Post#70.Automation Test Life Cycle

The Automation Test Life Cycle (ATLC) necessitates an organized approach that puts across a process to strategize and initiate automation testing.  ATLC comprises six primary processes or components:

1.      Automation Feasibility Analysis

2.      Test Plan/ Test Design

3.      Test Script Development or Automation Test Case Development

4.      Test Script Execution

5.      Generation and analysis of Test Reports

6.      Test script Maintenance

Let's discuss each phase in brief.

Automation Feasibility Analysis

Before kicking off implementing test automation, it is mandatory to analyze the feasibility of the application under test (AUT). Whether AUT is in equitable condition or not for the test automation?

You need think from different perspectives and the focus should be on the following aspects.

ü  What tests should be automated and how to automate them.

ü  What modules can be tested and which cannot be automated

ü  What are the tools we can use and which will be the best one to use

ü  Take into account the factors involving team strength, time, cost involved etc.

Test Plan/ Test Design

Test plan/design is the most critical phase in test automation. This phase defines how to approach and accomplish the mission taking the following things into consideration.

ü  Number of machines required

ü  Configuration of software and hardware

ü  Fetch  all the manual test case from test management tool that which TC has to automate

ü  Which framework to use

ü  Create a test suite for Automation test case in Test Management tool.

ü  Test script maintenance planning

ü  Mention background, limitation, risk and dependency between application and tools

ü  Approval from client/ Stack holders.

ü  Schedule and Timeline of scripting and execution

Test Script Development or Automation Test Case Development

In this phase you start creating test scripts. This phase can be further divided into five sub-sections

ü  Creating test script based on actual requirements

ü  Create common functions or methods that can be reused throughout the test script.

ü  Making the scripts simple, reusable and well structured so that these can be understood by a third person.

ü  Review the scripts.

Test Script Execution

In this phase the execution of test scripts will start. While executing test scripts, you should remember the following points.

ü  All functional requirements as per the test case should be covered by test scripts.

ü  Scripts should be stable and should run on multiple platforms and browsers.

ü  Batch execution of test script is possible and this saves time.

ü  In case of failure, a screenshot of the scripts should be taken for further refinement.

ü  You should raise a bug or defect if the test case is failing due to functionality.

Generation and analysis of Test Reports

Result generation and analysis is the last phase and important deliverables in test automation. Results must be base lined and signed-off. Following are the important activities in this phase:

ü  Analysis of failure in the report and fix the failures in case failures are related to your test script

ü  Reporting defects for failed scripts

ü  Sharing execution report with Client/Stack holders

Test script Maintenance

As new functionalities are added to the System Under Test with successive cycles, Automation Scripts need to be added, reviewed and maintained for each release cycle. Maintenance becomes necessary to improve the effectiveness of Automation Scripts.