How 2020-2021 pandemic has shaped the test automation landscape?

The world had come to an abrupt halt with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, but there was a sudden surge of innovation. Organizations in various sectors realized that to deal with the adversities of this crisis, they must innovate new ways to sustain their business. We adopted various digital platforms to interact and grow with the exchange of services and offerings. But ensuring the quality of these products, services and offerings remained a decisive point. 

We are all aware of the importance of testing. It is known to all that testing plays a vital role in ensuring system quality. Organizations are extremely vocal about the incompleteness of quality assurance without appropriate and adequate testing practices, structure, tools, and plans. Did the testing process come to an abrupt halt due to the outbreak of the Pandemic? No, it did not. In fact, organizations found different channels to facilitate the testing projects. As the old saying goes, “necessity is the mother of inventions”. 2020-2021 pandemic became a driving force to innovate for quality assurance.

Pandemic surely had some negative and positive impacts on digital transformation. But that did not refrain people from trying out new solutions and remedies to their problems. Let us look at some of the positive and negative impacts of digital transformation that organizations had to face during the global pandemic.

Positive impact of Covid-19 in digital transformation

There has been a tremendous change in the way people work, think, and act. They have learnt new techniques and how to put them to use. The digital transformation has made people adapt to the changes. They have learnt to think out of the box and try new technologies. Digital transformation has facilitated remote working, and employees know that they can still be productive and efficient even while working remotely. The new work structure is like, “give us the facilities and new technologies, and we will innovate from there”.

Negative impact of Covid-19 on digital transformation

What seemed like a positive development for some were unfavorable for others. Covid-19 came with certain restrictions on communication and physical interaction. Some of the organizations that followed an old school method could not evolve with the surrounding changes leading to the disintegration of their foundation. Many physical branches were closed down with the decrease in footfall, and their business moved to the virtual platform. It has become a strenuous task for the management team to bring their employees back to the office. Employees have learnt new ways of working it has become hard to drag their feet back to the office.

Testing before Pandemic

Software testing is an integral part of quality assurance, and organizations cannot put them on the back burner. Testing has come to the mainstream and is executed simultaneously with the development lifecycle. Organizations realized the importance of testing long before the outbreak of Covid-19 hence, continuous testing is included in CI/CD pipeline as an inseparable process. With the introduction of effective test automation tools, it has become easy and convenient to conduct and execute testing practices like regression, UI/UX functionality, integration, user acceptance and more at a massive scale. But there are more test requirements, which need expert and skilled testers to execute them. It is one reason that even after innovating the most effective test automation tools, organizations still require manual testing. Hence, we have the best of both worlds and automation test practice is most efficiently supported by manual testing.

Testing before the pandemic was mostly conducted onsite, with a significant portion handled by the offshore team. The organization had the advantages of system architecture and an adequate bandwidth with an efficient technical team deployed onsite that helped them carry out the end-to-end testing process without any disruption. After checking the end-to-end testing process and the product release, it would not have made much difference for the technical team to be on the testing site. However, the maintenance of the software performance and quality assurance was largely done by the offshore team.

Testing during Pandemic

The testing team still maintained the right blend of manual and automation testing. But a few things changed during the pandemic due to certain factors. There were sudden restrictions on travel and human contact. People were working from home and remotely, and international travel came to an abrupt halt. The testing process, however, could not have stopped. Organizations realized that it is only wise to adopt remote or offshore testing as an option. As test automation is more improvised and integrated with high-end technologies, remote and offshore testing would be as productive as onsite testing.

The remote testing model proved to be extremely convenient as the organizations could save a significant operational cost while the testing team handled the technical challenges and adversities. The technical team overcame many challenges like time zone differences, travel restrictions, and time constraints, ensuring 100% success in handling the end-to-end testing project from offshore. The team paid extra effort to deliver the project with utmost competence and assurance that all the testing aspects were considered and that all errors were addressed well without fail. Organizations are more confident that quality project delivery is possible even with challenges amidst the crisis.

Testing after Pandemic

Organizations are more prepared to deal with crisis and keep their business as usual (BAU) functional. It is no longer about choosing a testing project model. They have two models and multiple testing strategies based on their specific project requirements. Automation and manual testing go hand-in-hand and are applicable for many testing projects. The testing of banking or financial applications is exceptionally vital. Hence, it is necessary to have the most updated test automation tool to combine with the right test strategies, planning, and practice.

Organizations would not forsake either offshore or onsite testing models. Instead, both the testing model would act as a support to each other. Applying offshore testing proved to be a winning game for many organizations, as they succeeded in implementing the testing project and reap the benefits of offshore testing. Organizations have saved time and costs by adopting offshore test project models. Onsite testing is advisable when organizations have the in-house digital testing architecture to carry out the testing project. It is critical to have a compatible set-up of in-house architecture for the onsite testing model.

Conclusion –

After years of flourishing by offering onsite and offshore testing models to many organizations, Yethi has successfully delivered and completed 9+ offshore testing projects globally during pandemic 2020-2021. We are a niche QA services provider and have years of experience in delivering onsite & offshore testing projects. Having expertise in offering end-to-end testing services across all the major core banking applications with functional areas like Liabilities, Payments, Assets, Trade finance, Treasury and more, we have worked with 90+ clients across 22+ countries. We have not let our clients suffer from this unprecedented global situation and provided complete support to help banks avoid any business disruption and be prepared for any potential impact.

Our offshore testing model is designed considering all aspects like project knowledge, time constraint, travel restrictions, time zone differences and more. Our onsite and offshore testing models are managed by expert consultants and supervisors and backed by highly skilled resources and maestros in testing and programming to ensure that the testing projects are efficient and cost-effective.

Our highly experienced testing & digital consultants understand the processes and technologies involved in digital projects & quickly scale capacity to meet the needs of your business. Our dedicated offshore and onsite team can continue the workload with proper coordination, creating a continuous testing cycle.

We address the challenges of business continuity through our efficient testing models. Our 5th generation robotic codeless test automation tool Tenjin is built with intuitive features and supports our QA services. It is a fast and scalable test automation platform and works flawlessly across multiple applications to provide accurate test results.

Risk-based Testing: Uncovering Risks

Risk-based testing starts early in the project by identifying the risks to the quality of the system.  This knowledge is used to guide the planning, preparation, and execution of testing.  The testing begins early in the project by identifying the risks to ensure the quality of the system.  Risk-based testing included mitigation testing which would offer opportunities to reduce the possibility of defects.

In risk-based testing, the quality risks are identified and assessed with stakeholders through a product quality risk analysis. The testing team designs, implements, and tests to reduce the quality risks.

Each product could convey a different grade of risk after identifying the parameters impacting the same and grading them.  Depending on the grades worked out, the classification as high, medium, and low risk is done. The intensity of the approach depends on the level of risk.

Need for risk-based testing:

Risk-based testing helps in reducing the remaining level of product risk during system implementation. The testing is done in the beginning stages of the project and helps all the persons involved to control the SDLC/STLC.

Risk for each product is investigated from processes and procedures, which are then graded. This method of quantifying risk allows testers to determine each risk’s overall impact and predict the damage caused by failure to test specific functionality. The strategy includes risk severity-based classification tests to identify the worst or most risky areas affecting the business.  It uses risk analysis to predict the likelihood of avoiding or eliminating defects using non-testing procedures and to help the organization select the necessary testing actions to perform.

The benefit of risk-based testing is to cut short timelines with optimal coverage.  It helps banks or financial institutions to lay their focus on high-risk areas in terms of q/a.

The above will help in reducing the efforts and costs without compromising on quality.

Yethi has out of its own experience, developed strategies and scoring patterns to help identify the risk level and the consequent impact on the project execution.

Action plan

Identify the risk

Risks are found through different testing methods and categorized accordingly. A chart is prepared based on the risk weightage and impact on the product.  The process involves organizing different risk workshops, checklists, root cause analysis, and interactions.

Risk analysis

Based on the risk parameters, ranks are allotted based on the probability and consequences that may follow.

A register or a table is used as a spreadsheet with a list of identified risks, potential responses, and root causes. Different risk analysis strategies can be used to manage positive and negative risks.

Response strategy

Based on the risk, the team chooses the right test to create a plan of action. Document the dependencies and assign responsibilities across the teams. In some cases, the risk strategy is conditional on the project.

Test Scoping

A review activity that ensures that all stakeholders have hearsay along with the tech staff.  Risk scoping helps create backup plans based on the worst-case scenarios, just to be prepared for a cascade of failures.

Identify the probability and high exposure areas and analyze the requirements.

Testing

After all parameters and scope of testing are listed out, testing needs to be carried out in stages. Prepare a risk register to record all developments from the initial risk analysis, existing checklist, and brainstorming sessions.

Perform dry test runs to ensure quality is maintained at each stage.

Maintain traceability between risk items and at every level of testing, e.g., component, system, integration, and acceptance.

Conclusion

Risk-based testing systems are sophisticated, efficient, and entirely project-oriented that resulting in minimizing risks. The testing efforts are quite organized, where each test has a protocol based on risk probability.

CI For Automation Testing Framework

Let us consider that you have a critical project idea, and you want to set up an automation testing framework. A complex mobile application will need a lot of iteration right from the beginning. The complexities of the application may arise due to frequent changes in functionalities, adding new features, and running regression frequently to validate the changes. This will sway your project back and forth, consuming time, money, and effort, and the result will not equal up the effort made.

To end all the confusion, CI (continuous integration)/ CD (continuous deployment or delivery) is introduced at the very beginning of the software development lifecycle. The process offers a stable development environment and facilitates the automation testing framework with speed, safety, and reliability. It eliminates the challenges like lack of consistency and the numerous errors that arise due to human intervention of an application development process, ensuring that the users receive an error-free, end-product with a seamless user experience.  

What is CI/CD?

Technically speaking, CI/CD is a method that is frequently used to deliver apps to customers by using automation early in the app development stage. The main concepts associated with CI/CD include continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment.

We can think of it as a solution to various problems for the development and operations team while integrating new code.

With the introduction of CI/CD, developers have ongoing automation and continuous monitoring during the lifecycle of an application – be it the integration phase, testing phase, or delivery and deployment phase.

When we combine all these practices, it can be called the ‘CI/CD pipeline.’ Both development and operation teams work together in an agile way, either through a DevOps approach or site reliability engineering (SRE) approach.

Automation testing in CI/CD

Automation testing in CI/CD helps the QA engineers define, execute, and automate various tests. These tests allow the developers to access the performance of their applications in an innovative manner.

It can tell them whether their app build has passed or failed. Moreover, it can help in functionality testing after every sprint and regression for complete software.

Regression tests can run on their local environments before sending the code to the version control repository to save the team’s time.

However, automation testing isn’t confined to regression tests. Various other tests, such as static code analysis, security testing, API testing, etc., can be automated.

The central concept is to trigger these tests through web service or other tools that can result in success or failure.

Test automation framework runs on a set of guidelines, rules, and regulations. DevOps team needs to implement a proper test strategy following these guidelines, rules, and regulations before they start the testing process. They have to set the process right and decide when to introduce CI during the entire software testing lifecycle, when to start the execution, and the deployment process. Some of the key points to consider:

  • Evaluating test automation frameworks: Ensuring codeless representation of automated tests, that support data-driven tests, and concise reporting.
  • Choose the test automation framework based on the requirement: The different types of test automation framework include modular testing framework, data-driven framework, keyword-driven framework, and hybrid framework.
  • Defining the objective for automation: This is an important step where the objective of the test automation must be set clear. It includes choosing the right tools, skillsets, framework, current requirements, and considering the future trends.
  • Defining the benefits of the automation framework: Considering the benefits of the automation framework for faster test script creation, longer automation span, easy maintenance, reusability probability, and good data migration support.
  • Automation compliance: Testing the software for the latest regulatory compliance.

Benefits of deploying a CI/CD pipeline in automation testing framework

Wondering why a team should work on CI/CD pipeline? Here are some of the benefits associated with it:

  • Boosts DevOps efficiency

In the absence of CI/CD, developers and engineering teams are under immense pressure while carrying out their daily tasks. It could be due to service interruptions, outages, and bad deployments.

With the help of CI/CD, teams can eliminate manual tasks and thereby prevent coding errors. In addition, it will help them detect problems before deployment. This way, teams can work faster without having to compromise on the quality. Furthermore, since the manual tasks are automated, the release rates also decrease.

  • Smaller code changes

A significant technical benefit of CI/CD is that it helps integrate small pieces of code at one time. Therefore, it gets much easier and simpler to handle as compared to huge chunks of code. Also, there will be fewer issues to be fixed at a later stage.

With the help of continuous testing, these small codes can be tested as soon as they are implemented. It is a fantastic approach for large development teams working remotely or in-office.

  • Freedom to experiment

The CI/CD approach helps developers experiment with various coding styles and algorithms with much lesser risk than traditional software development paradigms.

If the experiment does not work as expected, it won’t ever appear in the production and can be undone in the next iteration set. This feature of competitive innovation is a decisive factor behind the fame of the CI/CD approach.

  • It improves reliability

With the help of CI/CD, you can improve test reliability to a great extent. It is because specific and atomic changes are added to the system. Therefore, the developers or QAs can post more relevant positive and negative tests for the changes. This testing process is also known as ‘Continuous Reliability’ within a CI/CD pipeline. This approach helps in making the process more reliable.

  • Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is an essential aspect of the success of any product or application. It is a crucial factor that should be considered while releasing a new app or updating an existing one.

With the help of CI/CD, bugs are fixed while it is still in the development phase. Through automated Software Testing for Continuous Delivery, the feedback from the users is easier to integrate into the system. When you offer bug-free and quick updates on your app, it will help boost customer satisfaction.

  • Reduces the time to market

Another essential feature that makes CI/CD popular is the deployment time. The time to market plays a crucial role in the success of your product release. It helps increase engagement with your existing customers, gain more profit, support pricing, and get more eyeballs.

When you launch the product at the right time in the market, the product’s ROI will surely increase.

These are just a few benefits of CI/CD. It isn’t just a tool for software development but also an approach to set your business as a leader in the market.

Conclusion

CI/CD is an essential aspect of software building and deployment. It facilitates building and enhancing great apps with faster delivery time. Furthermore, continuous testing automation enables the app to go through the feedback cycle quicker and build better and more compatible apps.

Why Yethi for your projects?

Organizations need strategies and a customized testing environment to offer continuous testing with every integration and deployment. You cannot go wrong with the implementations. Our approach towards building an automation testing framework is agile. We offer continuous testing for all your integration and deployment ensuring that you get a stable, safe, and scalable product. The robotic capabilities of Tenjin – our codeless test automation platform, which enable to learn and adapt to the application and its updates. Tenjin, is a plug-and-play banking aware solution, continuous testing, minimizing the manual effort and speed up the test execution regardless of the complexity and number of updates.

Code Coverage Vs. Test Coverage

Improving the ‘quality’ of software is the key to creating a loyal customer base and increasing the ROI. There are different metrics to assess the software quality, the most important ones are code coverage and test coverage. Sometimes both are used interchangeably, however, they are not the same. Both are used to measure the effectiveness of the code, hence, giving a clear picture of the quality of the software and deciding if the product is ready for deployment.

As code and test coverage are necessary to evaluate the efficiency of the code used in developing the software; let’s shed light on how code coverage and test coverage differ from each other and help in providing an insight to the software quality.

What is Code Coverage?

Code coverage is performed to analyse the code execution length. It is a software testing practice that determines the extend to which the code has been executed by observing the critical lines in the code across the length. Further, it helps in validating the code for understanding the robustness of the final outcome.

Code coverage is a white-box testing technique that generates a report that details how much of the application code has been executed, making it easy to develop enterprise-grade software products for any software company.

How is Code Coverage Performed?

Code coverage is fundamentally performed at the unit testing level by considering various criteria. Here are a few critical coverage criteria that most companies practice:

Function Coverage: covers the functions in the source code that are called and executed at least once.

Statement Coverage: covers the number of statements that have been successfully implemented in the source code.

Path Coverage: covers the flows containing a series of controls and conditions that have operated well at least once.

Branch Coverage: covers the decision control structures like loops that have been executed without errors.

Condition Coverage: covers the Boolean expressions validated and performs both TRUE and FALSE as per the test runs.

Loop Coverage: covers the completed loop body zero times, exactly once or more than once.

What is Test Coverage?

Unlike code coverage, test coverage is a black-box testing procedure that provides data about the tests performed on an application or website. It controls the number of tests that have been completed by deciding the area of a requirement not executed by a set of test cases.

Test coverage helps to create additional test cases to ensure the maximum range of requirements is outlined in multiple documents like:

  • FRS (Functional Requirements Specification)
  • SRS (Software Requirements Specification)
  • URS (User Requirement Specification)

Additionally, it helps identify a quantitative measure of test coverage, which is an indirect method for quality checks.

How is Test Coverage Performed?

Test coverage can be accomplished by practicing static review procedures like peer reviews, inspections, and walkthroughs by transforming the ad-hoc defects into executable test cases.

It is performed at the code level or unit test level using automated code coverage or unit test coverage tools. In contrast, functional test coverage can be done with the help of proper test management tools.

Here are a few critical coverage criteria that most companies practice:

  • Functional testing: Functional testing evaluates the features against requirements specified in the Functional Requirement Specification (FRS) documents.
  • Acceptance testing: Acceptance testing verifies whether a product is suitable to be delivered for customer use.
  • Unit testing: Unit testing is performed at the unit level, where the bugs are extensively different from problems found at the integration stage.

Significant Differences Between Code Coverage and Test Coverage

Here are some of the prime differences between code and test coverage:

Code Coverage Test Coverage
Refers to which application code is exercised when the application is running Refers to how well the Number of tests
executed covers the functionality of an application
Helps in measuring how efficiently the test execution can be achieved Provides new test cases, which helps to improve the test coverage and, in return, increases the defects
Checks the quantitative measurement Helps identify the measure of test cases, which enhances the quality of the software
Helps in testing the source code Eliminates test cases that are not useful and do not increase the test coverage of the software
Defines the degree of testing Helps find the areas that are not implemented by any test cases
Performed by developers Performed by the QA Team

Method to Calculate Code and Test Coverage

The formulas for calculating various coverages of code are:

Code Coverage

Statement Coverage can be calculated as the number of executed statements/Total number of statements X 100

Function Coverage can be calculated as the number of functions called/Total number of functions X 100

Branch Coverage can be calculated as the number of executed branches/Total number of branches X 100

Example: If the total number of executed branches are 6 and the total number of branches is 7, then the branch coverage will be 6/7*100 = .85

Test Coverage

In the first step, calculate the total number of lines in the software under test.

Then in the second step, calculate the number of lines of all the codes of all the test cases currently under execution.

Then divide the count in step one by count in step two.

The result is then multiplied by 100 to get the percentage of test coverage that is covered. 

Example: If the total number of lines in a code is 500 and the number of lines executed in all is 50, the test coverage is 500/50 * 100 = 10%.

Conclusion

In this fast-paced, technology-driven world, understanding code coverage and test coverage are necessary for developers and testers. These coverages help strengthen and simplify the code so that the resulting application is the highest possible quality. However, developers and QAs can build result-driven, modern code that sets the foundation of genuinely great software by executing these concepts.

[INFOGRAPHIC] Manual Vs Automated Testing

Software testing has evolved from tedious manual testing processes to automated solutions. As software development processes are getting complex and moving towards a more agile approach, manual testing can be time-consuming while lacking accuracy and consistency due to its mundane nature. To ensure the quality of the software is the best, organizations are adapting test automation solutions that will also significantly reduce time, cost, and effort.

Take a look at the below infographic to understand the difference between Manual and Automated Testing, and decide which one to choose.

 

Manual Vs Automated Testing

Though, automation testing is preferred by most of the organizations today, manual testing cannot be eliminated from the process completely. Manual testing is required to set the initial automation process. However, automated testing is best suited for regression testing, repeated test execution, and performance testing.

Resolving Quality Issues Across DevOps Pipeline

DevOps has transformed the process of software development and testing. It is a multidisciplinary approach that brings together the development and operation departments together. This strategy leads to a cultural shift where professionals from both groups work together, thus, leading to better synergy, usage of automation across the board, and more flexibility. DevOps strategies lead to streamlining multiple processes, reducing errors, and building a faster and more successful deployment process.

The smooth collaboration between the development and the operations team offered by DevOps promotes quicker product delivery. Here, testing is performed alongside the development giving scope to identify bugs earlier in the product development cycle. This approach expands the scope of software testing and reduces the occurrence of bugs significantly.

6 Quality issues with DevOps and how to solve them

Performance Issues

Practicing continuous integration and deployment tends to make processes in any industry faster. However, sometimes a team’s performance could be slower with continuous deployment than with manual work.

Solution: DevOps team should analyze if their processes are efficient enough. Although automated processes are faster than manual ones, they still need to be analyzed to choose the right tool that will help them to meet their business goals.

Users should check if all the steps in their DevOps processes are necessary. Removing unnecessary steps is an excellent way to reduce complications and get consistent results. User metrics also helps to analyze the stages of the process, such as how much time each task takes. When analyzing metrics, it is recommended that the team figures out the maximum capacity. Some tools may not work fast enough, so they need to be replaced with upgraded technology.

Security Issues

Sometimes development teams could take shortcuts due to a production rush, either due to an extended holiday period or a huge deal. This could lead to a compromise of the system’s security. Huge incidents could lead to loss of billions of dollars and potential bankruptcy, and also affect the brand reputation adversely.

Solution: The team should maintain consistent security hygiene. This includes keeping access to vital tools for CI (Continuous Integration) and CD (Continuous Deployment) secure. Highly secure passwords are still the safest bet.

Contrary to popular belief, CI/CD jobs should be executed with the fewest number of privileges, not the most. If a hacker reconfigures a system that has more permissions than necessary, it could break the production cycle. When the system has been reset to safety, plenty of data could be hacked and stolen, leading to losses to intellectual and monetary property.

Separate Tools Set for Development and Operations Teams

One of the biggest challenges is the implementation of different sets of tools for both the development and operations teams. Identifying and synchronizing the differences between the two teams is vital for running a business smoothly.

Solution: Better collaboration would lead to increased productivity for the DevOps teams. Teams should strive to work towards a unified goal and be trained to understand how to achieve them.

A complete set of instructions and better communication would guarantee the best results. Data could be tested to see if the team has successfully deployed understanding the business problems, training tests, and work schedule maintenance.

Version Control Management Issues

The CI & CD processes are created specifically, keeping the company’s goal in mind. But sometimes, the software undergoes a major update, especially at the time of deployment, and everything could crash, or an urgent task could completely stall. 

Solution: One solution could be to disable auto-updates so that any impediments do not arise in the work schedule. The team must prioritize stability over the newest release date. During deployment, it is a better option to use the stable version of the software rather than the latest one.

In addition, we believe there should be a DevOps team that can be responsible for version control. They could maintain a record of newer versions and features and check to see if they can still support previous systems.

However, not updating the software for a long time can leave the DevOps team vulnerable to viruses in the system as well as outdated technology. While newer updates need to be analyzed, they should not be avoided and put to good use when necessary.

Regular Testing

If testing software is not well-strategized, or a wrong approach is taken to it, it can lead to problems in production and distribution.

Solution: Developers must take test results as seriously as possible. Sometimes, assumptions are made that some minor glitches during testing would not appear in real-time, but the company would have to pay a heavy price if something goes wrong.

Developers should deploy approval procedures for new features to prevent software with bugs from being deployed. They should also focus on writing automation and unit tests. Experts have suggested that as a bare minimum, DevOps should ensure that there are UI and API automated tests.

Finally, developers should test their optimizations regularly. Initial iterations could be lighter and faster to deploy. However, as one keeps adding more code, each optimization could become more complex and bring lesser value. Developers should approach it carefully, as the gains derived from optimization may not match up to the constant investments made to upgrade it.

Resistance to Change

Sometimes the organization may feel resistant to the idea of shifting to a DevOps setup. Proposing that the change is necessary may not go well with certain team members, who think that it reflects poorly on their current efforts.

Solution: Like any significant change, DevOps’ change would be gradual and not happen overnight. When employees are shown the importance of DevOps and given different essential roles that contribute to the development process, the DevOps culture becomes more ingrained.

Teams must find a product or existing application and replicate its performance in a DevOps setup. If employees can see the benefits, they are more likely to adopt the changes to employ the DevOps strategies.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we would say that while the DevOps pipeline can bring certain limitations, those changes are manageable and can help an organization soar to amazing heights post its implementation.

Test-driven development – What is it, and how could it help you?

Delivering uk best essays.org quality code in a small timeframe has become more critical than ever before. To increase their pace, organizations are moving towards integrating agile methodologies in their software development framework. However, this has resulted in organizations ignoring the importance of performing rigorous testing that leads to generating more bugs. This ends up taking a significant amount of the team’s time, which could have been utilized for working on the production or deployment of the product. Hence essays services reviews.com, to successfully tackle the issue of creating quality code at a rapid pace, test-driven development (TTD) has emerged.

Let’s understand test-driven development and explore its benefits and drawbacks, and how it can contribute to the organization’s overall success.

What is Test-Driven Development?

TDD is a software development practice that aims to create unit test cases before developing the actual code. It utilizes an iterative approach that combines refactoring, creating unit tests and programming. Deriving its roots from extreme programming and agile manifesto principles, TDD is a structuring practice that allows development and testing teams to procure optimized, resilient code in the long term.

Starting with designing and developing tests for small features of the product, the TDD framework instructs to create new code only if the automated test has failed. This helps the team to avoid duplication of scripts.

Steps for Implementing Test-Driven Development

TDD centres work around six simple steps that are repeated throughout the software development lifecycle. These steps ensure that the code is simple and efficient and fulfils the functional business requirements.

  • Writing the test

As the development in TDD is driven by a test, the first step involves creating a unit test. It should be effortless and only focus on testing a specific feature or component of a larger feature.

  • Running the test

After creating the test, the next step is to run it and confirm that it failed. This step enables to think about the requirements of the feature or section of a code.

  • Fixing the code

After the confirmation that the test has failed, the team should work on writing the code that will enable them to fix it. This step focuses on writing a test code that will satisfy the test conditions instead of writing the perfect solution.

  • Re-running the test

After creating the new testing script, the test should be re-run to check whether it passes the new test.

  • Refactoring

In this step, the team should refactor the code written in step 3 to integrate it with the existing codebase. The code should improve the readability of the test, distinguish it from logical parts, and rename or move variables and methods.

  • Repeat

TDD should be continued gradually to add features and functionality of the product. If all the test cases are small, the entire process, from writing a failing test to confirming a passing test and refactoring, can only take a few minutes. This helps to slowly progress towards a fully-realized feature, thereby, showing progress in the entire codebase.

Advantages of Test-Driven Development

  • Decreases the dependency on debugging

As TDD primarily focuses on creating the test case and only then creating code required to pass it, it further allows to dramatically decrease the requirement for debugging. Also, TDD helps to quickly identify and recognize a failing test as it advocates for a deeper understanding of logic and functional requirements during test case writing and coding.

  • Takes User Experience into account

Due to the nature of first thinking and then writing about the test, it should be fundamentally worked from backwards. It first considers the function that will be used, how it can be implemented, and how it needs to be written. Thus, TDD forces one to consider the functionality’s user experience elements and, therefore, the entire project.

  • Reduces overall development time

As per industry experts, when compared to the traditional, non-test-driven model, implementing TDD practices has helped organizations facilitate their total development time for a project. Even though the lines of code can stretch (because of the extra lines involved in tests), frequent testing prevents bugs and helps to catch existing ones much earlier in the process before they become problematic.

Conclusion

TDD shows the willingness of organizations to leave behind traditional approaches to software testing where tests are only run after the programming work is completed. It highlights the importance of testing when combined with development. This new approach gives a thorough understanding of how each part of the codebase works and assist them in catching errors before it’s too late in the development process. While it isn’t without its flaws, TDD’s benefits far outweigh its drawbacks if implemented correctly.

Why Developers Prefer Codeless Test Automation?

With the exponential growth and advancement in technology, the software development industry is experiencing a massive change in the development paradigm. As the software development is advancing, major transformation has been witnessed at the testing front to ensure higher quality of the end-product. Further, the advent of DevOps and Agile methodologies have brought significant transformation in the testing industry. From manual software testing legacy to automated testing – software testing has traversed a long path of evolution. Codeless test automation is the next generation technological change in the software testing domain. With a wide range of benefits it offers, codeless test automation is the most preferred by  developers across the globe.

What is test automation?

Test automation is a popular testing approach that leverages automation techniques and tools. Instead of using a manual procedure for validating the software execution, it uses automated tools that increase efficiency with faster time-to-market. Some common types of automated tests are integration testing, regression testing, smoke testing, and unit testing. All agile software development processes require automation testing.

What is codeless test automation?

Software testing has always been a bane while developing software products. With the onset of the codeless test automation era, the associated hassles and risks have been reduced to a significant level. Codeless test automation or codeless auto-testing or codeless automation is a continuous testing technique that renders creating automated tests without composing a single line of code. For large software projects that require frequent release cycles, writing scripts for testing & devising a test environment takes a long time and resource. That crushes the goal of DevOps continuous testing and auto-testing. At this point, codeless testing comes to the rescue.

Codeless automation allows the team to automate the process of writing test scripts without any code. It ultimately helps the team to focus on the quality of software testing while reducing the hardcore coding process. In addition, codeless test automation makes testing scenarios easy to use by reducing the time that requires almost no coding efforts.

Why Developers Prefer Codeless Test Automation?

Carrying codeless test automation is not utterly code-free. However, there is a plenty of reasons why developers go with codeless test automation while developing products through continuous testing techniques.

  • In the case of DevOps continuous testing, writing scripts for test automation multiple times defeats the purpose of rigorous auto-tests. It is because writing the scripts increases the time-to-market of the product. On the other hand, codeless testing expedites the testing process where the team has to deliver little effort on automation. Thus, it helps developers focus on product operation and innovative approaches.
  • Software testers are not necessarily hard-core programmers. But considering the instance that testers should know a good level of coding makes it problematic. So, software development firms can leverage codeless test automation to increase test coverage with zero coding skills for testers.
  • Codeless testing is a quicker way of delivering a product. It makes the entire software development process cost-effective. It ultimately diminishes the developer’s hassle with the testing team.
  • Codeless testing solutions have a user-friendly interface. That makes it easier for testers and developers to accelerate the testing process in the software development life cycle.
  • Error in the test script delays the product development process if you follow the traditional automation testing. So, to help developers and testers work in spontaneous flow, codeless testing is advantageous.
  • Traditional QA testing tools take days or even weeks to create automated testing scenarios. For avoiding complex codes and frameworks, testers can leverage codeless test automation. That makes the testers work in parallel with the DevOps team, and hence developers can fix the bugs promptly and accelerate the production process.

Benefits of Codeless Testing

Codeless testing not only interests the developers but also gives testers and companies a satisfying experience. Here are some of the benefits of codeless testing.

  • Continuous testing demands repetitive product tests. Through codeless testing, testers can evaluate the functionality without manually writing the test scripts.
  • It allows testers to create test environments with zero coding skills.
  • Codeless Automation Tools allow generating test reports easily.
  • It allows smooth integration of bug tracking tools and effortless management of complex tests.
  • This technique allows testers to learn and use such tools efficiently, as it does not require any programming background.
  • This kind of test automation also renders visual UI workflows that innately follow current business rules. Thus, it makes testing scalable and easy to alter under different test scenarios.
  • Codeless testing is highly compatible with the software development lifecycle. In agile and DevOps methodologies, codeless automation tests make continuous testing quicker and more effective. Since testers don’t have to write a test script, it matches the pace of the development cycle for continuous integration.
  • Codeless automation tools also render the visual description of a process. Hence, the documentation process becomes effortless. Such testing makes documentation through logs and videos by utilizing advanced testing practices.

How does Codeless Automation tools help developers?

Codeless automation tools help testers to perform quality assurance checking faster. It ultimately aids developers in dealing with bug-fixing things before product deployment. Such automation tools also come with a friendly interface supporting the drag and drop feature. The record and play method is the most popular codeless technique utilized in web-based product development. For DevOps engineers, such tools allow rapid DevOps continuous testing. Due to the high scalability and integration, codeless automation tools can easily integrate with ML or AI technologies. Such integration makes development even faster.

Conclusion

Codeless testing has an overabundance of benefits that outweigh the drawbacks of general automation testing. Its adaptability and easy integration make it the ideal fit for agile software projects. Since codeless testing eliminates scripting, project delivery becomes faster even with a confined scope and tight deadlines.

Yethi is a niche QA service provider that leverages the capabilities of codeless automation for the BFSI industry. Yethi’s test automation platform, Tenjin, is a 6th generation tool that can effortlessly and efficiently carry out the testing of all functional and non-functional parameters. Thereby, allowing banks and financial companies to offer a seamless customer experience with accurate and consistent results.

How to reduce flakiness of your automated tests?

Software testing is an inevitable part of the entire software development and deployment cycle, which is directly linked to the quality of the end products. In addition to testing for errors, bugs, and other discrepancies, it is also important to check the consistency of the test results. Sometimes, the results may vary for the same test code, making the process unreliable; failures due to inconsistent test results are called flaky tests. Flaky tests tend to hinder the developmental process, hide the bugs in code, increase total costs, and slows down the overall progress.

Flaky tests are highly unpredictable with higher fluctuation rate; there is no reliability on whether they would pass and provide desired results. Dealing with flaky tests is a critical challenge of automated tests and it becomes important to eliminate any fluctuating end results and improve the quality. Hence, companies are taking necessary measures to reduce the flakiness and create a reliable and stable product.

Reasons for flakiness in test automation

Flaky tests are an indication of unreliable test results, which will affect the quality and hit the brand adversely. It is essential for organization to identify and eliminate flaky tests for improving the quality. Flakiness may occur due to a number of reasons; the popular ones include:

Poorly written tests: Among all the other reasons, a poorly written test case is the most commonly occurring one. A poor test case will not give the results as expected, and often lead to fluctuation in the end result; thereby, creating a negative impact on the overall effectiveness of the process. Flakiness arising due to such reasons can be easily avoided by investing in good resource who can write best and unique test scripts.

Not having a strategic framework: Frameworks are a critical parameter to perform testing activities successfully. They comprise a set of rules/guidelines to design, create, and manage test cases. In scenarios where a strategic testing framework is missing, they may lack having an efficient test handling method, coding SOPs, standard repositories, resource access protocol, and a lot more. Without a standard framework in place, the test result may experience flakiness showing inconsistent results.

Shared test environments: Organizations often tend to share infrastructure, operational processes, and teams across multiple projects, to save on cost and resources. The shared environment can lead to overlapping of testing processes giving rise to serious conflicts. Further, the share environment may not prove to fix emergencies, delay deployment time, and doesn’t guarantee superior quality, leading to flaky tests. Enterprises should avoid using shared test environment to control and manage flakiness.

Issues of synchronization: Synchronization focuses on keeping test automation and AUT (application under test) in sync. In the event of failing to do so, the test result may be subjected to flakiness showing inconsistent results. Hence, to avoid flaky tests, it is important to handle the issues of synchronization.

Tests dependent on each other: Having tests dependent on each other is a bad testing practice, as it doesn’t provide the flexibility to behave and assert as expected. If the tests do not execute independently, they might cause flakiness in the test results. Hence, it is important to understand the objective and create and run test as per requirement.

How to identify, fix, and manage flakiness?

Flaky tests interfere with productivity and quality, slowing down the entire process. It is of utmost priority to have a regular check on the test processes/results to reduce flakiness. Here are some methods you can incorporate to identify and manage flaky tests.

Align the processes

You should consider the long-term impact while designing the automated tests. The evolution of software technology is inevitable; thus, the automated tests must be adjustable in alignment with the undefinable changes. Most of the flaky tests arise due to issues with integrating new technological advancements and digital resources. Aligning the process with the integration and performing a thorough user acceptance testing will reduce flakiness to a maximum extent.

Define the objectives

Clearly defining the test objectives for automated UI testing processes will ensure that the user interface provides consistent results to the users.  Defining clear objectives will determine the scope of the end results, hence, testers can work towards achieving consistent results and adopt a strategy to completely avoid flaky tests.

Streamline the development process

To remove flaky tests, you should ensure that every step of developing a software is streamlined for avoiding pitfalls and bugs even after the launch and upgrades. Additionally, you should conduct unit testing at every step of the development process to resolve any disruptions and issues in real-time rather than encountering bugs in lateral stages or after launch. You can also define the scope of testing evaluation standards so that the development and deployment teams can eliminate any probability of flaky tests of the software.

Allocate resources efficiently

Automated testing focuses on concerns of time, resources, cost, and quality. It is also essential to formulate strategies that guide towards efficient development rather than flakiness. These strategies ensure that allocation and reallocation of the resources during the software development lifecycle are subjected to credible outcomes of efficient automated tests rather than being dependent on unreliable results of flaky tests.

Test the quality of the software

Automated testing is one of the most effective ways to track the progress and efficiency of software and ensure a premium user experience with the continuous protection of sensitive data. Concerning this context, you need to list all the tests to ensure optimum performance and reduced software flakiness.

Abide to the protocols

To attain desired performance and value from the automated testing processes, the development teams need to ensure that they abide by the testing standards. Also, they should follow every protocol and guideline so that the tools used by automated testing processing support attainment of the predetermined objectives and ensure the longevity of software utilization.

In this regard, the testing team needs to ensure the tools are versatile, accessible, and compatible with all the testing requirements, and are easy to maintain and document. By ensuring that the automated testing framework is maintainable and scalable, you can ensure adequate quality checks of all the functional aspects of the software and maintain error logs for reviewing occurrences and repetitions of the issues.

Maintain the scripting standards

For eliminating flakiness, you must ensure that strict specifications are enforced on scripting standards used throughout the automated testing processes. With exacting specifications imposed throughout the software development life cycle, uniformity of coding, error handling, debugging, and documentation can be established, simplifying the reporting practices, and enhancing the quality of automated testing processes. Additionally, the testing team would clearly be understanding the actions they should be in alignment with the implied specification for documenting the errors and handling the unexpected behavior of the software.

Ensure the elimination of errors

Software development and testing teams should also install checkpoints throughout the software development lifecycle to ensure that the steps are aligned with the predetermined pathway. The testing processes are deployed to ensure the software is error-free before the actual launch. One should conduct the check of mapping before the initialization of the software development to ensure that the team members have clarification about the reporting requirements and testing resources throughout the process.

It also allows the testing team to conduct manual testing of the outcomes derived by automated testing to eliminate flakiness from testing and bugs from the software. Verification at predefined points allows helping the team in monitoring the software development process in real-time to avoid any deviation and delay due to bugs, flakiness, or any other aspect.

No more flaky tests with Yethi’s new-age testing solution

Beat the issues of flakiness with Yethi’s test automation platform, Tenjin. Tenjin is a codeless, auto-adaptive test automation solution that can ‘learn’ and ‘relearn’ to manage test assets efficiently. It is capable of navigating across systems and platforms of Mobile and Web, and establishing test with unique test scripts, thereby, reducing the issues of flakiness.

Yethi is a market leader in offering QA services to banking/financial software. With a wide range of testing activities for diverse banking applications, we bring our expertise to design and execute a test-strategy for you to leverage the best out of it.