Why is the Browser and API Testing Shift Left?

Quality assurance and software testing are the key areas of the software development phase. The current scenario is that the software development lifecycle (SDLC) demands integrating testing simultaneously with development. To assess the quality of test codes with ease, teams find it easy to execute testing soon after the development stage across the CI/CD pipeline for better quality checks. It is referred to as shift left testing.

Shift left, initially conducted at the end of the software development lifecycle, is now executed simultaneously in each stage of development (testing comes to the left of the development stage in the workflow process). This technique is becoming exceedingly popular and driving the growth of DevOps and other modern development techniques.

Testing is introduced in the early stage of the product development lifecycle, which allows the team to detect potential bugs, improve brand affinity by building products that customers desire and save time and money for their organizations. After the developers added the end-to-end browser and API testing to CI/CD pipelines, the scope of testing and quality assurance practices have extended.

What is Browser testing?

Browser testing is a type of non-functional testing that validates the performance of a code on different browsers. In addition to this, browser testing also checks how test codes interact with essential data sources. By introducing browser testing to the early stage of the development process, the developers have added another layer of quality testing to check the code compatibility across different browsers. The QA practices are reformed with the addition of browser testing along with other shift-left testing techniques such as unit and security testing in CD/CI pipelines.

The key areas that are analyzed in browser testing

  1. Browser testing validates the basic functionality to ensure that most of these work on different browser combinations. The functionalities such as dialogue boxes, menus, the input fields in the forms, website handling first-party cookies, and seamless touch inputs for mobile and tablets are validated by browser testing.
  2. The website designer chooses a uniform design such as applications fonts, images, and layouts. The team executes browser testing to ensure that the design elements appear the same as the design shared before the execution of the step. 
  3. The team executes browser testing also to check if it meets the accessibility criteria. The account must be compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and accessible to all users with ease.
  4. Browser testing also validates the website responsiveness. The design team ensures that the website design seamlessly adapts and fits the different screen sizes and orientations.

What is API testing?

API testing is a software testing type where we test functionality, security, performance, reliability, accessibility, usability, and API attributes of an Application Programming Interface (API). API is a group of codes or collective codes replicating an interface between two computers. With the help of API, organizations can deploy external systems with their existing programs and extend the verification and computing services beyond the purview of the programs.

Let us start with an understanding of what the Application Programming Interface is. An application is integrated with many data, and how users can access these data through communication with the application interface. Now consider that an organization wants to deploy an external system with their existing one to extend services through other channels; API makes this process effortless.

This connected program and framework need an adequate assessment and verification. Organizations conduct testing at the API level to focus on assessing the business processes, application security, and data responses. As API testing is ideal for DevOps and the continuous testing process, the development and QA teams use and automate it.

API testing is important

API testing is an integral part of the Agile software development process, which needs to incorporate feedback immediately for a smooth process flow. The User Interface or UI testing is inadequate for validating API service functionality and fails to cover necessary aspects of back-end testing. It may lead to the rewriting of innumerable codes, often causing a delay in the product release and a rise in the cost of production. If not detected earlier, it may also result in bugs going unnoticed within the server or unit levels.

API and Unit tests are easy to maintain and effective, and organizations prefer them over other tests. Tests like the GUI test are hard to keep up with the pace of frequent changes in an Agile environment and require continuous reworking.

The developers can begin with API testing early in the development cycle. It allows the developers to resolve the bugs before they become a critical issue. API testing allows the development team to provide improved services and products to their customers. Incorporating API testing into the Agile methodologies can help engineering and development teams to improve the entire development lifecycle and provide outstanding quality products and services to their customers.

The key areas that are analyzed in API testing

The key areas that are analyzed in API are the responses of,

  • Reply time
  • Quality of data
  • Confirmation of authorization
  • HTTP status code and
  • Error codes

Benefits of API testing

  • API testing ensures that the connection among the shared platforms is accessible, reliable, and safe.
  • API test automation is faster and cost-efficient as it requires less code than automated GUI testing.
  • API testing helps developers identify errors in the early development stage and fix the issues before the product release. Developers can access the app to discover the grey areas early without a user interface, allowing them to save time and money.
  • API tests use JSON or XML, and it contains HTTP requests and responses, making them independent of language criteria.
  • API tests analyze applications of harmful codes and breakages. It protects applications by removing all possible vulnerabilities.
  • API tests can be easily integrated with GUI tests before performing the latter. API tests allows to integrate new users to facilitate the testing process.
  • API tests help in analyzing the non-functional tests like security and performance testing as well.

How are both “shift left testing”?

Before we investigate how the browser and API testing is shift-left testing, let us understand what shift-left testing is? Shift-left testing is also defined as “Early and Often” because it analyses the functional aspects of the product at the early stage of the Software Development Lifecycle.

It is easy for the development and testing team in the agile framework to detect the issues early rather than putting them up for the later stage of the software development lifecycle. DevOps executes comprehensive end-to-end automation to enhance product accuracy and efficiency. But, there are other essential functional and non-functional aspects of software testing that need consideration but often go unnoticed.

API testing and browser testing are the perfect examples of shift-left testing, which needs serious consideration to validate the overall quality of the software. By including browser testing and API testing, the production team combines all functional and non-functional aspects into CD/CI pipelines and Continuous testing in a cost-effective and time-effective manner. It helps in reducing operational expenses and maintaining high-quality standards with greater ease. 

API and browser testing is introduced in the agile workflow early during the software development lifecycle and simultaneously runs along with integration, user acceptance, performance, security testing and more. Testing of unit and element can be done separately and integrated with the product during assembling. The practice does not just enhance the product quality but also helps in reducing time, money, and effort. 

Developers verify end-to-end workflows by combing HTTP requests and API calls through API tests. It helps the team validate all the layers of their systems from worldwide locations. Often there can be changes in the UI features that can affect the application performance on the website. The users validate complex navigation with the help of browser testing to ensure that no changes should hamper the application performance and look. It captures user view early at the development stage. 

Tests like API and browser are “shifting left” to earlier stages of the development process to maintain the rapid development pace. Companies are moving towards leveraging CI/CD practices to ensure that the codes are ready to be deployed. By taking the API and browser codes through the CD/CI pipelines, developers can analyze the product compatibility with different browsers. It can also help in detecting bugs earlier in the development cycle.

Running browser and API tests in your CI pipelines can help the teams to compare the tests with data from different stacks like the front end, back end, application, and infrastructure. They will be able to detect and troubleshoot failed tests during the development stage that boosts the QA process and development lifecycle.

Shifting browser and API testing to the left are considered the best option. By doing this development team can monitor any fundamental changes immediately before the final code goes live. It will also help in improving an organization’s business and operational activities.

Conclusion

We follow an agile methodology and framework in Yethi. We have a well-structured and planned environment for continuous testing. Our codeless test automation platform, Tenjin, is a plug-and-play banking-aware solution that is easy to integrate and learn. Tenjin’s robotic capabilities enable to learn and adapt to the application and its updates. Regardless of the complexity and number of updates, Tenjin facilitates continuous testing, minimizing the manual effort and speeding up the test execution, thereby helping you launch your product early in the market.

Our testing solution allows you to test your software at the beginning of the development stage. Testing is executed simultaneously with the development process so that you can test as you build. Tenjin covers comprehensive end-to-end testing, ensuring you have the quality codes and the product. 

API Ecosystem and Testing – An introduction

Application Programming Interface (API) Ecosystem spurs digital transformation. It creates an open-source and encourages the providers and the users to work together to develop and deliver a service ensuring complete customer satisfaction. API ecosystem allows the developers to retrieve data for developing a web application by connecting to a remote server. Through API, applications can exchange data with each other.

An API ecosystem is ideally a framework where an API leads to other APIs enhancing the capability of an organization to plan a strategy and manage its resources during the software development lifecycle. A healthy API ecosystem allows the developers to understand the organizational strategies and develop the digital product specially tailored to fit their requirements. API ecosystem, hence, becomes crucial to evaluate the success of the digital strategy of an organization.

To build a healthy API ecosystem, organizations must treat APIs as offerings so that they invest in them. To access the APIs, developers would require registration, documentation, consoles, sandboxes, mock test, and sample code. A carefully planning and designing based on understanding the requirements of API users can help eliminate the problems.  

What is API testing?

To ensure that the API meets the requirements for performance, usability, dependability, security and functionality, API testing is done. Testing for the APIs is done using the layer messages, which is critical as APIs in these instances act as the fundamental interface for an application and need to be logically correct. 

API testing ensures whether APIs respond correctly to every request. To protect from possible security threats, developers work with all aspects of APIs learning from failures and unexpected inputs as well as sending out responses on time. They also check for the response of API as an open-source after being extracted from the edge cases.

Why API testing is so important to building a healthy API ecosystem?

For a more compelling experience, the API ecosystem expands by establishing new connections. Therefore, launching an API would need a clear understanding of the business model. A business may offer thousands of services to its customers, but only the most relevant ones that define their business structure can be included in the API ecosystem.

An API must reflect the value of a business effort and determine how it can enhance the customer experience. Any effort of adapting an API without learning thoroughly about it would fail to add value to a business. API testing helps in detecting bugs in the system within the development timeline. It allows users to resolve discrepancies and ensure application security.

With organizations moving towards self-contained microservice architecture, they are adapting API to be able to deploy faster. API ensures steady and easy interaction between different datastores and controls the sections with ease. The effectiveness of the API ecosystem can be determined with API testing only.

API testing has a quick turnaround and is cost-efficient reducing time-to-market. API is the growing focus of organizations, which enables the front-end and back-end developers and testers together to take responsibility for API testing. They are looking forward to accelerating ROI and product launch by slashing down the testing time.  

The API lifecycle and its evolution  

The first step to establishing an ecosystem would be to promote an API. It is essential to maintain high-quality API documentation and productivity tools to offer well-designed portals to the developers.

API evolution is based on the requirements that the developers would want to access through various channels. Whether your audiences are single constituency or group constituencies, you can reach them through different communication channels, not just confining its portal’s web address or may also use any third-party platform for sharing the API codes on a wide scale.  

How to ensure the success of API testing?

There are two types of web services for the web API i.e., SOAP and REST, and the developers need to be aware of these two before they start testing the APIs. Having a clear output status is the basic requirement for API testing, wherein, the most important indicator is the response status code. API testing requires you to organize your tasks so that you are ready for the next step.

Conclusion

The contract between the user server and provider determines the API. Both these applications interact with each other to share the data. API testing helps to ensure that the data shared between the applications are secured and validated. API testing is a continuous process that helps in detecting and resolving system vulnerabilities before the end-users need to deal with the changes.

API testing helps in checking the functionality, performance, and security of the API. It checks the request-response combination against a pre-defined set of data combinations. API testing needs the right testing tools along with defining the right testing parameters.

At Yethi, we understand that with an increasing number of applications operating on Cloud platforms using ‘as-a-service’ business models you need stable and secure functioning APIs. As the importance of API testing grows in near future, we are following a constant innovation to help you reduce the testing time of your applications, so that you keep up with your commitments of launching your products quick in the market and stay ahead of your competition.

With years of experience and expertise in quality assurance of business applications, we combine the best of traditional testing with modern functional and security testing to ensure the functionality and security of APIs. We have developed a library of more than half-a-million test cases, which also include used cases like UPI and lending. From Tenjin to a SaaS-based testing platform, we have moved a level up in testing and innovation. Today we automate your end-to-end software testing cycle along with request and response configuration for APIs.

Test and Test Automation for PSD2 / Open Banking

The flexibility in digital banking as a form of open banking has compelled UK-based banks to share important financial information in a secured and organised way. The open banking concept is designed to transform the way people handle transactions. It is three years since banks in the UK have adapted to digital transformation and Open Banking, but there’s speculation about how secure the transactions would be.

These speculations about the adoption of PSD2 and Open Banking solutions can be put to rest. If organisations must run an Open Banking Solution successfully, they must ensure the following,

  1. API must be tested to ensure that it can handle the failed instances by responding with proper status codes.
  2. Integrated touchpoints are tested to ensure uncovering of the bottlenecks, irrespective of the application and technology complexities.
  3. The input data like customer or account information, deposit data, loan information, transaction details, and real-time process details are accessed through an interface that must be thoroughly validated.
  4. The expected performance load of applications must be validated, which concerns the factors like response time, scalability, downtime, and infrastructure costs. It ensures that the system’s stability and performance provide expected results even during high traffic with optimal resource utilisation.
  5. The banking APIs must be validated so that the application performs with desired results. Authentication is important for ensuring the performance of APIs.
  6. Validation of internal standards for creating audit trails and reporting procedures are must to ensure that the TPP partners have permission to maintain compliance for the API integrations of the financial institutions.

Beyond these speculations and apprehensions, there are opportunities to explore.

What is Open Banking?

Through open banking, the consumers, financial institutions, and third-party service providers can access and control customer information, financial records and transaction data from the banks and non-banking financial institutions using application programming interfaces (APIs). The concept of open banking is redefining the BFSI industry and customer experience.

Even though consumers are a little apprehensive about sharing a massive amount of data in an open platform through APIs, due to a couple of things going wrong, the fact that open banking has the potential to enhance the consumer experience is definite. However, customers must allow banks to access and control their personal and financial data by signing the terms and conditions of sharing the details with the third-party service providers.

Features of Open Banking:

  • Cash transactions are easy and convenient for the customers
  • Transferring cash to several accounts, or credit cards is faster using open banking
  • Checking the account balance of multiple banks on one platform
  • Calculates saving and expenses automatically based on user’s transactional behaviour
  • Combining all information of bank accounts and credit cards into a unified statement
  • Better money management using an AI personal financial assistant
  • Suggestions on saving for bills and insurance
  • Access to bank information for calculation of accurate credit score
  • Approval on loans and investment on a uniform platform

What is PSD2 and why is it now an integral part of open banking?

PSD2 Open Banking regulation implemented by the European Union. It is a regulatory directive initiated by the European Banking Association (EBA) and applies to European Union markets. The purpose of PSD2 is to make the payments and transactions easy, and banks must grant the rights to their customers to choose their payment partners to simplify the payment and transaction processes.

As PSD2 and open banking regulations have evolved to complement each other, and accordingly, open banking must also be compliant with all PSD2 directives. Open banking has now improved its scope by covering all payment products of PSD2 like Credit Cards, Debit Cards, e-Wallets, and more. Payments are likely to be fast and convenient through open banking solutions.

PSD2 and open banking serve as a uniform platform, eliminating various intermediaries such as merchant payment, payment gateway, Visa / MasterCard, issuing bank, acquiring bank, and others.

Features of PSD2:

  • Opens access to payment information for third-party payment service providers
  • PSD2 simplifies liability issues between the user bank and the third-party service
  • The PSD2 improves consumer protection
  • It eliminates the need for additional charges on payment methods
  • PSD2 ensures strict protection of consumers’ financial data by meeting security requirements for electronic payments

How do testing and QA work for open banking / PSD2?

To access open banking, banks must create open APIs, which must comply with regulatory standards, security protocols, safe data transfer, compliance with all the directives, and more. With these and many more prospects, Open banking needs regulatory testing, penetration testing, integration testing, performance testing, and security testing to ensure end-to-end platform security.

As customers access and transfer sensitive information and data simultaneously via open banking, the platform requires API, accessibility, and more testing to ensure that the platform is up and running without any technical glitches.

As open banking continues to grow and all financial institutions operating in Europe and UK must conform to Open Banking standards, it would require the testing team to ensure that the APIs and the platforms perform without disruption. They would seek expert QA professionals with extensive knowledge of open banking landscapes. The number of financial institutions is growing globally, which eventually may have to comply with Open Banking/PSD2. There is a greater possibility and opportunity to expand QA solutions far and wide.

Yethi’s role as QA testing partner for Open Banking / PSD2

Yethi is a reliable manual, and automation testing partner focused on the banking, financial and insurance sectors. We offer functional, non-functional and test advisory services including acceptance, regression, integration, performance, vulnerability assessment and penetration testing, and data migration. We have a well-managed Test Centre of Excellence by expert consultants who also offer tailored business process engineering.

An automated API provides intelligent, reliant, and seamless API testing to reduce testing costs and test-cycle time. Yethi no-code software automation testing solution, Tenjin is PSD2 and Open Banking ready. Its Oauth2 can work with the security and authentication standards currently in place. With its ease of use, Tenjin can test across your internal or on the sandbox environment. With multiple upstream and downstream integration points, Tenjin is ready for REST API.

Tenjin is built to be programming free and allows the functional testing teams and the system developers to test applications, making Functional, UI / UX testing, API testing and UI based business process testing easy and hassle-free. Our 5th generation codeless automation testing tools automate testing at the API level, enabling granular and faster test cycles in a multi-system environment; thereby facilitating early test adoption in today’s agile world.

Tenjin is an advanced automation suite, which can streamline API-level testing needs by rapidly switching between API and the GUI. We provide comprehensive regression testing in integrated environments to ensure a balance solution of agility and practicality.