With the stiff business competition existing today, enterprises need faster releases and quality software to meet the increasing demand for their services and products. They are embracing agile and DevOps practices by leveraging automated testing software to achieve faster releases and quality products along with achieving a quicker return on investment.

Contents 1. What is Automated Software Testing? 2. Why Automated Software Testing is important? 3. What are the benefits of Automated Software Testing? 4. How does Automated Testing work? 5. What are the most commonly used Automated Testing Tools? 6. What are the Common Challenges in Automated Testing? 7. Conclusion

What is Automated Software Testing?

Why Automated Software Testing is important?

What are the benefits of Automated Software Testing?

Automated Testing Application-Wise Benefits

Increases test coverage:

Ensures test accuracy:

Eases regression testing time:

Facilitates with re-usable test scripts:

Helps to Validate Complex Scenarios effectively:

Automated Testing Cost-Wise Benefits

Saves Cost:

Increases ROI:

Saves Time:

How does Automated Testing work?

Any organization that wants to implement automation testing follows a testing framework approach. The most favoured testing frameworks are keyword-driven framework, data-driven framework, linear scripting framework and modular testing framework.

To test small applications, a linear scripting framework is used, because it uses test scripts that don’t require much planning and also do not support reusable scripts.

Data-driven frameworks enable software testers to develop test scripts that are able to work for multiple data sets. This framework offers wide quality coverage with fewer tests.

Keyword-driven frameworks are worked out using table formats to define keywords for each function and execution method. Those software testers who don’t have in-depth knowledge of programming can use keywords to develop test scripts.

The most popular test automation tools which are open-source are Selenium 4, Robotium and Cypress. Selenium can automate and run tests across various web browsers and also works well with popular programming languages such as C#, Java and Python. Robotium is best used for user acceptance, function and system tests for android devices. End-to-end testing, integration and unit tests work perfectly well with the Cypress tool.

What are the most commonly used Automated Testing Tools?

Appium:

EggPlant:

Katalon Studio:

Selenium:

TestComplete:

Testsigma:

Tosca:

UFT:

What are the Common Challenges in Automated Testing?

1. Need to maintain effective communication between teams:

2. Critical to Select the right test automation tool:

3. Adopt a proper and effective testing approach:

4. Analyze tests to be automated:

Conclusion

The post Automated Software Testing – What, Why, Tools, Challenges first appeared on TestingXperts.

According to Statista, in 2012, testing and quality assurance consumed 18% of IT companies’ budget that has now reached to 39% and will be 40% in 2019. 

Established companies have started realizing the importance of software testing. However, there is a dire need for technology startups to follow the same. Technology startups often face uncertainties and funding roadblocks. However, there is a great reason for startups to opt Software Testing; and the reason is Quality.

Contents 1. Limitations of a Technology Startup 2. Major Goals and Objectives of Software Testing 3. Software Testing Types that Shouldn’t Be Ignored 4. Conclusion

While a few bugs early in the software development phase might not seem a big deal, but software defects are known to be costly post its product-release. In fact, IBM states that the cost of errors increases dramatically as your software solution progresses through the development cycle. It’s about 30 times more expensive to fix a bug after release than during the initial stages.

[Image Source – IBM]

Limitations of a Technology Startup

Just like any other enterprise, technology startups have their limitations and challenges in software testing. These include lack of budgets, time and resources that have to be allocated to testing. Let us discuss these challenges in detail.

1. Time:

There is a constant pressure for startups to release a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) fast to get quick returns. Most startups perceive releasing their product in the market and fixing the bugs later upon identified by users/market is a good idea. However, they fail to realize that post-production testing takes a lot of time as there is a need to rework on the same piece of code every time they make a change. Hence, more time is involved in finding and correcting bugs at this stage.

2. Resources:

Like every coin has two sides, startups also come with the excitement of learning something new and dealing with the constant pressure of wearing multiple hats. Most startups don’t have a dedicated department for testing, their development teams perform the necessary tests. Therefore, they might overlook some bugs due to the lack of dedicated resources for testing.

3. Budget:

Budget constraints are a harsh reality for startups, and this is the reason software testing is overlooked. Additional headcount means extra expenses. The cost associated with finding bugs posts the production stage is way higher than finding them during the development stage.

4. Thought Leadership:

Often, technology startups lack a Thought Leadership team having a strategic planning of QA activities. The tools to use, the number of resources to involve, the total amount of time QA activities consume and the overall costs are often overlooked by startups. This makes it difficult for technology startups to release a certain application.

Understanding how to overcome the above limitations can help technology startups define their strategy. Under no circumstances should software testing be overlooked or dismissed.

Major Goals and Objectives of Software Testing

– Finding defects in the software to allow a smooth process

– Evaluating the level of a product’s quality and informing the stakeholder

– Ensuring that the final results match business specifications and user requirements

– Increasing profit potential

– Gaining customer loyalty by offering a quality product

Software Testing Types  that Shouldn’t Be Ignored

Here are a few types of software testing that should never be ignored:

Exploratory Testing

For a new application, exploratory testing is exceptionally important to lay the foundation of quality. Exploratory testing is an ad-hoc process, where the tester manually goes through the software in search of finding bugs.

Regression Testing

Testing is not a one-off process, every time a change is made to the code, there is a regression test to ensure the code has not broken the previous functioning features.

Performance Testing

Providing faster performance is the best way to establish a loyal user and vice versa. Application load time is an important factor that helps in keeping your users happy. The performance testing process ensures that the application loads quickly and can handle expected traffic.

Conclusion

When you are a new player in the market, quality will set you apart and help you grow. A simple formula to make your technology startup a hit is to keep your users happy and provide them with a seamless experience while they browse your application. Ignoring testing from your plan can probably cost you and your customers.

TestingXperts provide startups with unique plans according to their needs and in their budgets. Our core-flex models help in dealing with the inconsistent resource requirements of our startup clients. We offer flexible engagement models to facilitate our clients with optimized QA resource planning. This meets their fluctuating requirements at any time of their contract and saves unncessary budget leakage. Connect with us to have a unique software testing services plan for your startup.

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Today’s fast-paced technology-centric world presents opportunities and threats at every turn. It has become challenging to practice agile development no matter how big or small an organization you are. To become sustainable in this disruptive environment, agility is key.

Here are the 6 keys to build business agility.

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Contents 1. Role of Quality Assurance 2. Domain Specialization and QA 3. Advantages of Domain Specialization in QA 4. Conclusion

Role of Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance practices over the past years have experienced many waves of innovation, be it test automation or methods to optimize testing. With changing times, the QA function as we knew it transformed and the focus shifted to:

– Meeting the essential compliance and regulatory standards

– Requirements coverage referring to code coverage

– Giving utmost importance to customer experience

Earlier, QA industry had a horizontal focus and was indifferent to business domains. However, it is turning out to be an industry where domain specialization is a must. Therefore, QA teams need to have profound knowledge of the business domain while testing an application. For QA teams to be considered as quality gatekeepers, their understanding of the domain must be up to the required standard.

Domain Specialization and QA

Domain knowledge can add an advantage to the testing project by helping testers to prioritize the features for test execution and exercise underlying business rules. Domain specialized experts can test an application in the most anticipated way, according to the end user perspective. Domain knowledge can help Quality Assurance teams achieve multiple benefits throughout the Software Development Lifecycle.

Advantages of Domain Specialization in QA

Here is the list of the advantages of having domain specialization:

1. Quick requirement analysis:

Having a domain specialization helps identify gaps in the requirements, ensures better coverage from business functionality perspective and enables early identification of defects through static testing.

2. Better user story development:

A QA with good domain knowledge can help the product owner by writing better user stories and defining better acceptance criteria.

3. Builds capability:

Domain knowledge helps a QA engineer to have a better view of the product. Without proper domain knowledge, defects in the underlying business rules can remain uncovered in the preliminary stage of testing, causing problems during the final or release stage.

4. Thorough understanding of technical terminology:

An engineer who completely understands the domain can detect issues early as compared to a novice in domain knowledge. A proper understanding of the technical terminology will help the tester to describe the problem and design edge case scenarios accurately.

5. Helps in prioritizing bug fixes:

With proper knowledge, the tester will have a clear idea of how to prioritize the bug fixes and can guide rest of the development team. While planning the bug fixes, the tester will not just save cost and time but will also enhance the overall product a quality in cost-effective manner.

6. Reduces training time:

Domain specialization can increase the overall productivity of the team and add better value to the final product.  Having prior knowledge of the domain will reduce the training time, resulting in quicker results. Proper knowledge of the flow of the business processes helps in achieving a better understanding of the product requirements.

7. Boosts the productivity of the team:

Domain specialists are in demand due to their ability to understand the application beyond finding bugs. Having domain knowledge can help in suggesting and implementing fixes in crucial times. This not only saves time, but also increases the productivity of the team.

Conclusion

Emphasizing on domain specialization in QA is bridging the gap between business users and the IT teams, thus increasing the relevance of the work product delivered to the end user. Domain specialization is creating a platform for innovation by evolving the QA practices.

TestingXperts’ domain-based testing team of QA professionals have extensive experience in the latest technologies across various business verticals such as Healthcare, Insurance, Manufacturing, logistics, Banking and Financial Services, etc. While being well versed in the latest testing trends, TestingXperts’ team come with great domain knowledge and skill sets. TestingXperts’ domain-based testing ensures delivery of the expected services and enables the higher customer satisfaction.

The post Achieve Next-Level of QA Innovations with Domain Specialization first appeared on TestingXperts.

A pen test is generally performed to find vulnerabilities and fix them before an attacker does. Sometimes, the IT department is aware of the reported vulnerabilities but still needs an external expert to officially report them so that the management is sure of the vulnerabilities and can fix them properly. Having a second set of eyes to corroborate all the vulnerabilities is always a good security practice.

Let’s find out the reasons why performing pen-testing is important.

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Is your organization on the road to “going Agile”, but is confused with the level of changes involved? Have you already “gone Agile” but are not witnessing the anticipated results?

Contents 1. What-is-Agile-coaching 2. Benefits-of-Agile-Coaching 3. Conclusion

What is Agile coaching

The transition to agile impacts an entire organization and comes with its own set of challenges. When an organization or just a team transform from their existing way of working to Agile practices, the complexity of the transformation can be overwhelming at times. If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you would identify the importance of having a professional Agile coach to improve collaboration and increase efficiency, empowering you to derive optimum benefits from the agile framework.

With extensive Agile coaching, an organization’s product development agility can be improved. Here are 5 key benefits of Agile coaching that you may have never considered:

Benefits-of-Agile-Coaching

Immediate application: An exceptional Agile training program can offer a great jumpstart to an organization looking to implement agile methods in their current workflow with hand-holding on all Agile working best practices. The early days are most difficult and the coach can really help keep team’s effort on track.

Better Collaboration: An experienced Agile coach brings integrated methods for teams working across geographies and distinct cultures, but having a common agile interest.  A collective set of definitions that best elucidate agile terminologies and working practices can create an effective communication channel throughout the organization.

Improved Communication: Communicating the need for agile methodology is essential to inspire teams to embrace, scale-up, and thrive on agile methods. A coach builds out a vision showcasing the intrinsic worth of agile, how it develops the process and bolsters the engagement with customers. A coach will strengthen the need for communication as the basic foundation of Agile methodology.

Transformation Backlog: An Agile transformation must be piloted like an Agile project, which creates the need for a coach to create a transformation backlog. The transformation backlog is a list of work items created by a coach to evolve an organization into an Agile process. It can also be used to highlight major developments in the Agile process.

Continual Improvement: Corresponding to the importance of agile implementation is the continuous need to measure the organizational growth that agile adoption brings with itself. A coach forms a set of metrics to assess the amount of Agile adoption and also looks continuously at refining the practices. That’s how teams grow into becoming high performing Agile units.

Conclusion

Agile coaching is a sound investment for the organization in terms of time and money. As agile coaches bring the certified, as well as brand new practices and processes, there is a substantial value addition to the organizations. TestingXperts has created a complete support structure of agile coaches and consultants who work together and help organizations in successfully adopting and refining agile methods. Organizations working towards improving their agile practices can successfully navigate challenges and apply agile principles to real-world scenarios.

Connect with us and make your organization implement agile best practices, promote team collaboration, and design programs that enable you to respond to varying market conditions with ease and confidence.

The post Is Limited Agile Maturity Hurting your Development and Testing Process? first appeared on TestingXperts.

At the face of it, automation of acceptance testing is a compelling idea but watch out for the caution-areas lying on some fringes

Contents 1. Automated Testing Importance 2. Challenges of Automated Testing 3. Conclusion

Automated Testing Importance

Automated tests have defined new frontiers of speed and velocity while bringing quality-related relief for software requirements. They are especially useful when the pace of development needs these aspects:

– Super-fast cycles – The GTM (Go-to-Market) window can be suitably reduced – Continuous delivery is relevant – Automation can eke out shrinkage of feedback loops – Impact of comprehensive-requirement-validation is high

Software release cycles assume a different momentum altogether when automated tests come into play. The ‘Acceptance’ component is a crucial one in testing so automating that transpires into a new level of speed and traction for quick apps that an organization wants to dish out in today’s dynamic business environments. That comes in very handy when an enterprise is keen and hungry enough to quickly deliver a good idea to its users. More so, as testing has ceased to be a time-guzzler in Agile SDLC and DevOps environments. Automated testing enables simultaneous development, integration, testing and deployment of code.

But such gains are not directly amenable here as some pitfalls have to be taken into account before it’s too late:

Challenges of Automated Testing

1. Precision of test goals and test target can never be footnotes for any test, and that applies all the more for automated tests.

The capacity of testing environments available is quite crucial in determining the success of these tests, so too many of these tests where the environment is not sufficient or not provisioned smartly, would be a no-go zone. Do ensure that test-results analysis catches up in time with the pace of the rapid continuous test. No matter how much an automated test serves your thrill, intention and time-crunch; make sure that real and rigorous testing is not sidelined in this choice. And that these brilliant time-saving tests are not brittle when they run. Leverage automated software testing services to ensure that your web applications works effectively without any security issues .

The post Automated Testing: Challenges worth Accepting and Testing first appeared on TestingXperts.

Mobile is undoubtedly the biggest medium to reach consumers and the credit for this revolution goes to the arrival of smartphones. Smartphones have brought businesses with unprecedented access to their consumer base by introducing consumer friendly mobile applications and organizations are slowly moving towards digitizing most of their user touch points.

Contents 1. Appium: Coss-platform Solution for Mobile Test Automation 2. Why Appium? 3. Things to be aware of? 4. Conclusion

There is a stiff competition between organizations to be the first one to offer new functions and features to consumers and this requires fast-paced IT efforts at their end. This is further complicated due to consumers using different devices and platforms access the mobile apps. So, in order to be deliver apps faster and to all your consumers, it is important that organizations deploy test automation solutions which can work swiftly across all platforms.

Appium: Coss-platform Solution for Mobile Test Automation

Appium is an open-source, cross-platform, mobile app automation testing using appium tool to automate testing for hybrid, native, and mobile web applications. Appium has become one of the best test automation solutions for mobile apps and games. It is an open-source test automation framework that supports iOS and Android on real devices as well as emulators and simulators. Unlike a lot of other mobile test automation tools, Appium doesn’t require the application to be re-compiled with an extra agent.

This ensures your app doesn’t change while testing and you can be more confident of the testing being done. It enables you to script your test cases in multiple languages including Java, Ruby, C#, etc. and gives you the flexibility to design your framework accordingly.

Why Appium?

• The main advantage of Appium is that the complexities are taken under the hood by the Appium server. The whole experience for the automation developer would remain the same irrespective of the platform he uses (Android or iOS).

• Appium helps in opening the doors to cross-platform mobile testing, which helps in working on multiple platforms. Also enables re-usability of automation code across iOS and Android

• It has the ability to automate hybrid, web and native mobile applications.

• Unlike other tools, Appium does not necessitate in including extra agents in your application to make it automation friendly.

• Helps you keep automation costs low since it is open source

Things to be aware of?

• Appium does not support Android mobile devices with a version lower than 4.2

• Speed of execution is slow when testing for iOS on real devices

• It may be difficult to test iOS apps on the local server as Appium only trusts OS X libraries to support iOS testing

Conclusion

TestingXperts’ advanced mobile test lab uses the modern and best in mobile testing to bring you better quality and quicker time-to-market.

With our ready Appium automation framework, Tx-Automate’ we can get you started with test automation quickly. Reach out to us, and we will be pleased to help you with the right mobile app testing strategy.

Stay tuned for more on mobile application automation tools……

The post Mobile App Automation: How Appium can add Value to your Application first appeared on TestingXperts.