Software testing has developed to this day, has gradually become more standardized and more capable, and its process is evolving every day. The technical proficiency of testers is critical to the success of the entire testing phase. Testing no longer means merely finding bugs; its scope has expanded and its importance can be seen from the beginning of any development project.
When talking about the Automation Testing Life Cycle, most people think it's just part of the SDLC, but it's much more than that. It is necessary to understand that automated testing should be a prominent part of an automated testing strategy and have a lifecycle. Businesses must adapt it to improve the quality of their software products.
As we move forward, we need to be able to answer the following questions: what is the test automation life cycle, and what are the stages in the test automation life cycle.
Phases of the automated test life cycle
Automation of tests should be supported by a strong test plan. The predefined structure of the process helps to design the test plan and develop a strategy for the selection of automated test tools to set up the test environment, design test cases and write scripts. It further defines the scope of test automation, test preparation, implementation, test validation and reporting.
These six phases in the automated testing lifecycle run in parallel with the software development cycle. Here are the stages:
Stage 1: Determining the scope of automated testing
Stage 2: Selecting appropriate automation tools
Stage 3: Defining the plan, strategy and design for automated testing
Stage 4: Setting up the test environment
Stage 5: Test scripts and execution
Stage 6: Testing Analysis and Reporting
1. Determine the scope of automated testing
This is the first step in the automated test life cycle. In this step, the testing team needs to determine the feasibility of automated testing. Feasibility analysis is essential for each stage to check its operability and help the test team to design test scripts. Things to consider at this stage include:
- Which modules of the application should be automated and which modules should not be automated.
- Which test cases can or need to be automated.
- How to automate these test cases.
- Which automation tools to choose considering the suitability of automation and test goals.
- Budget, implementation cost, available resources and available skills.
Test case and automation testing feasibility analysis should be done before starting test automation.
2. Choose the right automation tool
This is one of the most critical phases of ATLC because automated testing is tool dependent. Carefully consider and choose the right automation tool to automate UI components. Selecting a tool may require completing another level of analysis. Budget and cost should always be kept in mind before choosing a tool. In addition to this, the team should also analyze whether the resources have technical skills and whether the tools support the technology required for the project. In addition, the tool should provide strong technical support to answer questions that may exist in use.
3. Planning, strategy and design of automated testing
This is another key step in the automation testing cycle and mainly explains the method of implementing a test automation strategy. The main step in this phase is to decide which test automation framework to use. When choosing the right tool for your project, you must keep in mind the technology required for the software project. Therefore, it is very important to conduct an in-depth analysis of the product.
When executing an automated test plan, testers establish standards and guidelines for test process creation, hardware, software, and network requirements of the test environment, test data prerequisites, test schedules, bug tracking mechanisms and tools, etc. Testers are also responsible for deciding the test architecture, test program structure, and test program management.
The test management strategy covers the following points:
- The test management tool will capture all manual test cases. Testers need to collect manual test cases and determine which ones need to be tested.
- A thorough research must be done to identify the testing framework and understand the strengths and weaknesses of automated testing tools.
- Additionally, testers need to understand all relevant threats, contexts, and dependencies between tools and applications.
- The team must also build a test suite for automated test cases in the test management tool.
- The established testing strategy cannot be implemented or executed without stakeholder and customer approval.
4. Set up a test environment
During this phase, the test team must set up, track, and schedule the test environment. In other words, it means that at this stage, a machine/remote environment is set up to execute the test cases. A virtual machine is required because not all users use the same machine to access the web application. Therefore, we need to observe the various devices, browsers and versions used by users. If compatibility across different device-browser-OS combinations is not properly verified, the site may not look the same as what the user sees. To achieve this, cross-browser testing becomes a top priority to ensure that your web application provides a great user experience as expected.
This stage requires detailed planning to handle as many scenarios as possible and increase test coverage. Proper tracking and timelines of all environment setup activities must be maintained with the responsible involvement of the test team. Apart from that, everything has to be taken care of setting up the test environment, scheduling network and hardware resources, performing test database cleanup, developing the test bench and environment scripts.
Performing cross browser testing is not as easy as it sounds. It involved setting up different browsers, different versions, different devices, etc, which was quite a burden on the team.
Maintaining a browser lab is not an easy task because building and maintaining infrastructure from scratch is expensive and not all businesses can afford. Therefore, a cloud-based test infrastructure is recommended to provide testers with a platform to test various combinations of browser device operating systems across multiple mobile and desktop devices hosted by virtual machines.
Here are a few aspects of the test environment setup:
- Make sure you have a front-end running environment that can be load tested to check its ability to handle high loads of web traffic.
- Sometimes, test environments are set up that do not provide data similar to production data, making the product vulnerable to any code changes in the production environment.
- A list of all systems, modules and applications that need to be tested should be checked for maintenance.
- Test as many browsers and their versions as possible.
- Tested across multiple client operating systems.
- A separate database server is required for the staging environment.
- Make sure to test your web application under different network conditions to get an idea of actual website render times and overall appearance.
- Maintaining user manuals, installation guides, and other documentation in a central database is also key to setting up a test environment for future needs.
5. Test Script and Execution
After configuring the test environment settings, the next step is to execute the test script. Testers should consider the following points before developing test scripts:
- Create scripts based on project requirements.
- Use a common approach throughout the process.
- Make sure scripts are reusable, simple, and structured so that anyone can understand them.
- Perform proper code reviews and reporting to gain better insights and maintain quality throughout the process.
Once the script is developed, the following points need to be kept in mind to ensure that the script runs without problems:
- According to the test cases, they should cover all functional aspects.
- They should cover all platforms and environments where the test scripts are executed. .
- They must be processed in batches to save time and effort.
- Always practice writing bug reports in case of any functional errors.
Evaluate and document test results for further reference and create test results documentation in this part of the ATLC.
6. Test Analysis and Reporting
It is the last and most critical stage of the automated test lifecycle, and it doesn't help that just saving data without analyzing it. After all test results are captured, to perform all types of tests, the test team analyzes and identifies problematic features. These reports help understand if the team needs additional programs and provide information on the different errors encountered. Prepare a detailed report and share it with stakeholders, clients, employees and teams that are critical to the project at this stage. These reports are critical to understanding how a web application behaves under adverse conditions.
in conclusion
There is no doubt that software automation testing is an integral part of the SDLC and one of the most effective ways to achieve your testing goals. But software testing also has its own set of phases that must be followed carefully to reap the benefits of this technique. It allows to use any available resources to achieve the test goal within the stipulated time. Following every step of the automated testing lifecycle helps to achieve the best results without any manual intervention and reduce budgets and timelines. A well-planned automated testing lifecycle results in successful automated testing.