Art of Automation Testing

Every Automation done requires Approach, strategy & Design which matches best to the infrastructure around the Software being automated.

With this Article, my focus is to give a new perspective to the Approach taken for automation.

Existing Approach:

There is already a very streamlined approach taken by almost everyone i.e.

You have access to the software via web browser, where the software is hosted on cloud/remote servers etc.., In this case, Do's & Don'ts are:

Do's :

• The Application needs to be available.
• Access it via browser & give the URL to our automation framework.
• Simple & Easy.

Don'ts :

• No technical know how required to run Application
• No need to build the Application, as it is already built & hosted by dev team.
• Automation team doesn't need to know the dev code & location of the repository.

New Approach :

Here we will create a local copy of application; similar to what Dev team does.

So Do's & Don'ts are:

Do's :

• Take the Backend & Frontend application code from repository & build the code locally on your own machine.
• Technical know-how may be required to build the code & run it.
• You access this application to automate stuff & not the one hosted on QA Environment.
• This also helps in managing test data, as it is locally hosted, data can be erased , added, updated as per the need, no interdependence with other colleague's work.

Don'ts :

• You don't need to be dependent on QA Environment availability.

Advantage's:

• No dependency with anyone.
• Fetch the latest code from repository & build the application & run it locally
• Test Data management becomes easier.
• It enhances your technical knowledge around the application & also gives you a chance to better understand the architecture of your Application.
• It can be integrated with CI/CD very easily, you can maintain separate repository or same repository to achieve it.
• It is more time saving once implemented

NOTE:

This approach may require good know-how around the tech-stack of the application, also it may work only for some specific applications depending on their architecture.

Also, it requires efforts & understanding from Dev team to help Automation team take this approach & scale this to cover CI/CD integration.

I am fortunate to work on such a approach & deliver Automation coverage.

Quality is everyone's Responsibility. :)