Ho Chi Minh City Software Testing Conference January 2015 Software Testing in the Agile World Website: www.hcmc-stc.org Author: Tam Bui Do you have an understanding of software automation testing? Have you often faced challenges when implementing automation testing on your projects? Have successfully achieved the cost and time targets for your automation testing projects? Joining the talk, you will a better understanding of automation testing practices and its benefits. In this presentation, I will share my experiences in applying test automation on my projects. My experiences are concentrated in areas such as team collaboration and selecting suitable test cases for automation. Software testers, automation testers and test managers can get great benefits from the talk. Developers can join to understand how to collaborate with the automation testing team. Senior managers will get more understanding about automation testing principles and then help their automation test teams implement automation testing effectively.

1. Practical Experiences in
Test Automation
Speaker: Tam Bui

2. © DiCentral Corporation
My Background
• B. Eng in Computer Science – Hanoi polytechnic University.
• B. A in English – Hue University.
• ISTQB Advanced Level – Test Manager – USA.
• 10+ year experience in software automation testing and 12+ year experience in
software testing world.
• Experience in usability testing, performance testing and security testing.
• QA/QC Department Manager at DICentral.

3. © DiCentral Corporation
Content
• What is Automation Testing?
• Why Automation Testing?
• Automation Methodologies.
• Automation Testing Approach.

4. © DiCentral Corporation
What is Automation Testing?
Automation testing is about using a
software, a piece of codes, or a test
tool to perform the testing.
Three levels of Automation testing: Unit
Testing, API Testing and GUI Automation
Testing.

5. © DiCentral Corporation
Why automation testing?
• Reduce manual testing efforts.
• Reduce test cycle time.
• Reduce test costs.
• Reduce manual testing errors when running regression
tests.

6. © DiCentral Corporation
Why automation testing? (Cont.)
• Run tests that manual tests cannot be run.
• Provide quick reports/feedbacks.
• Improve project team collaborations.
• Improve designing and programming skills.

7. © DiCentral Corporation
Pitfalls of Automation Testing
• Test everything. Non-repetitive tests will
increase costs unnecessarily.
• Lack of designing and programming skills.
• Debug time is not planned properly.
• Hardcodes in test scripts.
• Poor manual testing quality.

8. © DiCentral Corporation
Pitfalls of Automation Testing
Changes in application under tests. This causes changes in test scripts.
• Automation testing can replace
manual testing.
• Automation Test tool limitations.
Automation Test tools cannot
recognize application controls
and objects.

9. © DiCentral Corporation
Methodologies
• Record and Playback.
• Functional Automation.
• Data Driven.
• Keyword Driven.
• Hybrid.

10. © DiCentral Corporation
Key Success Factors
Approach
• Select a Test Tool
• Define Goals and Objectives.
• Implement Automation Test
Framework.
• Comprehend Design Principles.
• Select Test Cases for Automation.
• Separate Test Data and Test
Scripts
• Provide Quick Reports/Feedbacks.
• Make Maintenance easy and fun.
• And other considerations
Process
• Define Automation Testing
Process.
People
• Fulfill training activities.
• Run Team Member
Collaborations.

11. © DiCentral Corporation
Fulfill training activities
• Design skills.
• Programming skills.
• Scripting techniques.
• Domain Knowledge.
• Test Tool Knowledge.

12. © DiCentral Corporation
Run Team Member Collaborations
• Test Designer: Comprehend domain
knowledge and design test cases.
• Test Implementer: Implement and
maintain test scripts.
Collaborate with:
• BA: to get and clarity use cases, user stories etc.
• Developer: to get information about IDs of
Objects/Controls, Modules, Packages, etc.
• Manager: to get test automation scope,
objectives, and provide strategy, plan, results
and reports.

13. © DiCentral Corporation
Define Automation Testing Process
Plan
Design
Implement
Evaluate
Execute
Report

14. © DiCentral Corporation
Select a test tool

15. © DiCentral Corporation
Define Goals and Objectives
• Understand clearly about goals of
automation testing.
• Define objectives of automation
testing to measure how much we get
for the goals of automation testing.
• Then come up with the best strategy
and plan for automation testing.

16. © DiCentral Corporation
Implement Automation Test Framework
The framework will
facilitate automation
testing activities:
• Test designers design
test cases.
• Test implementers
implement test
script.
• Test executors run
tests and get
feedbacks/reports.

17. © DiCentral Corporation
Comprehend Design Principles
• Single Responsibility.
• Separation of concerns.
• Don’t repeat yourself.

18. © DiCentral Corporation
• Critical business test cases.
• Repetitive test cases.
• Time consuming test cases.
• Manually difficult test cases.
Select Test Cases For Automation

19. © DiCentral Corporation
Separate Test Data and Test Script
To improve:
• Reusability
• Maintainability

20. © DiCentral Corporation
Provide Quick Reports/Feedbacks

21. © DiCentral Corporation
Make Maintenance easy and fun
• Follow design principles.
• Follow code conventions.
• Review and Refactor Code.

22. © DiCentral Corporation
Other considerations - Test Environment
• Test scripts can be executed across different platforms
and environments.
• Test scripts can be executed in parallel to reduce
execution time.
• Automation tests can be evoked by Continuous
Integration process while test environment changes.

23. © DiCentral Corporation
Other considerations - Change Management
Put your automation test projects into configuration management systems.

24. © DiCentral Corporation
Conclusions
• Benefits of automation testing can be attained
if we do it right at the beginning.
• There is more than one way to skin a cat.

25. © DiCentral Corporation.
Q & A

26. Thank you