Why Do You Need Test Automation?

Pragya Yadav

The measure of intelligence is the ability to change -Albert Einstein.

You might be using manual testing for your application or business and doing reasonably well. Have you ever considered using test automation or want to understand if switching is a good choice? This article might help you to make a well-thought-out and informed decision.

Here, we discuss the capabilities of test automation, related examples, and the industries benefitting from it.

How Can Automation Strengthen Your Tests?

Using test automation, you can boost your application’s quality in less time, effort, and cost. Let’s dive deep into the details:

Impeccable Accuracy

Automated tests follow predefined scripts in every run, reducing the likelihood of human errors. Manual testing can be error-prone due to fatigue, oversight, or misinterpretation of test cases.

Example: A complex e-commerce application may contain different product tax calculations; a manual tester may miscalculate those. Taxes can be calculated accurately for various scenarios without errors through test automation.

Cost Reduction

While setting up test automation can require an initial investment in tools and frameworks, it often leads to long-term cost savings. Automated tests require fewer testers and less manual effort and time, reducing labor costs. Want to calculate your business’s ROI using a no-code test automation tool? Use our ROI calculator.

Example: Skilled manual testers are costly, and upskilling and training costs add to it, especially for complex projects. Use test automation to reduce the requirement for a considerable testing team to save labor and time.

Increased Efficiency

Test automation speeds up the overall testing process efficiently when compared to manual testing. These tests can be run in parallel, continuously, to reduce the execution time and errors substantially.

Not only this, some intelligent automation tools such as testRigor save your test creation time manifolds through its generative AI engine. Write only the test case description in the title, and the test steps get generated within seconds automatically. With testRigor, you save enormous maintenance hours and efforts because it provides self-healing capabilities to your test scripts.

Example: Consider a software application with hundreds of test cases. Manual execution of these tests would take days or even weeks. With intelligent test automation, these tests can be run in hours or less, enabling faster developer feedback and quicker software releases.

Handle Repeatability

Automated tests ensure that the same set of tests is run every time with the same consistency. Manual testing makes this challenging to achieve, where human error can cause differences.

Example: The login module is essential for a web application since it is the first step to accessing the application. Automated tests consistently repeat the same login scenario cases with different test data.

Faster Feedback

Automated tests provide rapid feedback to development teams in the CI/CD development cycle. This feedback enables quicker identification and resolution of defects, reducing the cost and effort required to fix issues in later stages of development or production.

Example: In the CI/CD pipeline, using automated unit tests, developers receive quick feedback after a code push or change. These tests ensure that the developers fix code issues early in the development cycle, saving effort and cost.

Quick Regression Testing

The ideal candidates in any test suite for automation are regression tests. Manual regression testing can be time-consuming, boring, and tedious for testers due to its repeated nature.

Example: After releasing a new version or functionality changes to an ERP system, automated regression tests can quickly validate that the existing functionality is unaffected. This test run ensures that updates don’t introduce unintended issues.

Comprehensive Parallel Testing

Automation allows tests to be run in parallel on various configurations and platforms, facilitating more comprehensive testing across different devices, browsers, and operating systems. Use parallel testing to execute test cases 24/7 with test automation tools and quickly achieve the required test coverage.

Example: Automation tests can be run on different browsers and mobile device combinations to ensure compatibility for a broader user base. Automation facilitates running these parallel tests on these configurations and platform combinations to save effort and time, which is unachievable through manual testing.

Validated CI/CD

Test automation integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines. Automated tests can be triggered automatically with each code commit, ensuring that new code changes do not break existing functionality. testRigor provides seamless CI/CD integration; you can copy-paste already pre-populated script into your CI/CD pipeline.

Example: Code changes trigger automated tests in a CI/CD pipeline. If a test fails, the pipeline halts, and stakeholders are informed, preventing the faulty code from reaching production. This process ensures that only validated code is deployed.

Scalability Support

With new releases, as the complexity of software applications grows, so does the need for extensive testing. Automated tests can be easily scaled to accommodate the increasing scope of testing requirements. Use testRigor to test on the web, mobile, desktop, iOS, and Android. Integrations with leading infrastructure providers provide great scalability support for tests.

Example: When a mobile app starts supporting multiple languages for its users, test automation can easily handle many localization test cases. This test automation ensures the app works seamlessly for users globally.

Broader Test Coverage

You can create and test a comprehensive suite of test cases covering various scenarios and edge cases using test automation. This broader test coverage might be impractical to achieve manually.

Example: For a mobile banking application, you can cover different test scenarios, such as new user account creation, credit cards, bank statements, loans, payments, money transfers, etc., using test automation.

Detailed Data-Driven Testing

Automation allows for data-driven testing, where the same test script is executed with multiple test data sets. Thus, test automation helps validate application behavior under different data conditions.

Example: For a food delivery website, you can use test automation to calculate prices for different products by applying available discount/coupon codes, bank offers, and delivery charges based on location, tax rates, etc.

Improved Traceability and Reporting

Automated test tools often provide detailed reporting and traceability, making tracking test results and identifying the root causes of issues more accessible. testRigor offers detailed reports, screenshots, error text, and video recordings of the test execution to help you understand the application behavior correctly.

Example: Test automation tools offer customization and generate detailed reports containing test pass/fail information, logs, screenshots, execution videos, error text grabs, etc., to help you quickly identify and resolve issues.

Compliance and Documentation Support

Use automated tests to verify that developed software meets the government’s standards for sensitive industries such as health, finance, and banking.

Example: Test that the medical software complies with privacy regulations like HIPAA to protect patient’s health-sensitive information.

Industries Adopting Test Automation

This section mentions a few industries that benefit from test automation and have transformed associated businesses.

Telecom

The telecom industry can improve the complex OSS/BSS process by adopting automation. It can reduce time-to-market for new services and features.

Read an informative article about how test automation can transform your telecom application’s testing game.

Example: In telecom, automated tests can simulate thousands of new mobile device connections. This testifies whether a new network infrastructure can handle the load without dropped calls or data disruptions.

Banking and Finance

Test automation is crucial for verifying a bank’s financial system/application accuracy and security. Banking systems are built up of multiple complex components and integrations. If anything goes haywire, the impact is disastrous regarding money and the bank’s goodwill.

Monitor your test scripts using testRigor’s production environment monitoring and get notified on various platforms if anything goes wrong.

Example: Automated tests can manually validate complicated financial calculations (loan, tax, etc.), which are error-prone and time-consuming.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

ERP systems handle critical business processes such as CRM, sales, marketing, purchase, inventory, HRM, etc. ERP test automation helps ensure these systems perform flawlessly. testRigor supports automation testing of Salesforce, Acumatica, ServiceNow, Workday, and a wide range of ERP systems.

Example: For an ERP software implementation, automated tests can validate E2E business functions starting from creating leads, order creation, inventory management, order processing, and financial reporting, thus ensuring smooth operations.

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity threats are increasing daily, and test automation can help identify possible vulnerabilities and run patches to protect sensitive end-point systems.

Example: Automated security scans can systematically check for common vulnerabilities in web applications. Vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting are identified and patched by teams.

Healthcare and Medical Devices

In healthcare, test automation aids in validating software used in patient care, medical devices, and electronic health records (EHR). Read an article to learn how generative AI is transforming the healthcare industry.

Example: Automated tests can help interpret patient data from medical devices (X-rays, MRI, ECG) and send emergency alerts to hospitals and doctors whenever necessary.

E-commerce

Test automation is colossal for the vast e-commerce industry. It is the only way to test huge user load and cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility. It also aids in testing the functionality, UI changes, and regressions.

Example: The performance of an e-commerce website can be tested using automation for different user loads before a Christmas/ New Year sale event.

Automotive

Test automation is required for hardware and vehicle software validation in automotive manufacturing. Automotive companies can reduce development time and ensure high-quality products. Which subsequently enhances user experiences and meets the ever-increasing demands for innovation and safety. AI-based test automation is critical for autonomous vehicles to fully validate their functionality, performance, and security.

Example: Use automated tests to validate that autonomous car features like speed, GPS, navigation, brakes, voice recognition, etc., work as expected.

Gaming Testing

Automation testing can save time and improve the quality and user experience. It is critical to identify the critical issues before going live.

Example: Test thousands of users playing simultaneously to identify slowness, drops, or rendering problems. Complex gaming scenarios, such as different characters, game levels/modes, etc., can be automated for thorough testing.

Aerospace and Defense

Aerospace and defense is a safety-first industry; test automation can test components and software used in these systems. Automation testing helps reduce risks and saves costs in developing critical solutions for defense and aerospace applications.

Example: Positioning/navigation system, aircraft-to-land communication, etc., can be tested using automation.

Energy and Utilities

Test automation can validate and monitor power generation, distribution, failures, etc., in the energy and utilities domain.

Example: Scenarios such as failures(energy grid, wire disconnection, etc.) can be simulated, and the performance of the software under such extreme conditions is validated.

Conclusion

Test automation drives innovation, speed, and quality assurance in aerospace, healthcare, finance, telecom, automotive, energy, and other industries. Intelligent AI-powered test automation tools such as testRigor transcend industry boundaries. It offers a universally applicable test automation solution to enhance the development and delivery of products and services across industries within budget.

“We spent so much time on maintenance when using Selenium, and we spend nearly zero time with maintenance using testRigor.”

Keith Powe VP Of Engineering - IDT