Best Practices in Automated Testing Page - 2

Understanding the Testing Process

The introduction of automated testing into the business environment involves far more than buying and installing an automated testing tool.

Typical Testing Steps: Most software testing projects can be divided into general steps

Test Planning: This step determines like ‘which’ and ‘when’.
Test Design: This step determines how the tests should be built the level of quality.
Test Environment Preparation: Technical environment is established during this step.
Test Construction: At this step, test scripts are generated and test cases are developed.
Test Execution: This step is where the test scripts are executed according to the test plans.
Test evaluation: After the test is executed, the test results are compared to the expected results and evaluations can be made about the quality of an application.

Identifying Tests Requiring Automation

Most, but not all, types of tests can be automated. Certain types of tests like user comprehension tests test that run only once and tests that require constant human intervention are usually not worth the investment incurred to automate. The following are examples of criteria that can be used to identify tests that are prime candidates for automation.

High path frequency – Automated testing can be used to verify the performance of application paths that are used with a high degree of frequency when the software is running in full production. Examples include: creating customer records.

Critical Business Processes – Mission-critical processes are prime candidates for automated testing. Examples include: financial month-end closings, production planning, sales order entry and other core activities. Any application with a high –degree of risk associated with a failure is a good candidate for test automation.

Repetitive Testing – If a testing procedure can be reused many times, it is also a prime candidate for automation

Applications with a Long Life Span – If an application is planned to be in production for a long period of time, the greater the benefits are from automation.

Task Automation and Test Set-Up

In performing software testing, there are many tasks that need to be performed before or after the actual test. For example, if a test needs to be executed to create sales orders against current inventory, goods need to be in inventory. The tasks associated with placing items in inventory can be automated so that the test can run repeatedly. Additionally, highly repetitive tasks not associated with testing can be automated utilizing the same approach.

Who Should Be Testing?

There is no clear consensus in the testing community about which group within an organization should be responsible for performing the testing function. It depends on the situation prevailing in the organization.