All About Automation Testing Life Cycle

Project managers and developers face the challenge of creating applications with minimum resources and within an ever-shrinking schedule. No matter what, developers have to do more with less, organizations must test the application adequately, quickly, and thoroughly. 

Organizations are therefore proceeding to Automation Testing for accomplishing this goal efficiently. When it comes to automation testing, many believe that it is just a part of the software development life cycle.

But for achieving the best result with automation testing, one must follow the complete process of automation Testing known as the automation Testing life cycle.

Stages of Automation Life Cycle Methodology

The implementation of automation life cycle administers in parallel with the software development life cycle procedure. Structured Automation Testing life cycle consists of multistage processes that support the activities required for utilizing. 

Introducing an automated test tool, develop and test cases, develop test design, build and handle test data and environment. In the Automation Testing, life cycle methodology, test design is constructed for portraying test efforts, giving and test team a framework on the test programs scope.

1. Determining the scope of test automation

The first stage of the Testing life cycle mainly aims to identify automation’s usefulness. Every perspective should be considered while investigating the feasibility.

It is also essential to perform a feasibility analysis on the manual test case back that allows automation engineers to design the test scripts.

2. Selecting the right automation tool

Automation Testing is highly dependent on tools. It is the reason why finding the right automation testing tool is a very important phase for an automation Testing life cycle. When we are looking for an automation tool. 

We must keep in mind the budget, technologies data being used in the project, familiarity of the device and resources on board, intuitiveness, flexibility, and more. We should always choose a tool that provides a support team that can take care of queries or issues.

3. Test plan + test design + test strategy

It is one of the most critical phases of the automation Testing life cycle methodology that specifies how to approach checks to accomplish test automation. Selecting a test automation framework is the first and foremost thing to do in the test strategy phase of the automation Testing life cycle. 

Picking a tool Depends upon the technologies utilized in the application. We are required to understand our product completely before commencing with the automation test.

4. Setting up the test environment

As indicated by the name, this stage of the Testing life cycle includes setting up a machine or remote machine to execute test cases. Which all SDLC processes can be automated? Because unless we live in an unreal world, our users would be using different machines for accessing our website or web app on the internet.

Keeping a check on different devices is one thing, but we also require to be careful about other browsers and their versions as our website could render differently from one browser to another. 

Cross-browser compatibility testing, also known as cross-browser testing, is a process where we can test a website or a web app across multiple browser versions to make sure we deliver a seamless user experience for all our customers.

Key Areas for Test Environment Setup

Below are the key areas for test environment setup:

1. Test data – Often, test conditions set up are not populated with similar data compared to production. It makes our product very brittle once the good changes are put into a production environment.
2. Front and running environment – We should make sure we have a front and running environment for performing load testing for analyzing the capability of handling the web traffic.
3. Checklist of all the systems – modulation applications should be put under test.
4. An isolated database server for the preparation environment.
5. Test across various client operating systems.
6. Test across maximum browsers and their versions.

We should also test our website on low and high networks to realize the difference between rendering time and the overall presentation of the website or web app.

Documentation is key- we are also required to make sure that we cover all the configuration guides, installation guides, user manuals, and so on in the central repository.

The following tasks are involved in the test environment setup:

1. Tool licenses
2. Setup utility is like advanced text editors and comparison tools.
3. Automation framework implementation
4. AUT access and valid credentials
5. Add-ins licenses

Different organizations utilize a staging environment for testing the software. The best method is copying production data to test. It helped the test engineer in uncovering the issues without corrupting the production data.

Best Practices to Set Up Test Environment Management

Below are the best practices:

1. Assume and interpret the test environments completely and train the testing team members accordingly.
2. Check for the required software, licenses, and hardware.
3. Maintaining a checklist of automation tools and their arrangement.
4. Maintain cross-browser testing patterns for ensuring you cover the tests on numerous browsers and versions concerning priority and market share.
5. Making sure to test using real-time traffic to ensure our changes are more sustainable.
6. Planning the scheduled use of the test environment.

Automation Test Script Development + Execution

Once we install the test environment, it is time to execute the test script. So this face of the automation Testing life cycle is dedicated to the execution of all test scripts. For performing script execution, signed off, and unit test, its test scripts are delivered to the automation testing team.

For executing scripts and procedures, that team must comply with a schedule selected for the procedure execution as evaluations for test results will be performed, and test result documentation will be prepared during this phase. Test outcome evaluations are completed, and documentation for test results is prepared.

Analysis + Generation after Test Results and Test Reports

After all types of experimentation are performed, the testing team investigates particular functionality or components that encounter a relative number of problem reports.

The result of the analysis implies that if it wants additional test efforts and procedures or not. Test results produced from the study could confirm whether executed test scripts are procedures that could identify errors or not. 

The last phase of the automation Testing life cycle and the test reports are shared with all involved partners. It is why test reports are essential for determining how well our web app responds to adversity.

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