The rapid demand for IT organizations to deliver high-quality software at a progressively faster rate has necessitated the shift to agile development and DevOps methodologies. As applications under development become more complex in nature, continuously changing to include new technologies and feature sets, manual testing simply can’t keep up. This rapid shift is driving the need for test automation. Test Automation delivers strong benefits, such as.

Contents 1. Test Automation Benefits 2. Ways to Drive Value from Automation Testing 3. Define a Clear Set of Goals 4. Don’t Automate Everything, Manual Testing Will Still Be Needed 5. There is More to Automation Than Just Functional Testing at the GUI Level 6. Test Automation Requires Regular Maintenance 7. Choose Tools Matching Your Team’s Skills 8. Define a clear test data management strategy

Test Automation Benefits

Irrespective of whether a traditional or agile development approach is applied, opting for test automation needs careful planning and an exhaustive understanding of the benefits it can deliver. Setting the right expectations for test automation can lead to creating a successful strategy whereas having unrealistic expectations can do the opposite.

Embarking on the journey of automated software testing requires the adoption of best practices such as behavior-driven development (BDD) and continuous integration and testing. These are key elements to improving the overall development process. When done well, the advantages of test automation are indisputable, but when done poorly, the disadvantages can be worse.

In this blog, we will identify the ways to drive value from Automation Testing.

Ways to Drive Value from Automation Testing

The following recommendations will increase your possibility of succeeding in adopting test automation as an integral part of your testing approach.

1. Define a Clear Set of Goals

It is essential to define a simple but clear and balanced set of goals while automating tests. Test automation has been taken as a “magic bullet” that will reduce the cost of testing dramatically and is also assumed to offer 100% coverage. However, the main purpose of automation testing is to find defects early on and diminish quality risks by not allowing them to proliferate without the need for human intervention.

Defining a clear set of test automation goals allows the whole team to experience the benefits of automation. On the other hand, if automation is considered as another form of management control, it will not be effective. Therefore, it is important to list goals and develop an execution plan which leads to incremental improvement.

2. Don’t Automate Everything, Manual Testing Will Still Be Needed

While there are numerous benefits to test automation, automating every test might not be beneficial. For example, usability and exploratory testing require human intelligence and intervention, and do not explain an investment for automation.

Therefore, teams will need to leverage both manual and automated testing to ensure software quality before launching an application. Employing a mix-blend of the manual as well as automation testing can be the best way to succeed.

3. There is More to Automation Than Just Functional Testing at the GUI Level

Almost every team starts its automation effort with GUI functional tests, however as the components of the GUI tend to change regularly, they are costly to build, slow to implement, and delicate to maintain. Hence, to ensure that problems are discovered easily and rapidly, a blend of different testing levels and types is required to reach the anticipated level of quality and to alleviate the risks associated with defects.

Teams should not just think about automating GUI functional testing, but also various other types of tests, such as:

A clear test automation strategy should feature the amount of time your teams spend in each area. The prime focus should be on the highest-value tests, allowing you to establish a clear ROI.

4. Test Automation Requires Regular Maintenance

Poor practices yield tests that are hard to understand and maintain, and may produce failures which take time to research. As the application or system is modified, you need to evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of each test constantly. New scripts must be written to bring out new features and directions. Teams have to write and maintain these tests. This truly helps to ensure that you are not building tests that will disrupt things as easily.

5. Choose Tools Matching Your Team’s Skills

Due to a large number of automation in testing solutions available on the market, the products available from various software companies often vary in terms of their focus and practical scope. No single solution from a solution provider will meet all of your testing needs. Therefore, it is important to select the right tools that take application targets into account, fit your team’s development practices, and also match the skills of your resources.

6. Define a clear test data management strategy

In order to test business-critical software, testing teams need to plan and retrieve the essential test data, as well as the activities associated with it. Unavailability of the required data can have a severe impact on the software testing activity and can result in inadequate testing coverage. Test Data is something which constantly gets refreshed and versioned after some time, having to be repeatedly referred to to evaluate the required outcome of an activity. If test data is not managed and maintained appropriately, it can cause delays in the testing and development process. Hence, it is important to have a clear test data management strategy to accelerate the application’s go-to-market speed and to eliminate business losses.

Conclusion

It can be established that automation testing results in cost reduction, as well as time/effort savings, consistency, quicker feedback, and results, thereby contributing to increased productivity and profits. Improved test automation with accurate testing techniques helps ensure that a shippable product is delivered at the end of every sprint.

TestingXperts’ Test Automation strategy enables organizations to increase release velocity and reduce time to market. TestingXperts has developed an extensible automation framework, ‘Tx-Automate’, which is modular, reusable, integrated and compatible. The framework helps to configure/create test suites by combining various automated tests and making those test suites available for execution. Connect with our software automation testing services to know more.

The post 6 Recommendations for Driving Business Value from Test Automation first appeared on TestingXperts.

Technology trends and digital disruption is transforming the insurance industry immensely. Thus, insurers have been feeling distressed and pressurized to digitize their workflow, and also streamline business processes. These disruptions have been challenging the traditional ways by which the insurance agents and brokers have done business in the past.

Contents 1. Top Technology Trends Transforming the Insurance Industry 2. Cloud-based Infrastructure 3. Leveraging Big Data and Analytics 4. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) 5. Conclusion

The insurance industry is executing a modernized workflow, which demands a considerable expansion in the use of technology and that can only be managed by means of hybrid and on-premise cloud infrastructure. The cloud-based infrastructure is guaranteeing flexibility to clients. Besides, it is also helping the insurance sector to comply with the evolving regulatory standards within the industry.

The current application driven economy is all about data. Insurance is an industry that is data-driven which produces huge amounts of structured and unstructured data. Thus, insurance companies are relying on the Internet of Things (IOT) to gather more and more data relating to the behavior of their clients. On the other hand, Big Data and Analytics help insurers take important decisions based on the analysis of gathered data.

Gartner, Inc. forecasts that “8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Total spending on endpoints and services will reach almost $2 trillion in 2017.

Regionally, Greater China, North America and Western Europe are driving the use of connected things and the three regions together will represent 67 percent of the overall Internet of Things (IoT) installed base in 2017”

AI has been helping insurance companies develop systems that require manual processing and human intelligence. The advent of Artificial Intelligence in the insurance industry has made it easier for insurance agents to deliver efficient and flawless automation of existing claim processes. In the upcoming days, Artificial Intelligence will be more disruptive and will be used to evaluate and recognize emerging risks.

Gartner predicts that by 2020, AI will be a top five investment priority for more than 30 percent of CIOs.

Source: Gartner, Press Release “Gartner Says AI Technologies Will Be in Almost Every New Software Product by 2020” July 18, 2017

The key to moving towards a digital environment and improving customer service is to automate workflows where required. While standard direct interaction may not be so common between insurance entities, however, their relationship with the client is as important. Intrinsically, insurers need more time to interact with their clients and less time scrolling down documents and sorting papers. This is where automation of workflows helps.

To implement these technology initiatives in the existing and continuously growing technology environment, software testing is imperative.  To be able to cope with the cumulative intricacies of systems and applications, insurance companies need a reliable testing partner.

Conclusion

TestingXperts (Tx) is extensively helping global insurers in their digital transformation and helping them deliver improved customer experience and gain competitive advantage. Tx’s testing services portfolio and unparalleled track record have proved it as a preferred technology partner for the Insurance clients. Connect with us to know more about our testing services specific to the insurance industry.

The post Top 4 Technology Trends Transforming the Insurance Industry first appeared on TestingXperts.