How critical is the role of Functional Test Automation in a business?

                                                            Functional Test Automation

The growing role of software applications in bringing about digital transformation has put a renewed focus on their functionality. For unless the features and functionalities of software applications perform as per the expected outcomes, their credibility in the market leaves a lot to be desired. To ensure that software applications remain error free and address the requirements of the business, they should undergo a rigorous functional testing exercise. The absence of such a testing can lead to damaging the credibility of an organization not to speak of harming the interest of the users. To pre-empt the company from suffering damage vis-a-vis its reputation, brand value, and customer trust, the software application should be subjected to a slew of QA testing exercises such as functional testing that is repetitive, consistent, quick and cost effective.

Why functional testing?

With rising competition, businesses have been forced to bring out quality applications within the constraints of turnaround time and cost. However, merely bringing out applications would not cut any ice in the market unless they are adopted by the customers. In other words, customers should derive the best experience while using a software application vis-a-vis similar applications in the market. Although QA is a comprehensive activity comprising several tests, functional testing is about validating the functionality of an application. The functions to be validated while conducting the required testing exercise are user actions, business processes, navigating from one screen to the other, and searches, etc.

Why functional test automation?

The software applications of the day are becoming more and more complex. This is due to their growing interaction with a slew of digital elements viz., device platforms, browsers, operating systems, frameworks, and networks. To validate each and every functionality of the APIs having connections with the above digital elements in a limited timeframe (and cost constraints) functional automation testing should be adopted. The benefits of adopting automated testing are as follows:
  • Generates a quicker feedback for the stakeholders to analyze and incorporate changes.
  • Avoids the pitfalls of manual testing while expanding the test coverage area.
  • Leads to an effective continuous integration and delivery.
  • Ensures a faster time to market.
How to set up the right test automation solution?

Having the right skillset: The team carrying out QA automation testing should have people with varied skillsets. These include the test automation experts, product experts, and other stakeholders who can help align the test strategy with the overall business objectives.

Tool selection: The test automation framework should ensure use of the right automation tool. Although a single tool might not be able to successfully validate each and every functionality of the application, it should be chosen by keeping in mind factors such as compatibility, desirability, cost, and the expertise of people in handling it. Some of the popular test automation tools are Selenium, Test IO, Coded  UI Test, UFT, and SoapUI etc.

Test Cases: Not all test cases can be automated, but the one’s that ought to be automated should be:

  • Business critical
  • Time consuming
  • Too repetitive to be validated manually
  • Too tedious to be carried out, say requiring the involvement of hundreds of users

Moreover, each and every test case should have a status of ‘Pass’ or ‘Fail’ to help the test automation experts know about their success (or failure).

Test Environment: The test environment should be similar to the development environment, that is, comprising similar hardware and software configuration. This helps the developers to understand the glitches easily thereby applying correctives quickly and assuredly.

Ensuring reusability and maintainability of the test suite: The automated test suite should reflect the present status of the application. In other words, if the applications undergo any addition or deletion, the same should be incorporated in the test suite as well. Moreover, each version update to the application should include similar updates to the test suite. The test suite should be suitably maintained to ensure its reuse thus saving time, effort, and cost.

Facilitate collaboration: The automation suite should be closely integrated with the development environment so that tests can be executed on multiple platforms, browsers, and operating systems in real time.

Robust reporting mechanism: Each and every functional automation testing cycle should generate accurate reports for multiple test cases across builds. The reports can help stakeholders to understand the various stages of testing and take suitable decisions concerning the business.

Conclusion
Testing the functionality of software application is a business critical activity that ensures the delivery of a robust software thereby meeting the user expectations. Such tests can help the business to become more competitive.

Diya works for Cigniti Technologies, which is the world’s first Independent Software Testing Company to be appraised at CMMI-SVC v1.3, Maturity Level 5, and is also ISO 9001:2015 & ISO 27001:2013 certified.

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