Nowadays every organization wants to stay competitive by releasing new features to achieve the maximum targets with minimum resources and efforts. But is that possible to reach these goals without compromising on the product quality?
Yes, it is possible if we add the Test Automation in our Test planning. Automated testing technology has advanced over the years, and implementing the right test tool can increase the efficiency, effectiveness, accuracy, and coverage of testing. Test automation testing can free your testing team from manual testing. Therefore it can help the QA team to concentrate on other critical areas of the project.
From versatility to the compatibility of the operating system, the strengths and features of each testing tool must be evaluated thoroughly before selecting the tool to implement the testing procedures. The evaluation and selection of test automation tools is a very crucial part of the testing process as it will decide which testing tools bring the desired results. But if the QA team isn’t familiar with these testing tools, then it would be difficult to create selection criteria for automated testing tool systems.
So the question arises, which type of testing tool is best for automation testing for your QA team? Before you finalize your automation testing tools list, let’s first explore the role of test automation tools in QA as well as considerations worth evaluating during the test tool selection process.
What Is Automation Testing?
In a testing process, automation testing is the process of executing the test cases with the help of automated software testing tools. Automation testing is mainly used where the QA team is coming across the repetitive tasks on a large scale, it may be for functional, integration, smoke, or unit testing.
No doubt the automation testing brings quality to the testing process as it covers more ground during the testing procedures. With the right test tool selection, the complex, time-consuming test cases can be processed and implemented with the help of automation testing while the QA team can focus on regression and exploratory testing.
Role of Test Automation Tools
One of the most important roles of a test automation tool is to give the most reliable, repeatable test results at any point during the development cycle. A well-executed test automation tool can validate your product quality whenever there’s a code deployment and that also with minimal manual execution.
Before you decide and begin the evaluation and selection for automation tools, make sure that your QA team can draw benefits from automated software testing tools. This way you will come to know what selection criteria you’ll follow while finalizing a list of automation testing tools. Let’s discuss some of the common reasons why QA testing teams include test automation tools in their QA process:
- With every development cycle, there are consistently many repetitive test cases
- The frequent regression testing iterations
- Within a product, there is a need to simulate a large number of users
- A large set of Build Verification Testing cases
- For critical functionality, there is no feasibility in relying entirely on manual testing
Considerations to follow for Selecting a Test Automation Tool
There are hundreds of automated software testing tools, therefore having so many options can also be a challenge to make test tool selection. Taking the correct decision to choose an appropriate and impactful tool for your team’s needs is a very challenging job.
The reality is, you can’t evaluate and select the test automation tools until you are thoroughly aware of the testing support needs of your team. While selecting a test automation tool for your requirements, here are some factors to consider these areas closely:
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Versatility of tool
While choosing a tool keep in mind that it supports the type of automated testing you need, for functional testing, unit testing, and load testing. Make sure that the tool provides a wider aspect of testing support, as your needs may vary or change in the near future. So the add-ons must be available to expand the versatility of the selected tool, no doubt that comes at an additional cost.
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Platform Compatibility
In most cases, a tool supports most of the applications and platforms commonly used in an organization. But sometimes tools may only handle .NET or Java applications. Before finalizing the test automation tool, make sure that you research well all that the test automation tool is compatible with all the necessary platforms you are expecting. You should anticipate all the possible platform changes within your company in the future, like a different compiler to build your products.
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Compatibility of OS
Even if users tend to use a different operating system, your test automation tool should support a different OS configuration keeping in mind the consumer preferences ever-changing in near future. The test automation tool should also have OS compatibility for the older versions so that it helps in securing the reverse compatibility for your product.
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Test Creation process
The test automation tool should have several different ways to complete the same testing task. If an automated test depends entirely upon the scripting then inexperienced team members can find it difficult for automated tests. So the right tool will allow all QA team members to run the tests quickly and efficiently, regardless of their automation expertise.
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Tool Maintenance
The right selected automated tool also simplifies maintenance by generating modular test plan cases. Therefore these cases can be easily amended and reused so that automated testing management results in an easy process. The tool should also have a detailed record of failure logs so that any script error can be easily found and fixed also. Easily maintenance of testing tool lets you closer to the sustainable, successful automation process
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Pricing worthiness of tool
Cost is one of the crucial factors in choosing the tool, we should access that is the tool truly worth the cost? We should Consider the product price as well as the costs that may pop up in the future, depending upon the compatibility add-ons, upgrades, and support charges. The tool should give all the support you need without disturbing your testing budget.
By considering all these top automation testing metrics after implementation, you can analyze is the tool you chose is working for you or against you. If the testing metrics are still not producing effective results, then it’s time to reassess your automated testing tools as well as the test automation process.
So by considering these factors in mind and depending upon the current and future requirements of the QA testing process the best and most compatible test automation tool can be selected.
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