Software products undergo hours of rigorous manual testing, but for some reason, they always have flaws. Engineers, in conjunction with the quality assurance team, will put forth a tenacious effort to strip out bugs before deployment, but they always seem to crawl back in – again and again!
That’s why automation testing is vital.
Automatic testing increases the efficacy of software evaluation. It is fast, increases coverage, and accurately ascertains the product’s quality. Using an automation test tool, QA engineers can check for multilingual sites, run tests unattended, and track progress in real-time.
However, to harness the full power of this technology, you must understand the different types of automation testing.
But first…
What can be Automated?
There is an unending list of tests that you can automate. They include cases that are:
- High-risk – where bugs can compromise an application’s functionality
- Time-consuming
- Repetitive
- Tedious and challenging to execute manually
Different Automation Testing Types
While there are multiple types, they all fall under two categories.
- Functional
These are processes that examine how correctly the application works and its useableness. It seeks to verify whether each feature functions as expected. Excellent examples include unit, smoke, regression, integration, and API tests.
- Non-functional
These procedures analyze parameters that don’t affect the application’s functionality but are integral to the overall user experience. They include performance, stress, security, and load tests.
Below we dig deeper into some well-known functional and non-functional automated software analysis procedures extensively explaining their differences.
Data-driven
This is a methodology where a tester assesses the efficiency of a program by running the same test using different inputs, which are read from external data files.
It’s an efficient way of debugging that saves money and resources, as testers do not need to initiate a new test for every data. Furthermore, the test case can be used in other scenarios if you just alter its parameters.
Performance
This determines how well the software holds up when subjected to its intended use. It will pinpoint and fix performance barriers to ensure the application meets the user’s expectations.
Performance checking is vital as it identifies computing bottlenecks, assesses whether the software meets the expected performance requirements, and measures the application’s stability when traffic is at its peak.
Smoke Analysis
This is a software analysis procedure where quality assurance experts run a series of minimal checks to ascertain the application’s stability.
Are the major functionalities working as required?
This is the main question that engineers need to answer during smoke testing.
If the answer is YES, a go-ahead is given, and the application proceeds to other phases. Otherwise, the developers have to work on it again before it can proceed.
Unit Analysis
This is the first-level code assessment engineers undertake. Here, they will individually check all the application’s code units to see how well they function. The test isolates each unit, authenticating its accuracy, which can be tiresome when done manually.
You can speed up the process by leveraging automatic testing tools. These tools will increase the number of individual components to be analyzed, especially when working with applications with large code bases.
Some of the perks include the following:
- It helps identify software bugs earlier on in the development process – which is cost-effective
- It facilitates code reusability
- Developers get an excellent grasp of the code base, which allows them to make the necessary changes quickly.
- It provides good software documentation that allows future developers to easily update the code.
Integration
After successful unit testing, the units are analyzed as a whole to ascertain their functionality. The process scrutinizes these units in-depth to find out how they interact and if they work well together.
Integration checking is critical to the software development process because it spots incompatibility issues between the app’s modules. It also confirms that the application seamlessly interacts with databases and third-party APIs.
Keyword-driven
This scripting methodology leverages keywords to determine the functions to be performed. The keywords align with the software being checked, and they represent actions needed for specific steps to work.
During the process, keywords are identified and linked to a specific function related to the words. Some of the functions include mouse clicks and keystrokes. So, whenever the keyword is used, the linked function will automatically be triggered into action.
Security
The number of hackers holding companies to ransom after gaining unauthorized access to their applications is spiraling out of control.
That’s why security testing is paramount.
Here, engineers will analyze the software for security vulnerabilities, making sure that system is protected from cybersecurity threats. They will make sure that each development phase does not introduce loopholes that cyberpunks can exploit.
Additionally, these processes will evaluate the software’s coping ability in case of an attack and its security compliance in regard to relevant regulations such as HIPAA.
Regression
In a bid to improve the functionality of applications, developers will often change code. They will then need to recheck the software to ensure its performance isn’t compromised.
This is what is known as regression testing.
The engineers will fully or partially check previously executed cases to ascertain that the new codes did not create bugs and that their functionality is not negatively impacted.
Conclusion
Automated testing saves time, improves accuracy, and increases your test coverage. However, to reap these benefits, you need an automation tool. Aqua is a test management tool for automation that can help you build highly functional applications in a structured way. It facilitates easy bug-tracking, automatically generating reports that provide your quality assurance team with the insights they need to create excellent programs. Furthermore, it supports and seamlessly integrates with a wide range of technologies, allowing you to perform even the most complex tests.
