Introduction:
In this article I would like to summarize best practices to develop test automation framework, which should make them efficient, easier to maintain and expand. What is more, those practices will enable automated tests as an important and useful part of the process by the entire development team. However, if you want to manage your automation testing with the highest test coverage and productivity then you should have to follow some standard automation testing practices. In this article, we are going to discuss the top best practices which are used by every test automation framework.
We recommend the following best practices for automation framework.
Since automation frameworks are essentially about abstraction, an important set of best practices deals with ensuring loose coupling between –
° The test data and the test scripts,
° Test scripts themselves,
° The automation framework and the application under test
° The test cases and the automation framework, and
° The automation framework and the automation tool.
Hybrid Framework (Keyword + Data Driven approach) should be developed to provide less scripting efforts for the manual engineers. Depending on business goals, BDD can also be introduced.
Keyword names should be carefully chosen, so that human readability is also high. This enables gradual transitioning from manual testing to automated testing.
Verification points should be judiciously inserted into the scripts. In case of test case failure, these points accelerate the process of zeroing in on the reason of the failure
Framework should be integrated with the Test Management tool
Generic Libraries should be developed to reuse the modules in different keywords.
The development of an automation framework is similar to the development of an application in several respects, and hence should be planned and tracked as a (sub) project in itself. It should be noted that framework creation and test case design are distinct activities (and require different skills).
Simpler test cases should be automated before complex ones. This makes it easy for later scripts to build on earlier ones.
Best Code Review Process (Do not merge your code into Master without proper Code Review)
° Implement PR (PULL Request) Process
° Have the standard scripting guidelines that needs to be followed
° Static Code Analysis using SonarQube, Cobertura, JACOCO etc..
° Get the benefits of Best Test Automation Quality Matrices
° Sometimes, Manual (Functional Tester) should review your code (Assertion, test steps and use cases) to get the best coverage
Different Setup for Test Design and Test Execution:
° Proper Browser – OS lab setup
° Proper Mobile Labs setup with different Devices – IOT, iOS, Android, iPad, Tablets
° Proper CI – CD common configuration using Jenkins, Dev Ops, AWS, Docker and Cloud setup
° Handling multiple Docker nodes using Kubernates (use of Selenoid, GRID on Cloud)
Maintenance of the Frameworks: After a couple of months, it should not make your life miserable if you don’t maintain your libraries and framework properly. Do not use Hard Coded values, make it simple and Generic.
Conclusion:
The best practices described in this article are the path to successful test automation implementation and enhancement. Test Complete includes a number of features that help you best practices to develop framework like Keyword Driven, Hybrid Driven, etc. Following the best practices we can achieve:
° Easier to configurations, input test data, test cases and utility functions
° Provide support for adding new features
° Easy option to integrate with Automation tools, third part tools, databases etc.
