Automation Testing

Overview

The main goal of test automation process is to replace manual routine tests with automated actions according to the developed test scenario.

Although manual testing can reveal many defects in a software application, it is a laborious and time- consuming process. In addition it may be not fully effective in finding of certain classes of defects. Test Automation means creation of special scripts capable to emulate user’s work with the application (to perform some operations with user interface objects, to monitor the results, etc.). Once the testing has been automated, a large number of test cases can be validated quickly.

Automated tests extend QA department capabilities increasing its efficiency. This results in both quality improvement of the ultimate product and also in optimization of the software testing expenses. However, it is necessary to keep in mind that testing automation is quite an expensive solution, that’s why its implementation should be feasible. As practice shows, it proved to be cost effective for software products that have a long shelf life, because even minor patches over the lifetime of the application can cause features which were working at an earlier point in time to break.

Expertise

Qulix testing team has huge experience in automation of both desktop and web applications testing. The expertise on such programming languages as Java, C#, VB Script, C/C++ helps us neatly solve various problems that emerge and makes it possible to apply the most efficient solutions during test automation process. SQL skills and knowledge of various DBMS enables our engineers to easily manipulate DB data.

Activities List

Qulix QA team offers a full work package related to the automation of different test types, from planning to results and reports generation. Additionally, we can make an estimate and advise whether your system needs test automation.

Qulix automated testing process includes 7 main stages:

• Investigation and pilot automated test development – this stage includes project documentation analysis, manual work with an application, test architecture development, pilot test development along with tests execution and results collection;
• Analysis and planning – includes  automation test plan development and development of templates for further reporting;
• Planning – implies estimation of problem scope, description of strategy and quality metrics planned to be used during testing process as well as tasks distribution between team members and revelation of project risks;
• Pilot analysis and refinement – at this stage our engineers analyse the results of initial pilot tests and make required adjustments in test architecture and scenarios;
• Test stands preparation and test data creation – initial system data is required for conduct of automatic testing (e.g. user accounts, documents and other system objects). With that end in mind, model database dumps (initial automated test scripts which insert data required for further automated tests through application GUI or SQL scripts) are created for an application . The stage also includes preparation of test stands (e.g. a virtual machine or a server). Additionally, it is possible to run tests on engineer’s workstation at nigh;
• Automated test scripts implementation over developed architecture – implies development and coding of test scripts, their debugging and grouping into test suites;
• Test scripts running – at this stage of automated testing process Qulix engineers define the schedule for further testing and then consequently run developed tests;
• Results presentation – at the end of the testing process produced results have to be summarized, put into predefined reporting templates and communicated to the client with additional recommendations about software quality improvement.

Instruments

• HP Mercury Quick Test Pro;
• IBM Rational Robot;
• AutomatedQA TestComplete;
• Selenium RC;
• Ranorex.

Technologies

• HTML/CSS;
• JS;
• AJAX;
• XML;
• XPATH;
• SQL;
• C#;
• Java.

DBMS

• Oracle;
• MySQL;
• MS SQL Server.

Deliverables

Resulting from the performed operations the following deliverables are presented to our customers:

• Report about test tool selection (presented to a customer before project initialization);
• Pilot automated test scripts (2-3) on the basis of initial test architecture;
• Test automation plan with the description of all test scenarios for functional test automation coverage;
• Matrix of application coverage with automated tests;
• Templates for test automation results reports;
• Automated scripts of different types based on developed architecture and function libraries;
• Model database and method of model database creation;
• Application coverage with automated tests in accordance with the developed test plan;
• Automated test suites;
• Report containing the list of found defects.