Giving you a brief explanation of what automation testing is in reality would, in my opinion, be a decent way to start this blog. The execution of a test or set of tests using automated testing tools and frameworks is referred to as automation testing. Consider automated testing as the opposite of manual testing. This kind of testing necessitates a significant commitment of time, energy, and money. However, careful and frequent manual testing saves you a tonne of time.

Several advantages of test automation include:

1. Saves time

2. Lessens effort

3. Boosts efficiency

4. Makes things more predictable

5. Improves dependability

I'll go through the recommended practices for automation testing in this blog post, as well as the key factors to consider when developing a test automation approach.

When should you do it? 

When should test cases be automated, and how do we determine when the information is sufficient to begin automating?

Start by identifying automation opportunities. As a team, I would advise deciding which test cases are worth automating first. After choosing these, you may focus on finding the project's finest technologies for supporting automated tests. After that, splitting out the automated testing efforts might be a smart idea. You can also develop tests that are resilient to changes in your product's user interface, for example, and construct a golden data set or synthetic data to use for automated scenarios.

Testing automation is permitted at any moment. What matters more, in my opinion, is the team support we have, together with the tools and techniques we use to create a high-quality and comprehensive automation test suite. While some teams choose to wait until their product is more established before ever considering automating tests, other teams have the knowledge necessary to begin automation testing at a very early stage of a product.

Test Automation Best Practises 

It's wise to constantly adhere to best practices while automating testing. One thing to keep in mind is that not everything can be automated, as some components of your product need human validation/acceptance, intermittent tests where the outcome is uncertain, usability testing, and even exploratory testing. Additionally, automating every test results in more expense, work, and time than is necessary.

• Know the program being tested to create effective automated tests.

• Prioritize the scenarios so your team can decide on the useful user flows for your product. Sort your situations into high-value and automated cost-benefit categories. To assist your team, adhere to the procedure listed below.

• Choose an automation tool that meets your needs and your available resources.

• Have a productive code review session. When developers evaluate automated tests, they occasionally provide helpful feedback that can be used by the engineer to improve future tests.

• A tester's job might be made more difficult by fixing unstable tests and producing unwanted noise if tools/packages are not upgraded in a timely manner.

• Work with a program that has a friendly, helpful community so that you can ask questions and obtain answers, which will also enable you to scale your testing.

• Make sure the code in your script can be reused and applied to additional test cases.

• Prepare for unforeseen circumstances (negative testing).

• Atomic flows, begin by segmenting your test code into manageable chunks and straightforward tests. Once all of them are finished, combine them into one scenario to ensure that the performance has not altered.

• Reduce the frequency of occurrences. When writing a script, try to stay away from if statements to make sure the test is predictable and simple to manage.

• Create standalone scripts. Running independent flows enhances the effectiveness of parallel testing. In contrast to connected suites, if an isolated test is delayed, the entire session is unaffected.

• Custom data test attributes: You must include element selectors in each test you write. You should create selectors that can withstand changes if you want to spare yourself a lot of hassles.

• To give automation a long life, ensure that each test uses a number of scripts and that each script is used by a number of tests.

In a word, start your test suite small and gradually expand it, making sure that each test is strong enough to run independently and in parallel.

Where to begin when creating an automation test strategy?

Typically, automated tests are added to a project to address problems like repeated manual labor, handling big data volumes, or obtaining faster feedback in a CI/CD pipeline. Therefore, you should develop a test automation approach in order to have greater ROI, test coverage, and increased test dependability. You may have all the specifics, such as which tools to use, which tests to automate, and which resources to use, within this approach.

You may deploy test automation in a repeatable manner with the help of a test automation plan. To have a thorough strategy, you need to know specific information, such as why you want to automate testing and who will be the key team working on it. When and where will the testing be conducted? What you will automate is primarily.

Some aspects that must be covered in your strategy document to account for automation include:

• Potentially helpful tools and frameworks (together with the benefits and drawbacks)
• a plan for updating the tools
• Using the right environments for automating tests
• Parallelization testing
• What test data is currently accessible? Do we require more data?
• Branching approach
• compatibility with browsers
• Test architecture to get an idea of potential designs
• highest standards
• Advice on how to begin the automation test
• what needs automating
• review of the code

Your approach might vary a little bit depending on the team or project. The appeal is that you may promote your product and provide the specifics that are most important to your team.

Personal judgement

As automation testing was not widely used at the time, I began my testing career as a manual tester. But as my career progressed, the test team eventually made the decision to fully embrace automation, and that is when my adventure into automation began. I have little experience with the coding side of things and the tools. I was aware of the advantages, but switching from being a full-time manual tester to an automated tester was challenging.

Overall, I found the experience to be fairly enjoyable because I had to learn everything from scratch, including test frameworks, tooling, scripting, and testing scenarios. I disagree that all testers must be proficient in automation. It's crucial to understand automation tactics, how to implement them within the team, and what can and should be automated. As a guide, a tester can collaborate with a test automation engineer. Not everything can be automated, keep that in mind. Make predictions, develop your ideas, work together, or even express your thoughts on how a user interface should appear, feel, or function.

In conclusion

I did come across fresh and intriguing problems to address while working on test automation, developing methods, and understanding its approaches. I also want to thank the programmers who helped me on this new path. An effective option that keeps testing as a whole getting better is automated testing. If done correctly, it can and does save time and money. Repetitive tasks take a lot of time and risk human mistakes if carried out by a tester.

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