quality if the unique challenges faced are understood properly.

Automate of the Full Application?

Every single, big or small function in the application should be thoroughly tested. We need to make sure whether there is a requirement to test in very detail. We need to figure out whether our application needs a full end to end automation suite built out or just enough to satisfy the quality assurance and business development departments. The answer differs from every team, to every project, to every organization but should always be derived from a clear, continuous, communication between Developer, QA and Management about the varied aspects like size, scope, time-frame, budget, end-user experience and client's expectations.

Understanding Company, Client and End-User Expectations

We must be aware of our client's requirements and needs only then they will sustain with us longer. Developers can always help testers build automated test cases from their technical expectations but are those really going to address all the expectations of the end user? Surprisingly the expectations of End-Users can often differ greatly from those of the developers so understanding customer feedback can often be one of the most essential things a software developer can do. But so can software testers. Testers can also learn a great deal from this customer feedback and thus build better scripts to map actual user interactions with greater accuracy. Continuously meeting, video conferencing and Skype calls will be necessary to make things easier for automation. Though understanding the whole process from requirement to end result is a very big challenge. Clear Communication Between Testers and Development, QA, Biz Dev, Management and End-User-Client.

To keep a clear line of communication between testers and the rest of the development process is a serious concern for automation process. Have regular meetings between everyone involved to discuss the important details about the project. For example, if there is a big new feature scheduled for release that needs automation built up for it but the testers are not told about it until the last minute. In order to produce a solid automated test for that feature is going to be very difficult to do with little to no time. Lack of clear communication can quickly make things worse and dangerous which will lead to project failure.

Keeping Automation Test Cases Up-To-Date

It is always a good practice to create detailed documentation for all test cases in the automation suite to help facilitate the debugging process. All things information should be up to date and clear between developers and testers.

Proper Use of Testing Resources

Test Automation is a technical skill. It takes someone with a technical mind to properly build, maintain, and understand the reporting of test automation. Developers can manage but they aren’t seasoned testers just as testers can’t write simple programs but aren’t really developers. Keep this in mind when you consider how to utilize your company's resources with the automation process. The Agile approach requires a mixture of testing skills. Moreover, specialist skills will also be required to cover further test areas that might include integration and performance testing.

Understanding the Testing Process

It is important that every team member involved has a good understanding of the steps taken to automate. This can often be mischaracterized as record and playback testing by those who don’t understand it at a deeper level. Be sure that every team member understands how automation scripts are built, maintained, executed and how to understand the results. So that it would be easy to handle if we add in new features and if the application fails at build flawless product at quicker time.

I Have An End to End Automation Suite and A Release Coming Up, What Needs to be Focused on in this Short Time Frame?

Talk with the developers. They might have some insight into trouble areas of the application. Talk with biz dev. They might have greater concerns with some areas of the applications than others. If there has been a clear line of communication between these departments the testers should have a good idea of the trouble points of the application and as long as the release is not going to production then a quicker smoke test of the application can suffice in a time crunch. We have to remember to run your automation end to end at regular intervals to catch small bugs hiding in the corners of your application.

When Can You Stop Testing? How Much Coverage is Enough?

The truth of today’s modern cloud-based applications is that testing can go on forever. Even if development on the initial application ceases updates to underlying technologies or to the network or database could and probably will change something. So testing should never really be thought of something that will end.

Don’t Focus Only on only the Easy Bugs

Not taking the time to seek out and script for tougher bugs can defeat the whole purpose of testing your software in the first place but taking too long to test can really slow down today’s fast paced development cycles. It will likely come down to a balancing act between scripting for difficult features or extending coverage. Be prepared to budget the time spent on test automation accordingly. We need to sort out things easily and make quality products available for our end users. Then only Automation can be Justified. It is in huge demand because it saves time, one can program sophisticated logic, utilize manpower more effectively. Test Automation is indeed powerful and effective and should be crafted well so that it will give quality product.

In such a scenario, to leverage the maximum benefits of automation testing, scouting for a list of automation testing companies is the most helpful. Once you get a list, it would be helpful to understand their expertise in then find an overlap with your needs.

We provide automated regression testing services. If you would like to know what makes us expert automation testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.