Technology is always changing, allowing firms to improve their websites and business apps, making them more competitive. Businesses rely on automated testing to keep up with the better and faster quality procedures required by agile development. There are several advantages to testing automation that assist firms in delivering high-quality goods or services. It also saves money, prevents delays, and contributes to a positive client experience. Unplanned test management might result in all of these disparities and difficulties, which will have a direct impact on business deliverables. Because software testing is a vital aspect of product development, organizations must keep tests on hand at all times although the majority of the testing industry still believes in the benefit of combining manual and automated testing.
Developers have always found bugs and resolved difficulties, but no matter how skilled you are in dealing with such situations, there will be certain bugs that you will never notice. Regression testing is used by testers to stabilize the product for quicker releases and to efficiently resolve issues that arise after moving the code to the production environment. When compared to manual testing, automation testing offers various advantages. The main point of automating tests was to improve process effectiveness, speed up execution, and maximize test coverage. It also eliminates the possibility of testers making repeating mistakes/tasks, lowers human error, and gives rapid feedback for speedy resolution, enhancing overall efficiency in all operations. As we progress, we'll look more closely at the benefits of automation testing in the software development life cycle (SDLC).
What is Automation Testing?
In layman's words, it is a testing method that use automation technologies to execute various test cases and perform actions on software applications. Automation testing tools collect test results and provide reports based on them. This data can be used for comparison and determining discrepancies, if any exist. To gain the full benefits of automation, a significant commitment in time, effort, money, resources, and expertise is required. However, with proper test preparation, firms may turn it into a profitable investment.
The Advantages of Automation Testing
Let's look at a few benefits of testing automation to clear the air about its suitability for your business.
1. Accelerate the Feedback Cycle
Automation testing aids in reducing the feedback cycle for each new feature of a software program. The sooner testers provide input to the development team, the sooner the development team may repair the bugs in the code, reducing the risk of releasing buggy apps to the market. It aids in the acceleration of the process of implementing new modifications in product development. Early testing and discovery of software faults allows testers to correct them on time, increasing team efficiency. Improved internal communication among developers, testers, designers, and other stakeholders is also facilitated by faster feedback. It enables them to take rapid action on any possible dangers that are identified.
2. Reusability of Test Scripts
One of the most advantageous aspects of automated testing is the reusability of test scripts. Because developing test cases takes a lot of time and work, testers must be skilled enough to generate effective test cases. It gets worse when the testers have to write them over and over again. This is when test automation comes into play. It gives testers the ability to create reusable test scripts. When it is necessary to test a new operating system or device, testers create distinct test scripts for each cross-browser test. However, the reusability of automated test scripts allows testers to better optimize their time when doing vital jobs.
With TestQuality Test Case Management, you may easily create, manage, and assign test plans, milestones, test cases, and testing cycles. Build your test cases and store and organize in your global test repository - with preconditions, steps, attachments, and more. Testing for purpose based cycles and repeating testing efforts (smoke, regression, system, acceptance, etc) and make an easy and simple of reusability of automation test scripts.
Testers do not need to spend as much time confirming new features with the aid of automated testing. The tools' test automation and reporting aid in the development of strong inter-team and inter-departmental communication. The departments examine the test results and scrutinize every element of the test cases and difficulties. As a result, automated testing saves teams time and effort while ensuring the timely deployment of any new product upgrades.
4. Test Insights
The insight test reports supplied by the automation testing technologies are another feature on which the teams rely. Manual testers offer updates to the rest of the team on each problem that is addressed and the test scripts that are produced. There is a possibility of human mistake, which might result in skewed findings. Whereas with automated testing, the reports provided are comprehensive and highlight overall errors addressed as well as test scripts written by you and other testers on the team, among other things.
5. Maximum Test Coverage:
Manual testing has advantages, however it is hard to manage many test cases manually for comprehensive test coverage of complex applications. We can get 100 percent test coverage in no time using automated testing. It provides sufficient time to add additional tests to the automated test case. Using automated testing tools gives additional test coverage and may assist testing teams in testing software features such as user interface, servers, databases, and so on. More features may be checked with broader test coverage, improving the quality of the web application without compromising functionality.
6. Improve Cross-Browser Testing
Manual cross-browser testing is difficult for testers because each time a new device-OS-browser version combination is evaluated, the testers must run a separate test to validate each feature. Cross browser testing, on the other hand, may be accomplished with minimum effort. Achieving 100 percent test coverage for every browser and a large audience appears to be an impossible undertaking. By running numerous tests in parallel, test automation technologies assist to reduce time and effort.
7. Improved Understanding
A business can gain insights into the tests that were conducted, failed, passed, and other testing operations with the help of automation testing. Automated software testing provides insights into all aspects of the application, including storage, data content, programs, and so on, allowing engineers to pinpoint the source of the issue..
8. Round-the-clock test execution
Another significant advantage of automation testing is that, unlike manual testing, it can be performed at any time and from any location. You can't be accessible to do tests all the time if you do it manually. Automation testing addresses this drawback of human testing by scheduling automated test execution remotely at any time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also allows for the creation of detailed reports of the tests that have been run for additional analysis.
9. Parallel testing allowed
Every website should be compatible with a variety of OS-Device-Browser combinations. To do this, the testers undertake Cross Browser Testing, which necessitates several test cases for every potential combination your website is on. It is not conceivable in manual testing since there is always the risk of a product release delay. The benefit of automated testing is that it allows testers to perform a large number of tests in parallel at a faster pace. There are a number of programs, such as pCloudy, that have a Selenium Grid. It enables you to run cross-browser testing on hundreds of such combinations on actual devices in simultaneously.
10. Evaluate the software build's stability
Automation testing helps determining the stability of a software build by allowing testers to do smoke testing for successful build validation. The test automation technique may be used to automate smoke testing that requires manual input from the tester. The datasets necessary to run smoke tests are generated automatically, allowing the stability of software builds to be determined more quickly.
11. Manual Test enhancement
To satisfy the team's objective, no good test approach would remove either of the testing categories. Both automated testing and manual testing are equally important. Unless otherwise indicated, neither automated nor manual testing can fix an issue on their own. Both are required in the testing process. Manual testing are dependent on the quality of automation scripts. Test automation saves testers time and effort by assisting them in developing quality test scenarios. Automation testing tools can be used to validate manual testing. The confirmed findings and reports produced by those instruments aid in the investigation of the quality of manual test scripts.
12. Automated scalability
As the number of test cases grows, more trained workers are required for manual testing. Automation testing is extremely scalable since the majority of the work is done automatically, however tester interaction is required while utilizing the automation testing tool.
13. Handle full test scenarios
Another significant advantage of automated testing is its ability to manage exceedingly complicated and lengthy test scenarios easily and rapidly at any time. There are various test scenarios with recurring procedures in manual testing. However, with automated testing, a decent test script just has to be written once, and you're set to go.
14. Excellent Return on Investment
Manual testing does not provide a high rate of return since it requires a significant amount of time, money, and resources before even generating a full-fledged, market-ready product. Multiple recurring corrective quality tests necessary to develop a quality product delay the product's market release. All of these issues, however, are addressed by automated testing. Automation testing shortens the product launch time by automating all repetitive operations in one step, requiring fewer resources and resulting in a higher rate of return on investment from a business perspective.
Conclusion
Automation testing is becoming exceptionally helpful to the software business as technology evolves. Although there are several more ways Automation testing benefits the company, the ones listed above are the most common and relevant. However, please keep in mind that automation testing is not the last and only answer, and the team may still fail to deliver the product on time.
Failure can be caused by reasons such as the incorrect selection of testing tools for automation. The proper selection of automation testing tools is critical to the effectiveness of automation testing. Automation is heavily reliant on test automation technologies. Even when doing cross-browser compatibility testing, using the correct tools is crucial. Even after learning about the advantages of automated testing, not all businesses fully embrace it. The reason for this is the significant initial investment cost and the unfamiliarity with the power it has to change the game.
Before using automation, the company must take precautions and consider what function it will serve. Will it assist in the achievement of company objectives? Do we have the funds to keep it running? Do we have the necessary resources to properly implement it? Considering all of this before taking the plunge can help you avoid potential business risks and losses.
Whatever the benefit, what is crucial to highlight is the value that test automation provides to the success of the business. A high-quality product and an improved user experience assist to boost the brand's image, produce more income, and expand the consumer base.
At TestQuality.com, our Powerful yet Easy Test Management platformwill help you to easily create, manage, and assign test plans, milestones, test cases, and testing cycles, but also build your test cases and store and organize in your global test repository - with preconditions, steps, attachments, and much more such as: Test execution, Track Results, Team Collaboration and always seamlessly integrated testing for your DevOps Workflowthat ensure quality product delivery to help speed up time-to-market, reduce test efforts and cost.