Today, project managers and developers are challenged to build reliable applications with minimal resources and within ever-shrinking timelines. Hence, organizations are turning to automated testing to achieve this goal effectively.

When it comes to automated testing, many of us think of it as just a part of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), but to achieve the best results from automated testing, a complete automated testing cycle, known as the automated testing lifecycle, must be followed.

This article is for learners who want to learn how the implementation of a complete automated testing lifecycle can improve the quality of software products. Here, I will discuss the complete automated testing lifecycle.

The 6 Phases of an Automation Testing Lifecycle Methodology

The implementation of the automated testing lifecycle is performed in parallel with the software development lifecycle process.

A structured automated testing lifecycle consists of a multi-stage process that supports the activities required to utilize and introduce automated testing tools, develop and run test cases, develop test designs, build and process test data and environments. In an automated testing lifecycle approach, a test design is constructed to map the testing effort, providing the project and testing team with a framework for the scope of the testing program.

Determine the scope of test automation

This is the first phase of the automation testing life cycle and aims to determine the feasibility of automation. Various aspects should be considered when analyzing feasibility. Also, it is important to perform feasibility analysis on manual test case packages, which enables automation engineers to design test scripts.

At this particular stage, the following matters should be properly addressed.

Which application modules can and cannot be automated?
Which tests can be automated, and how?
Factors such as cost, team size and expertise should also be considered.

Before starting test automation, the following feasibility checks should be done:

- Feasibility of test case automation

AUT automation feasibility

Go through the app screens under test and mention all the UI components of the app for efficient feasibility analysis. Determine the percentage of UI components to be automated by automated testing tools. Try to find out automated testing tools that can help automate UI components with minimal changes. This brings us to the next stage!

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Choose the right automation tool

Automated testing is highly tool dependent. This is why finding the right automation testing tool is a crucial stage in the automation testing lifecycle. When you're looking for an automation tool, you need to keep in mind the budget, the technology used in the project, the tool's familiarity with onboard resources, intuitiveness, flexibility, etc. Choose a tool that provides you with a support team that can resolve queries or issues.

For example, if you are looking for an automated browser compatibility testing tool, you need to keep the variety of browsers on offer in mind. Ability to capture video logs, metadata for automation scripts across different browsers and devices. Mechanisms for highlighting and tracking errors.

Need provides a cloud-based Selenium Grid that is compatible with every test automation framework that supports Selenium. The provided automated dashboard even captures the details of the test execution, ultimately giving you step-by-step screenshots, video logs of the test execution, and metadata.

Test plan + test design + test strategy

The most critical phases of the automation testing lifecycle approach define how to implement and achieve the goals of test automation. During the "testing strategy" phase of the automation testing lifecycle, choosing a test automation framework is the first task.

The choice of tool depends on the technology used in the application. Know your product thoroughly before starting automated testing. For example, if it's a desktop application, find out what language it's based on. Or, if you're testing a web application, be aware of a deprecated feature you're using that may not be compatible across browsers.

During the test planning phase, the test team will determine the standards and guidelines for the creation of test procedures; hardware; software and networks to support the test environment; preliminary test schedules; test data requirements; defect tracking process and associated tracking tools, and control test configuration and The process of staging an environment.

The team of test engineers develops a test architecture to describe the structure of the test program and the way to manage the test program after designing the test program model. Post-design is a test architecture in which the structure of the entire test program and the management of the test process is described.

When planning your test management strategy, make sure to consider the following:

Collect all manual test cases from the test management tool to identify those that need to be automated.
After understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your testing tools, decide which framework to use.
Build test suites for automated test cases in a tool for test management.
Make sure to mention context, risks, context and dependencies between tools and applications in the test plan.
Seek approval from customers or stakeholders for the testing strategy.

Set up the test environment

As the name suggests, this phase of the automated testing lifecycle involves setting up the machine or remote machine on which the test cases will be executed. Why do we need remote machines? Because unless we live in an ideal world, your users will be using different machines to access your website or web application on the Internet.

Constantly checking different devices is one thing, but we also need to be cautious with various browsers and browser versions. Since your website may render differently on one browser than another. Cross-browser compatibility testing (also known as cross-browser testing) is a procedure in which we test a website or web application across multiple browser versions to ensure we provide a seamless user experience to all of our customers.

The environment setup phase requires careful planning, and you need to ensure that you can maximize test coverage in as many different scenarios as possible. The test team is responsible for arranging and tracking environment setup activities; installing test environment software, network resources and hardware; improving the test database and developing testbench scripts and environment setup scripts.

Key areas of test environment setup

Test Data – Many test environment setups are not populated with similar data compared to production, which makes the product very brittle once code changes are pushed into production. Front-end runtime environment – Make sure you have a front-end runtime environment to perform load testing to analyze the ability to process web traffic.

A checklist of all systems, modules and applications to be tested.
An isolated database server for staging environments.
Test across various client operating systems.
Tested across the largest browsers and browser versions.
Make sure to test your site on both low-end and high-end networks to see the difference between render times and the overall look and feel of your site or web app.
Documentation is key – make sure you cover all configuration guides/installation guides/user manuals etc in the central repository.

Test environment setup involves the following tasks:

Tool License.

Setup utilities such as advanced text editors and comparison tools.
Automation framework implementation
AUT access and valid credentials
Add-on license

Organizations of all kinds use staging environments to test software. The best way is to copy the production data for testing purposes. It helps test engineers find problems without corrupting production data. Here are 13 reasons why staging environments fail.

Best practices for setting up test environment management:

Gather and understand the test environment comprehensively, and train test team members.
Check required software, licenses and hardware.
Maintain an inventory of automation tools and their configurations.
Maintain a cross-browser testing matrix to ensure you cover testing on numerous browsers and versions with respect to priority and market share.
Make sure to test with live traffic to make sure your changes are more sustainable.
Plan the planned use of the test environment.

Automated test script development + execution

Once the test environment is installed, it's time to execute the test scripts. Therefore, this phase of the automated testing lifecycle is dedicated to executing all test scripts. For script execution, signed and unit tested test scripts are delivered to the automated testing team. It is essential to ensure that all test scripts run correctly. Therefore, before developing test scripts, you need to pay attention to the following:

Create test scripts based on actual needs.
Create generic functional methods that can be used throughout the testing process.
Make sure to create reusable, structured and simple scripts so that third parties can clearly understand it. Here are 8 actionable insights for writing better automation code.
Perform code reviews of test scripts for better quality assurance.
Take advantage of better reporting.

Once a test script has been successfully developed, it should be executed keeping the following points in mind:

Test scripts should include all functional aspects according to the test cases.
Make sure to run test scripts on multiple environments and multiple platforms.
When possible, batch processing can be performed to save time and effort.
If something breaks due to some functionality, please write a bug report.

In order to execute the test scripts and procedures, the test team must adhere to the schedule decided for the execution of the procedures. In this phase, the evaluation of the test results is performed and the test result documentation is prepared. Perform test result evaluation and prepare test result documentation. Run plans designed for unit, system, user acceptance and integration tests to test the entire system. Code analysis is done while unit testing. Performance analysis uncovers instances when algorithms, resource utilization, and instantiation scale improperly.

Analysis + generation of test results and test reports

After all types of testing are performed, the testing team conducts an analysis to identify specific functions or components that experience a relative number of problem reports.

Analysis results indicate whether additional testing efforts and procedures are required.

Analysis of the resulting test results can confirm whether the executed test script/procedure can identify errors.

This is the final stage of the automation testing lifecycle, where test reports are shared with all relevant stakeholders. That's why test reports are crucial for analyzing how your web application reacts to adversity. You can use old-fashioned Excel sheets, but LambdaTest Automation can provide application-based reports with all test cases executed through automation scripts on the cloud-based Selenium Grid. Interesting, right? Learn all about LambdaTest Selenium Grid for automated cross browser testing.

Summarize

Automated testing is an effective way to meet testing objectives within a suitable time frame and with sufficient resources. However, make sure to implement a complete automated testing lifecycle to achieve expected results and test your application in the best possible way. Automated testing without a plan or sequence results in a large number of scripts that may fail frequently and also require human intervention.

END meager strength

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[Introduction to automated testing] Automated testing life cycle