Test automation has become a critical component of the testing process as software development methodologies have advanced. Many advantages of automating test cases include quicker response, more reliable results, and fewer human errors. Unfortunately, it takes considerable preparation and work to generate automation scripts from manual test cases. We’ll talk about some useful suggestions for automating manual test cases in this blog.
1. Find the test scenarios that can be automated :
Automation is not appropriate for many test situations. While conducting exploratory testing or user experience testing, a significant amount of human judgment and intuition is required. Certain test cases, such as load testing or regression testing, on the other hand, need a lot of repetition and time. Automation candidates for the latter class of test cases are excellent. Finding the test cases that can be automated and those that need manual testing is the first step as a result.
2. Describe your automation plan.
The following step is to develop an automation plan after you’ve determined which test cases should be automated. This plan should include picking the right automation tool, scripting language, and framework for putting the automated test cases into action. We can also take into account the frameworks we can use, such as Behaviour Driven, Data Driven, and Keyword Driven, along with tools like Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, etc., and languages like Java, Python, and C#. The aforementioned technologies and methodologies can be combined to automate web applications. In a similar vein, we can automate mobile applications using Selendroid, Appium, and other tools with Android Studio to generate iOS and Android virtual devices and Appium Inspector to analyze Elements.
To guarantee that the test scripts execute without a hitch, the testing environment, including the hardware and software configurations must be established.
3. Divide test cases into more manageable parts :
By dividing the test cases into smaller parts, you may automate manual test cases. This strategy aids in determining the specific test steps needed to carry out the test case. You can write more accurate and simple automation scripts using this process. Here, we need to ensure that the tester creates Independent Test cases so that it is simpler in the upcoming automation process where we can smoothly automate multiple test cases. And which improves the clarity and accuracy of how a variety of test cases are executed.
4. Develop reusable functions :
Develop functions that are reusable and may be used in various test cases. By using this method, you’ll be able to
create new automation scripts more quickly and easily. Additionally, it guarantees that the automation scripts are simple to update.
5. Choose names that are descriptive and meaningful :
Use meaningful names for variables, functions, and test cases when creating automation scripts. The scripts will be simpler to understand and maintain thanks to this naming scheme.
6. Analyse the automation scripts:
As the automation scripts are prepared, extensively test them to make sure they deliver dependable results. Make that the scripts are capable of handling various input values, exceptions, and error situations. Verifying that the Scripts adhere to the test cases’ acceptance criteria is also crucial. Another crucial strategy is called Test Optimization, which uses dynamic waits to create Test scripts that are more trustworthy and execution-optimized.
Another Crucial element in Automating the testing process is to decrease the time of regression testing. This is crucial since testing teams now have to provide their work weekly releases, which makes the process hectic and difficult. The only way to make the process run smoothly is to add more employees to the team, which is frequently not cost-effective given the project’s budget. Therefore, to address this problem, automation testing is used, which more efficiently cuts down on time and improves the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of regression testing. We can make this process even faster and more dependable if we can plan nightly builds where we can run all of our tests overnight on virtual machines using CI/CD tools like Jenkins and Azure.
The ability to test on different browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Electron, Bing, etc., not only broadens the scope of our testing on different browsers but also gives us assurance in our product. And with using the right unit test framework for example TestNg then we can execute the test cases on multiple browsers parallelly which reduces the time even more. And Here also we can configure CI/CD tools to execute the test cases parallel on multiple browsers in an Ideal environment.
7. Updating and maintaining the automation scripts
To keep the automation scripts current and useful as the software application changes, it is crucial to update them.
Updating the scripts as necessary to take into account modifications to the application’s functionality, user interface,
and other requirements are considered maintenance.
Conclusion
It takes considerable thought and preparation to automate test cases that are now manual. You may write effective,
dependable, and maintainable automation scripts by using the advice provided in this article. Keep in mind that automation is a continuous process that needs frequent upgrades and maintenance. You can increase the quality of your software and reduce the amount of time and effort needed for testing by introducing test automation.
Author: Pranjal Dubey, SDET, DevQaExpertSolution Pvt. Ltd.