Tektronix offers comprehensive Ethernet Test tool sets for developing and debugging Ethernet-based systems from 10BASE-T up to 40/100GB. Software Testing Quick Guide - Learn Software Testing in simple and easy steps starting from its Overview, Myths, QA, QC & Testing, ISO Standards, Types of Testing. Read this case study on Hershey's ERP implementation failure. Learn about the importance of ERP system testing and project scheduling. The role of a test engineer. In my previous article I reviewed the various roles within a Test Center of Excellence. Let's take a closer look.. By submitting your personal information, you agree that Tech. Target and its partners may contact you regarding relevant content, products and special offers. You also agree that your personal information may be transferred and processed in the United States, and that you have read and agree to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy. A role- based approach to testing enables your testing organization to have clearly delimited skill sets, responsibilities and career paths. How to Implement Proof of Concept (POC) in Automation Testing? Every organization has different testing processes and procedures. Manual Testing is important and.And it allows you to implement appropriate reimbursement. There is an essential core set of roles that are required to effectively support any testing organization: Test manager (or test lead)Test designer (or system matter expert)Test automation engineer (or automation engineer)Larger testing organizations will require additional roles to effectively support the organization: Environment support (lab "rat")Test architect. Test methodologist. The role of the test automation engineer (test engineer) is to design, build, test and deploy effective test automation solutions. To fulfill this role, the automation engineer applies appropriate automation technologies to meet the short- and long- term goals of the testing organization. The objective is to automate as much of the testing effort as possible with a minimum set of code/scripts. The focus should be on the test effort not testing coverage. For example, if one manual test case or manual test preparation process consumes a large percentage of test resources, then this manual process should be the first to be automated. Responsibilities and deliverables. The responsibilities and deliverables of a test automation engineer are dependent upon the test phase and test automation framework. Test phase. Unit test. The test automation engineer, in this case the application developer, instruments the application code in order to enable effective and repetitive unit testing of the code before it is incorporated into the current build. There are several Agile development paradigms that incorporate this concept/process into their standard development cycle. Function and system test. The test automation engineer develops automated solutions to expedite testing. This can take the form of tooling to increase the efficiency of test preparation and/or the creation of automated test cases. Acceptance test. The test automation engineer develops and deploys automated solutions to expedite acceptance testing. In function and system test, the test engineer fulfils the same role, but it is in the context of the test organization. If automation tooling is deployed as part of acceptance testing, then the automation solution should be treated and tested as part of the system being deployed. For any given test phase, the objective of the test automation engineer is to put the power of automation into the hands of test designers/testers. The test engineer should deploy the simplest solution to meet the defined need. The objective is not to build the "best automation solution ever" but to effectively automate the testing effort. Test automation frameworks. A test automation framework is the method or process being used to implement automation. Several frameworks have been implemented over the years by commercial vendors and testing organizations. The skills required to develop within any given framework define the skills required by the test automation engineer. Record and playback. Record and playback frameworks were the first commercially successful testing solutions. The automation engineer simply records a series of steps or actions against the application using the appropriate record and playback tool. Extended record and playback. It quickly became apparent that a simple record and playback paradigm was not effective and did not make test automation available to non- technical users. Several commercial vendors, test organizations and automation engineers began extending the record and playback framework to make the solution more robust and transparent. These extensions include data- driven, keyword- driven, and component- based solutions. As the record and playback framework was extended, the automation engineer had to develop and deploy solutions (code) within the context of the extended framework. Keyword- driven. Recent innovations have lead to commercial keyword- driven frameworks - - as opposed to extensions of the record and playback paradigm. This gives non- technical users access to the power of automation without having to become a developer, and it allows the automation engineer to focus on automation as opposed to construction of automation tools. Load/performance. Load/performance test frameworks provide a mechanism to simulate transactions against the application being tested and to measure the behavior of the application while it is under this simulated load. The automation engineer determines how to load, measure and control the application. Using the load- testing tool the engineer implements the automation solution to accomplish this task; the Automation Engineer will often need to extend the load/performance framework. This is not a complete list of the test frameworks available, but it illustrates how the skills and abilities required to fulfill the role of test automation engineer depend on the framework. Testing mandate and scope. The test automation engineer must have a clear understanding of the testing mandate and how automation can be applied to help meet this mandate. The temptation of any automation engineer is to automate everything; the challenge is to determine what should be automated and in what sequence to get the maximum return on the automation investment. Other roles in the testing organization focus on testing the application. The automation engineer attempts to expedite the testing process by supplying and maintaining an appropriate automation solution. Relationships with other team roles. Test lead/manager. The test engineer must have a good working relationship with the test lead, but more important than that, the test engineer must keep the test lead aware of any challenges or costs that could impact the delivery of test automation. The relationship between the test lead and automation engineer is similar to the relationship between a development lead and developer. The automation engineer must size, implement, and test a solution while the lead ensures the goals of automation are met. The one significant difference between traditional development efforts and test automation is that there is always an option not to automate. In fact, if automation cannot show an immediate return of 4 to 1 in terms of effort/hours, then it probably does not make sense to proceed with the automation effort. Test designer/tester. The test automation engineer must understand precisely what the test designer wants any given test case or group of test cases to accomplish. If you think of test cases as requirements, then the test designer defines the requirements for the automation effort, and the test automation engineer implements those requirements. In many ways, the test automation engineer works under the direction of the test designer in terms of what automation needs to be built, but it is the role of the engineer to determine how it should be built. Developer/product support. The test automation engineer will often encounter automation challenges that require an intimate knowledge of the application being automated. In order to have any chance of building a sustainable solution, the test automation engineer must have a close working relationship with development or with product support if the application has been purchased by a third- party vendor.- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- About the author: David W. Johnson is a senior computer systems analyst with over 2. IT across several industries. He has played key roles in business needs analysis, software design, software development, testing, training, implementation, organizational assessments and support of business solutions. David has developed specific expertise over the past 1. Testware," including test strategies, test planning, test automation and test management solutions. You may contact David at David. WJohnson@Eastlink. How to Select Correct Test Cases for Automation Testing (and Ultimately Achieve a Positive Automation ROI) — Software Testing Help. Now is the era of test automation. Most of the testing projects are trying to translate their manual test cases to automated one to improve productivity and coverage. One of the key steps to commence automation testing is – selecting the appropriate test cases and determining the ROI (Return of Investment). What to expect from this article? In this article, I have tried to cite down few important points based on my experience to help you select the correct candidate of automation and determine various other factors which will yield better test results and benefits. Why Automated Testing? Automation does not overpower or replaces manual testing but it compliments it. Like manual, automation too needs a strategy with proper planning, monitoring & control. Automation, when implemented correctly, can become an asset to the team, project and ultimately to the organization. There are many advantages of automation; here are few important to mention: Many a time stakeholders feel that test automation acts as a support tool for manual testing, so it’s vital to understand that automation is the best way to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and coverage of testing. It not only saves time but also improves accuracy as repetitive tasks via manual approach can prone to human errors and can be time consuming. Candidates of Automation. Basic Mistake to Avoid: One of the most basic mistakes which testers make is NOT Selecting the correct test cases for automation. Don’t just select any test suite. Analyze the test cases thoroughly and select the candidates for automation considering the most important factor i. ROI. First we should understand and find out the ways for getting a higher and positive ROI.(ROI – Return on Investment – It is a calculation of benefits in terms of cost saving, increased efficiency and quality)There is no standard procedure of determining the correct test cases for automation. It all depends upon the application you are testing. Based on my experience, I have tried to chalk down few steps which may provide some insight for selecting the test cases and ultimately progress to achieve a positive ROI for automation. See Also = > How to Translate Manual Test Cases into Automation Scripts? How to Select Correct Test Cases for Automation Testing. Step 1: Identify the parameters on which you will base your test case as a candidate for automation. As of now I am identifying the below parameters, you can have your own parameters depending on your application. Test case executed with different set of data. Test case executed with different browser. Test case executed with different environment. Test case executed with complex business logic. Test case executed with different set of users. Test case Involves large amount of data. Test case has any dependency. Test case requires Special data. Step 2: Break each application into modules. For each module, analyze and try to identify the test cases which should be automated based on the parameters. This list will vary for projects to projects and can also be enhanced to suite your needs: Fig 1. Y – Yes. N – No. In a similar way, for all modules, this list can be used to identify the automation candidate test cases. Step 3: Consolidate and group the number of test cases for each module shown below. Fig 2. 0 (click on image to enlarge view)Figure 2. Here I am trying to quantify the details and giving an estimate to finish the testing manually. Step 4: Once you have identified all the granular level details, you can present them in the below way. We are now progressing to calculate the ROI. Fig 3. 0: We should also take into account the below attributes which forms the basis of deterring the ROI: Purchasing and licensing cost of the tool. Time to develop the scripts. Time to maintain the scripts. Time to analyze the results manually and automatically. Time and cost to train the resources. Management overheads. Test Automation ROI Calculation Example: In most of the cases, ROI is calculated for 5 years, but it’s not mandatory. Based on the above factors, let me try to elaborate the calculation of ROI for 5 years. As usual you can always tailor and enhance it.(click on image to enlarge view)*ROI = (Cumulative saving / Investment through automation)*1. Manual to Automation Testing – What are the Process Challenges? I have tried to cite the points, which I feel, are a big challenge, when we try to automate a test suite. Automation Need: Every test team is unique and has an exclusive need for automation. We cannot develop a fix standard, but we can tailor a standard which will suite our need. Because of this reason, automation does require a good support from the management as well as from the development team.#2. Automating the complete application: Automating 1. Not that it is impossible, but it requires proper planning and monitoring and of course; some time. There are lots of permutations and combinations of data, n number of environments with n number of authentication and authorization attributes which needs to be validated and hence requires a strategy to automate.#3. Manual Vs Automation mentality: “We normally automate which is important and repetitive, but we prefer to test the important functionality manually”. Confused? Even I am!! But this is a fact. We should have a criteria which will decide which are the important test cases. These criteria can be based on multiple factors like complex business logics, areas which are of more interest to clients, risk prone areas etc.#4. Deciding on the framework: Designing the framework is the most important facet of automation. I believe we should devote relatively more time to develop the framework than to script. Whenever we develop the automation plan, framework designing should be the main focus. PLAN to design the framework. Identify and make a checklist of the items which will form the framework. If the framework is rock solid, scripting and maintaining becomes easy.#5. Knowledge of the team: Whenever we think of automation, we immediately jump to learn the programming language or scripting language. Learning these language will definitely help but more emphasis should be on building and developing logic. Automation should not be the responsibility of some handful resources, rather entire team should contribute towards it. This will help not only to enhance the skills of the resources, but also keep them motivated.#6. Reporting: Every tool has a standard to report the test results. To customize it; is a challenging task. Reporting the test results also requires coordination and maintenance which adds to the cost.#7. Trust: We should trust our automation stuff. We invest man hours to build an automation suite but still we don’t believe in the test results. Efforts should be given to maintain the scripts. Also we should see that the team who is doing the manual testing of the application, should be involved to automate it as they know their application. Most of the time, a third team does the automation so the actual testing team is not aware of the scripts and finally end up with running the tests manually because they feel follow up on the scripts, add up to their tasks. See Also => Manual and Automation Testing Challenges. Conclusion: In most of the cases, we prefer to automate the regression suite (here are some challenges in automating regression suite in agile environment) as it contains bigger number of test cases. In that case we can break down the regression suits into smaller suits and decide to run the appropriate suite as per the release requirement. Suppose a regression suite contains 1. Instead of automating the entire suite, you can opt for phase wise automation. In other words, you can follow the prototype model for developing the automation suite. Create a structure or framework with implementation of fewer numbers of test cases and start using that and gradually enhance it by adding more test cases to it. We should follow the Deming wheel (PDCA cycle) for automation as well. Being an ongoing activity, emphasis should be laid on building the framework properly which will result in ease of maintenance and implementing new features. It requires proper support from the dev team and from management as well. We should encourage the testing team to contribute the most for automation testing as they know their product more than any one else.
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