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The application development lifecycle entails a lot. Quality assurance and testing are among the most important steps of this life cycle or process. To assure a software’s quality, conducting manual testing has been the industry norm over the years. However, there has been a massive shift to automated software testing.
You must understand what test automation entails. Many test engineers prefer it because of the easy learning curve it requires. Also, it only demands minimal time and effort, saving costs. But how can you efficiently run test automation?
This article will look at how you can successfully automate testing. Let’s start with all you need to know about test automation and data management.
Test Automation and Data Management in 2022
1. Plan Your Test Cases & Test Suites
Planning is an important step in the automation testing process. You cannot get the desired results efficiently if you don’t take your time to plan. Before starting an automated test, you should ensure that your test cases and test suites are aligned with the functionality of the software. This will help you get through the testing process effortlessly.
Sometimes automation testing might face uncertainty and unexpected results. You can ensure you get the guesswork out of the way by planning. Know the correct steps you’d like to follow and the test scenarios and outcomes beforehand for the best results.
And there’s no better way to do this than using a framework for automation testing. Frameworks are sets of guidelines followed when conducting tests. They guide automation testers on things like coding standards, object repository treatment, and test-data handling to get the best results.
You can use frameworks such as Guidewire testing to simplify the process and make it easier overall. It will also reduce the errors as you test and allows teams to release updates and software due to the Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) approach it uses.
Since one should not only plan for the present but also for the future, you should make sure that your developers understand the foundation you put in place during planning. This will help ensure that they prioritize development and testing projects correctly in the future.
2. Centralize Your Test Assets
It is essential to run your automated tests from a central location. This can help you make the management of processes more effective and efficient. All you need to do is have a good framework and tool.
Centralizing your assets in one repository will also simplify access. Quick and smoother access to the tools you need for testing will increase your team’s overall productivity. It will also help reduce the overheads that might come up if you and your team use distributed resources.
Sharing resources with your development teams will help you generate more revenue. It will also make it easy to maintain your assets’ integrity and make them more reusable. It will, however, depend on the deployment and testing platform you will use and what it offers.
3. Differentiate Test Objects
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It is worth noting that test objects can be good or bad. As an automation tester, you should be able to differentiate between good and bad test cases. Otherwise, it can be tricky to get the results you expect. Your test projects’ success will rely on how well you differentiate these two.
You can get various benefits if you can differentiate between good and bad tests. For instance, you will find it easier to run tests faster. This is because you can quickly identify good tests and move them to the next step, actual testing, and get the best results.
In addition, it will help you improve the testing processes. You can also cut down the time you would have spent designing the tests. Besides, the total costs of running the tests will come down by a huge percentage. Issues like the repeatability of tests won’t bother you anymore.
4. Validate & Remove Outdated Test Cases
The software applications used in testing get updated regularly. This means there’s a chance that the app you’re currently using might get outdated. You need to invest in the most updated version of the software you are using so that your tests meet future industry requirements.
You also need to ensure your test cases are validated. Besides the software application you are using, outdated test cases can make it tricky to get the desired results. The best way to ensure this is by running validity checks on test cases using the latest version of the software you use.
It will help you know if the test cases are compatible with the application’s latest version. You can then eliminate test cases that aren’t compatible with the application’s new requirements. Ultimately, reducing the money wasted running unnecessary and outdated tests will be easier.
5. Separate Test Architecture
This is the last yet most essential step in this process. It can be tricky to sometimes manage and document test cases. One reason this happens is that automation testers don’t separate test architecture and libraries from the test automation tools they use for the process.
The best option is to ensure that you separate these two in advance. It will make managing and documenting test cases more effortless. This will also ensure that your test cases are reusable for future testing projects. This can be with any other tool, project, and environment.
In the end, separating test architecture from test automation tools will boost efficiency. It will make getting the desired results from your testing projects easier. You will also know the aspect of your testing procedures that you can improve to ensure future projects yield better results.
Conclusion
Management is a critical aspect of automation testing. Proper management can make it easy to achieve your desired level of productivity. This article has discussed how you can manage your testing more effectively. What’s left is to get started with it using the insights shared above.
It would be best if you started using the best testing framework. There are various options that you can consider when choosing a framework. But it will help first to know how easy the one you choose will be to learn. Picking the best will help your teams become effective and faster.
The ideas we have mentioned above will increase the integrity of your testing process. Also, they will make it easier to release higher-quality software. In the end, your reputation as a software marketer will get better. You can then attract more business and generate more profit.
