What exactly is Regression Testing?

In simple words, regression testing is the process of retesting a computer program after changes are made to guarantee that the changes do not have a detrimental effect on the current code.

Regression testing enhances the likelihood of finding bugs caused by application modifications. It can assist in detecting flaws early and so lowering the cost of resolving them.

Regression testing guarantees that the software works properly and that the best version of the product is provided to the market. Creating and maintaining a near-infinite collection of regression tests, on the other hand, is not at all possible. This is why businesses are focused on automating the majority of regression testing in order to save time and effort.

Regression Testing Types

There are several forms of regression testing at various stages of testing. Let's look at the many sorts of regression testing.

Unit testing: It occurs when coding changes are made to a single unit and a software tester re-runs all previously passed unit tests. To make unit testing more efficient, automated unit tests are frequently implemented into the code. You may follow some Unit Testing Techniques and Best practices to consider.

Progressive Testing: This sort of testing works well when the software/application specs are changed and new test cases are created.

Retest-All Testing: In this method, we reuse all test cases, even if no changes have been made. It should not be done when there is only a minor update in the program because it is time-consuming.

Selective Testing: To reduce the expense and labor of retesting, testers employ a subset of the current test cases. When the software entities covered by a test unit change, it must be redone.

Complete Testing: When several modifications have been made to the current code, complete testing is effective. It is done to uncover unanticipated issues, and once thorough testing is completed, the finished system may be made available to the user.

How to Create a Regression Testing Strategy?

When the app is changed or a new version is released, the developer performs these tests as part of the regression testing process.

First, the developer runs unit-level regression tests to evaluate the updated code, as well as any new tests written to cover any new functionality. The modified code is then merged and integrated to generate a new AUT build. After that, Smoke Tests are run to ensure that the build made in the previous phase is sound before proceeding with further software testing.

Continuous Integration services such as Jenkins may run these tests automatically. After we have confirmed that the build is flawless, we do Sanity Testing to ensure that the functionality works as intended and that any known flaws have been addressed before moving on to integration testing.

Integration testing is used to ensure that the app's units communicate with one another as well as with backend services such as databases. The next stage is to schedule regression tests, which can be either partial or complete depending on the size and scope of the code.

Defects are reported to the development team, and many of them need extra rounds of regression testing to validate resolution. So, depending on the Test Reports, you may examine and determine which test cases should be added for the next checking procedure, and you can construct your report accordingly.

Regression Testing Challenges and Difficulties

Test Automation is usually a wise decision, but there will be certain problems that require your attention. Let's have a look at some of the difficulties you could encounter during automated testing.

The price is high.
In terms of business costs, the organization will need to invest a significant amount of time and money in recurrent testing. Furthermore, there is no specific ROI (return on investment) associated with regression testing. It is a sophisticated process, and it is extremely difficult to communicate the relevance of regression testing in terms of commercial advantages to test management. However, even if it is costly from a management standpoint, this must be done in order to draw the budget for the testing.

Time Constraints
Enterprises are focusing on producing high-quality apps and delivering them quickly. As a result, regression testing is always time-limited. Testers are always given a deadline to finish the regression testing procedure. To stay up with the times, testers may have to take risks by giving higher emphasis to crucial regression tests and skipping a few tests.

Information that is fragmented
If new software testers are hired while a software testing project is in progress, either to speed up the process or to release part of the work. Current testers in the business may not have the time to provide detailed data regarding the app's functionality and features, existing issues, delivery timing, and so on. The new testers may be required to begin testing with insufficient information about the existing testing effort. For effective cooperation, challenges like this necessitate a proper test technique. It is a difficult task since deciding which Tests may be omitted is crucial.

Maintenance and Optimization
Maintaining and optimizing the existing regression test suites is a significant task. When there are new modifications, the current regression test suites may need to be modified by adding, eliminating, or altering the existing test cases. All of this must be completed before the regression testing deadline. As a result, optimization and maintenance are two additional challenges that must be addressed.

Best Practices for Performing Regression Testing

We are now aware of the difficulties in regression testing. Let's take a look at the most important modifications we can make to improve it.

Start focusing on the Most Commonly Used Paths
The most often used pathways are also the most frequently utilized use cases for your program. They must highlight your app's most popular features as well as its core operation. You should be aware of the core set of users and how they interact with the app's features on a regular basis. The regression test cases must confirm that the main functionality functions as intended.

Update the Regression Pack on a regular basis.
A regression pack is a set of test cases that are run whenever a new app version or update is deployed. The tests in a regression pack are written with the app's earlier version requirements in mind. To maintain the regression pack up to date, ad hoc tests should be provided. You don't want to waste time running tests to validate an outdated feature that isn't in the most recent version of the app.

Make an entry/exit criterion.
The entry/exit criteria that we use in the software development lifecycle may also be used in regression testing.
A predetermined set of prerequisites must be satisfied as admittance criterion, such as evaluating problems and completing regression testing to remedy such flaws. Exit criteria can be used with a predetermined set of circumstances, such as ensuring that all tests are completed and no issues remain unresolved.

Regression Testing Should Be Automated
Automating regression testing improves efficiency and saves time and effort. Repetitive testing might cause testers to get drowsy and lose motivation. It also has an impact on the quality of their work because the testing is repetitious. Automated regression testing will free up resources for more difficult tests. When we employ automation, the test cases and software may both be reused, increasing the return on investment.

In a Glimpse

This post enforces the significance of regression testing in providing a well-functioning product. As previously stated in this blog post, many forms of regression testing may be conducted at various points of the testing life cycle. There are various approaches to address the difficulties in regression testing.

One approach is to employ a cloud-based app testing tool such as TestQuality, an Impressively Powerful QA Test Case Management platform which is in the Cloud and therefore it's a Scalable Test Management suite that can help you to create Test Suites and keep your Quality Assurance with live statistics and powerful analytics that will greatly increase the efficacy of regression testing. Using a testing automation test management suite like TestQuality, there will be hundreds of devices to do parallel testing and features to supplement regression testing automation.

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