Automated software testing is the best way to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and coverage of your software testing. Automated tests can run frequently, which is cost-effective for software products with a long maintenance life. Testing in an agile environment, the ability to quickly react to ever-changing software systems and requirements will increase. New test cases will generate continuously and they will be added to existing automation in parallel to the development of the software itself.
The objective is to simplify as much of the testing effort as possible with a minimum set of scripts. Automated testing tools are capable of executing tests, reporting outcomes and comparing results with earlier test runs. Tests carried out with these tools can be run repeatedly, at any time of day.
Automating tests involve writing code just as software development does. Testers must write scripts that tell the testing tools what to do. Better software is the result of running the right tests and continually re-evaluating which tests are the right ones.
The principal benefits of test automation are:
- increases the speed and efficiency of tests execution;
- saves time (the automated tests can be run over and over again and reduce the time required to perform the repetitive tasks, as is in manual testing);
- can be run unattended (it doesn’t require the presence of the tester near top when running the tests, especially when a large package of tests are run, the tester can work on something else related to the project);
- the frequency they could be run (e.g. multiple times on a day);
- increase the test coverage (for repetitive tests, e.g. regression tests after development, testing of the software on different platforms/ environments etc.);
- increase productivity, predictability, reliability and product quality (through automated tests, the human mistakes are reduced);
- reusable test scripts for testing the product later;
- saves costs (in time, even in the beginning seem to be expensive).
What to automate, when to automate, or even whether one really needs automation are crucial decisions which the testing team must make. The most common questions when considering a test automation program are:
- when to invest in test automation?
- how to implement or proceed with a test automation program?
- How much of your manual testing effort should shift to test automation?
The automated testing is typically used on functional testing, performance and security testing and usually for larger projects. Some of the tools we use on test automation are: JUnit, soapUI, Thucydides, Selenium WebDriver.