Introduction of Agile and In-sprint Test Automation
It's been a while since Agile has taken the Software Development realm by storm. Most of the teams adhere(or at least hope to adhere) to the guidelines set by Agile to streamline their Development processes. One of the requisites for that is In-sprint Test Automation. In-sprint test automation aims to develop faster and reliable test automation in parallel to development.
Necessity of In-sprint Test Automation for Regression Testing
The Agile approach doesn't allow much room in the sprint between development and release. So, automating all of the new changes is not possible in the same Sprint might not be easy due to lack of time. Unless these changes are automated, they can't be added to the Regression Test Suite and that hits the coverage. Also, pushing those tasks to the next sprints would increase the burden down the road. Therefore, In-sprint test automation ensures maximum coverage within these short release cycles.
However, there are a few challenges in implementing In-sprint test automation. We'll discuss those in the below section.
Challenges in Implementing In-sprint Test Automation
A. The requirement of a prototype for testing
The UI part is mostly added at the last phase of development after the backend services and features are implemented. We can't waste the time during the development since time is a valuable entity in Sprints. Therefore, the test automation solution should give the freedom to write automated tests even before the prototype is available. This would help in utilizing the whole time that is available between the starting of the development phase and builds.
B. Support for API Tests
As we know, the UI undergoes many changes up until the last minute so it is always recommended to automate the API tests and perform unit tests first so that the bugs can be identified early on in the cycle. Hence, the tools must support different types of tests including unit and API tests along with UI automation.
C. Lack of time to automate in short sprints
As discussed above, All of the development and testing need to be complete in a sprint and sometimes, sprints span for merely a week or two. But as we all know, automation testing demands a significant amount of time not just the automation engineers but the developers and QAs. During short development cycles, it is difficult to spare dedicated time for automation.
D. Lack of a unified continuous testing platform
Credits to modern advancements in development, now the norm is to develop the backend services first and then reuse the same for multiple platforms such as Web, Mobile, REST APIs, OS Native Apps e.t.c. So, every new feature needs to be tested in all these different application types to ensure smooth user experience.
Hence, to automate different application types, it is best to have a unified automated testing framework to avoid managing multiple tools to automate different application types.
E. Tool Extensibility
The modern business is very dynamic and the requirements change very often.
There may be a new design and approach for the product at any time. The automation solution must be flexible enough to enhance and optimize new automation requirements at any time.
F. Demanding technical expertise
Some of the popular automation tools that are still in wide use require niche technical skills for developing the tests. Also, the stakeholders need to be familiar with these to understand the Test scripts.
Most tools demand a steep learning curve and a deep technical understanding. This makes it difficult for the teams to automate testing within a sprint. In order to implement automation testing within short cycles, writing automated tests should be made as simple as possible.
Automation Testing should be easy enough for Functional Testers who are new to the concept or the underlying complexity.
G. Preconfigured Solution
Teams spend a lot of time setting up test environments to execute tests. As the cycles are very short, the timely availability of different tools in the test automation ecosystem is very critical for in-sprint test automation.
Instead, a dynamically scalable pre-configured environment will save a lot of time to focus on the test development process.
An ecosystem with the right set of tools (with important elements like test environments, continuous integration environment, automated build, servers etc.) is a must for In-sprint test automation.
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How Testsigma addresses all the above challenges
a) Testsigma’s simple English based test script development approach doesn’t depend on application availability. You can start writing automated tests right from the design phase. It also supports both UI and API testing. Here's how this can be done -
In-Sprint Test Automation at Agile and DevOps Speed Using Testsigma
b) Testsigma support REST API Testing as well and you can write Hybrid Test Cases that consist of Web and API Test Steps as required.
REST API steps with normal Test Steps - Example
c) Testsigma’s natural language based approach requires very less time to automate your testing and automating your tests within the sprint now becomes a reality - AI-Driven Automated Testing Tool.
d) Testsigma is a unified continuous testing platform to automate all your applications including Web, Mobile, Native apps and APIs. You don’t need to manage multiple tools to automate different types of applications.
e) Testsigma is simple and flexible and can be customized according to your testing requirements.
f) Testsigma doesn’t demand programming skills to write automated tests but uses simple English to automate your tests. Writing automated tests is as simple as writing manual tests.
g) Testsigma is a scalable pre-configured Cloud-based Testing solution and will save a lot of time since there's no need for additional configurations.
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