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Testing Automation can save software development teams valuable time and resources but presents unique challenges.
Developers must overcome several hurdles to ensure adequate test automation, from finding tools to managing test data efficiently. In this article, we'll look at several significant test automation challenges along with solutions for dealing with them effectively; our guide offers invaluable insights for both experienced automation specialists and beginners starting automated testing automation.
Why Is Automation Testing Important?
Importance of automation testing? Automating testing teams when developing software is vital, as automation enables faster, more effective testing while decreasing human error risk.
Automated tests are also significantly less expensive than manual human testing - all while providing faster feedback loops to developers as early detection of bugs/issues occurs quicker. Overall, automated load testing effort is integral to the modern software development process by increasing quality while decreasing costs and efficiencies.
Read More: QA Automation: Worth $1M In Savings? Benefits Vs Challenges
Common Challenges In Automated Testing
Below you find the seven challenges in automated testing and also the solution for it:
Test Case Prioritization
Due to shorter release cycles, limited time is allocated for product testing stages. An automated testing framework becomes overburdened with additional tests; tests become delayed; eventually, enough test cases fail and cause test results to fall behind schedule and cause friction with release cycles; therefore, it has become essential that we prioritize test cases, particularly during Regression Testing, to improve its efficiency and ensure effective use.
Regression testing ensures that changes, updates or improvements to an application's codebase do not negatively affect its existing features, thus maintaining their overall stability and functionality.
The number of regression tests can sometimes become extremely large quickly; Test Case Prioritization (TCP) should be employed to complete them within a reasonable timeline. There are two approaches to handling this situation:
- Increase the parallel testing sessions or select which tests must be automated first.
- If the former option is no longer an option, the latter raises various concerns.
- Which tests must be run every day?
- Which can be run only once a week, if at all?
- Can some tests be redesigned to run more quickly?
Prioritizing Test Cases can be an intricate balancing act between meeting quality standards while saving execution time and resources without jeopardizing software stability or making tests impossible to finish within their stated timelines.
Prioritization requires considerable time and effort when the system contains too many test cases; developers need to perform manual tests, investigate bugs and resolve them as part of this manual effort; additionally, prioritization consumes significant bandwidth resources.
Solution
Priority can be utilized as an attribute that informs it of the order in which test cases should be executed. When managing multiple test cases in parallel and needing them all to run sequentially, Priority helps accomplish that feat more efficiently than ever.
Communication And Collaboration
Automation testing demands collaboration among all parties involved - technical and business stakeholders alike - for proper functioning.
More communication will likely be necessary between all stakeholders about testing automation and related decisions made within their companies or organizations.
Before automating tests, developers, business analysts, project managers, technical architects and customers must understand which tests should be automated.
Since automation process tools are an expensive investment, test strategies must outline a detailed test plan, scope and timeframe from day one of discussions with them all. Collaboration is required for automation testing tools to function. It certainly necessitates more communication among all stakeholders, whether from the technical or business side.
A strategy must be discussed with developers, business analysts, project managers, technical architects, and even a sample group of customers before deciding which tests should be automated.
Because automation tools are expensive, the test strategy's test plan, scope, and timeframe must be as specific as possible from the start.
Solution
Behavior-driven development improves overall collaboration by offering test cases written in an easily understandable format that business-side members with limited technical knowledge readily understand.
Cucumber is one of several popular BDD test automation frameworks, and CISIN offers integrations to GitHub and Slack for bug and test report communication purposes.
Finding The Suitable Testing Framework Or Tool
An Automation Test Plan may fail due to improper selection of testing framework or tool, making choice an essential aspect of the testing process and taking extra care when selecting Third-Party Integrations as part of the testing cycle.
Before making their selections, entire teams should conduct extensive research on available tools and consider budget requirements according to the nature and extent of automated testing.
While choosing popular commercial tools simply because others in your industry use them may lead to regrettable outcomes, a practical evaluation should include outlining requirements based on AUT requirements and testimonials from professionals who have performed similar tests in the past.
No matter how rigorous or comprehensive a testing strategy and methodology may be, they will only succeed in meeting technical and business needs.
Any automation effort with appropriate tools is guaranteed success. A grid of devices used is an integral element in the automation testing stack. Testing must take place using real devices under actual world conditions for results to be reliable; setting up a real device lab would require significant expenses, time commitment and constant updates - an alternative could be Browser version Stack, which provides a real device cloud.
Solution
Make an informed choice based on project requirements and available resources, then compare tools. Before finalizing, conduct a Proof of Concept on one option over another; additionally, develop a migration plan in case moving your test suite entirely will involve changes to multiple frameworks.
We offer an online cloud Selenium grid of over 3000 real browsers and devices for automated testing of websites or apps to ensure they're ready to run in the real world.
User expectations can leverage this Selenium testing grid for automated Selenium testing across these diverse, accurate browser-device-OS combinations for maximum effectiveness in testing websites or apps for use by real people in natural life settings.
Taking Real User Conditions Into Account
Testing will never be completely accurate without considering real-life user conditions; emulators and simulators simply cannot replicate actual user conditions effectively; consequently, switching out mobile emulators for real devices is recommended when conducting testing.
Physical device testing could be costly as it involves setting up and running an infrastructure-heavy lab to conduct such assessments of devices.
Such facilities could prove very expensive in terms of both setup and ongoing upkeep costs while failing to cover an extensive array of integration testing needs. Building an authentic device lab requires considerable cost, time and ongoing evaluation when considering whether to construct or buy.
Solution
Utilizing an affordable device cloud like CISIN could be the ideal way to test thousands of devices, browsers, and OS combinations without breaking the bank.
CISIN cloud Selenium grid enables users to conduct software automated testing methods across accurate browser-device-OS combinations, ensuring websites and mobile apps are optimized for actual world use.
Finding The Right Skills
As with automation tools, tools require personnel with specific skills and qualifications to perform as intended.
Therefore, it would be misleading to assume that manual and technical testers could utilize automation tools without proper instruction from their superiors.
Most comprehensive testing automation tools are only effective when used by individuals capable of accurately designing and maintaining automation frameworks, creating solutions, and writing test scripts - as well as responding quickly to unexpected technical issues that may arise.
Because automation frameworks differ significantly in features and operability, experts should know each framework's design and implementation protocols to use them effectively. Finding people with strong automation expertise requires financial investment; this may be outside some organizations's means if their growth plans include rapid expansion.
Solution
Consider low-code or no-code solutions where extensive technical knowledge and coding abilities aren't necessary, plus frameworks that complement your tech stack regarding programming language support for more accessible skills acquisition.
Upfront Investment
Implementation of automation typically comes at a high initial cost. An automation framework, libraries, reusable functions and the like must be carefully examined, designed, selected or created before beginning operations; additional licensing costs could exist on top of regular operational expenditures.
Even when open-source tools are utilized as unit testing frameworks, proper investment in training testers and setting up device grids must be considered carefully when considering the costs involved with setting them up.
As previously discussed, unanticipated costs must also be taken into account when considering automation practices in organizations, as collaboration practices are integral to successful automation implementation and may incur expenses in organizations just beginning their automation practices implementation initiatives.
Solution
Consider adopting best practices like tracking the ROI of automation, assuring code reusability, parallel functional testing and tokenization to save money and resources.
Automated testing usually has substantial long-term paybacks and is optimal for growing companies looking to scale.
Device Fragmentation
Device fragmentation poses the most significant difficulty for app development teams, meaning an application running simultaneously on various devices and operating systems.
At this stage, Quality Assurance teams must test compatibility across a wide range of operating systems (Android, iOS and Windows), but also across versions within an OS (such as Nougat (7.0) vs Oreo (8.0)). Testing this way often occurs on Android devices as many third-party manufacturers offer their own "re-skinned" versions of Android OS.
Solution
CISIN Automate and App Automate provide automated web and mobile tests on actual Android and iOS devices. From legacy devices to cutting-edge one, you can unit test your apps reliably to deliver an exceptional user experience for each one.
Conclusion
Although automation performance testing doesn't have any disadvantages, these factors should be considered before adopting automated testing practices.
Change may necessitate initial investment, education and effort from organizations; over time, these have proven well worth their while - helping businesses release higher quality software faster while cutting testing time significantly faster with automation testing implemented into software testing life cycles.
