QA automation And It's Role To Reduce Software Maintenance Cost

Why write automated tests?

Key takeaways:

1. What is automation testing?
2. The major advantages associated with automated testing.
3. The 3 obvious costs were related to automated tests.
4. How to reduce software maintenance cost

All of us understand quality assurance as a quality testing process that ensures that the company delivers the best service/product to its customers. But there’s always a push-and-pull between the cost and time associated with it. What every development team wants is a greater test coverage, but at a quicker pace and with less cost. The only way is to achieve this is by joining hands with technologies like automated tests.

What Is Automation Testing?

For a definitive explanation, it’s vital to know what manual and automated testing are. In manual testing, the tests are enforced manually by the organization’s QA Analysts. Thus, manual testing used to consume more time and asked for extra costs. In automated testing, the testers write code/test scripts to automate the testing procedure. This consumes less time and reduces the overall cost. Plus, it also offers greater accuracy than earlier manual testing. Automated testing permits you to perform repetitive tasks, and regression tests without the intervention of a manual tester to reduce the cost of software testing.

Top QA companies leverage automation testing to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and speed in their quality assurance processes, enabling them to achieve thorough test coverage and expedite the delivery of high-quality software solutions.

The biggest advantages of Automated Tests

Below are the advantages:

1. Less Time Consumption

One factor that made organizations switch to automated testing is time. An automated test can be written once and run endless times. That’s not the case with manual testing. The tester has to write a separate test each time.

2. Better Onboarding

In the case of automation testing, hiring a new developer is easier than before. The new developers have tremendous confidence in not introducing errors into the existing products when there’s a prevailing test suite in place to secure it.

3. Improved Reliability

Every automated test is run prior to its deployment in the production. This ensures that the test doesn’t halt anything when released into production. 

Also Read: How To Effectively Lower The Software Testing Cost?

4. Faster Cycles

Another reason for the transition from manual to automated testing is speed. An automated test increases the development speed by boosting the confidence in changes. So there is no need for fixing bugs late at night. These pros prove why automated tests are now an integral part of Agile development and DevOps initiatives. Also, organizations using automated tests are experiencing fewer defects, enhanced product quality, and higher accuracy than before. 

Quantifying your Testing Costs

“Automated tests likewise have certain costs associated with them which aren’t immediately obvious” – something to remember! A Rainforest QA survey shows that almost 60% of owners reported test automation costs higher than forecasted. This is true due to the following reasons.

3 obvious costs associated with automated testing are factors affecting software maintenance cost:

Cost of writing tests:

A tester needs sufficient time to write a comprehensive test, which consumes a lot of time. So in such a case, the company definitely has a higher salary to him/her. This increases the overall cost of the project.

Environment maintenance costs:

Automated test environments have a good proportion of costs associated with them in the form of license costs, server costs, costs associated with various tools, etc. Such costs level up the cost of the project.

Test maintenance cost:

Everything requires maintenance to keep the quality intact. The same holds true with tests. The tester has to spend significant time in updating and maintaining the test for enhanced performance. This includes removing the bugs and adding new features.

How to Reduce Software Maintenance Cost?

My answer is Test Complete. Test Complete replaces the test code with an automated UI tool that smoothens the process of creating, maintaining, and executing functional tests across desktops, web and mobile applications. These tests can easily integrate with integration systems like Jenkins, SCMs, Azure, and other DevOps tools. Test Complete offers the following features:

1. Record and Replay

It provides the benefit to create detailed and scalable automated UI tests within no time added with a record and replays functionality. 

2. AI Recognition

Test Complete’s AI recognition feature enables AI to detect and check every application by finding dynamic UI elements. Hence, Test Complete not only accelerates the testing process but lowers down the overall cost. Although automated tests are better than manual tests, they aren’t free. Some costs (obvious ones) are always associated with them as discussed above. Further, to enhance the testing accuracy, you can give certain tools like Test Complete a try.