The document provides best practices for software test automation. It recommends treating test automation like a software development project by focusing on design, documentation, and bug tracking. It also stresses setting measurable goals, choosing the right testing tool and framework to meet automation needs, ensuring high quality test data, training a dedicated team, conducting early and frequent testing, and writing independent test cases.

1. Compiled By Arul Selvan P.
Compiled By Arul Selvan P.
Software Test Automation Best Practices – An Overview
1. Treat Test Automation like a Software Development project
A successful testing automation project:
 Focuses on design (reusability, extensibility etc.)
 Takes a framework driven approach
 Maintains detailed documentation
 Prepares a plan to track bugs and rectify them
 Identifies reusable functions in automation scripts
2. Set measurable goals for your Test Automation project
It is essential to set clear, quantifiable objectives for the test automation project. These
goals should clearly bring out:
1. Percentage of test cases to be automated in various Test Suites
2. % Improvement in the test coverage
3. % reduction in the time to release the build
4. Reduction of test cycle time of new releases by improving their time-to-market
(management-level goal)
3. Choose a testing tool that answers your Automation needs
Selecting the right tool is obviously a very important foundation for success in your Test
Automation project.
The following criteria can be employed in selecting the right test tool:
1. The tool must possess a built-in facility to run multiple test cases
2. The tool should be able to classify tests being run, basing on set criteria while
simultaneously running multiple test cases
3. The tool should be able to run the desired test cases without human intervention
4. The tool should be able to generate execution reports or logs at the end of each
test case
5. The tool should be able to compare two values, so that the difference between
real and expected results can be estimated

2. Compiled By Arul Selvan P.
Compiled By Arul Selvan P.
4. Choose the right Test Automation Framework
Test Automation framework allows to
 define the scripting methodology to automate tests
 creates mechanism to hook into the application under test
 execute the tests and report the results.
Framework establishes a common standard for the team to achieve the goals.
While designing a test automation framework, the key goal is maintainability. The tests
will change and a good automation framework will support and facilitate change. If there
is any change in any test, it should be very easy to change the automation suite, and in
some cases not required to change at all.
In addition, performance is also important. In a typical automated test suite, several tests
will be executed. If each test can be executed faster by a second or so, it will result in
cutting down the time to test!
The following list will serve as a checklist (not exhaustive) to design your test
automation framework:
1. Define your scripting standards for business components, system
communications, data check points, loggers, reporters etc.
2. Hide the complexities and critical aspects of the code from Test engineers and
expose them to the implemented Libraries and tests.
3. Separate Scripts and Data :– automated tests scripts must be separated from
the input data store (could be in text, XML or Excel files). Ideally only input data
gets manipulated for testing with multiple values and the script does not
change.
4. Think through the applications future enhancements and modifications before
building your test framework library, and build in the extensibility in it.
5. Use the standard process for script versioning.
The framework will have components/libraries to handle
 Application Functionality
 Types and sources of Input data
 Communication between utilities, components and systems such as
communication between distributed components, check points,
communication with logger etc
 Tool Extending capabilities – features which are not supported by the tool
that you have selected.

3. Compiled By Arul Selvan P.
Compiled By Arul Selvan P.
5. Ensure high quality of Test Data
A good investment of time and effort should go into creating well-structured test data
during the early stages of the automation testing project. This makes the process of
writing automated tests easier, in the later stages of the project life-cycle. The quality of
test data also determines its reusability and maintainability.
6. Build the right team and invest in training them
Apart from the right tools and a proven testing process, a testing automation project
requires a dedicated, and skilled team who are trained to understand the complexity of
the project and work accordingly. The challenge in such scenarios is to find skilled,
dynamic personnel who should be trained to:
 Handle ambiguous scenarios and test cases
 Conduct manual testing along with developers
 Write automated regression tests
 Execute automated regression packages.
 Handle integration and performance testing
 Plan and gather requirements
7. Conduct early and frequent tests
The more frequent and earlier the testing automation process is applied in the project
life-cycle, the earlier are the bugs detected in the process. The earlier the bugs are
identified, the more economical it is to remove them from the system at a preliminary
stage.
This process also helps refine the automated test suite for further enhancements.
8. Externalize Configuration
Attempt to make test automation self-aware, expose configurable values
whenever possible, apply naming conventions and other standards, and always remember
that hard coding is easy coding.
9. Mock External Services
Eliminating the dependencies on external services will greatly improve the speed and
stability of your tests.
10. Avoid Sharing State
11.Test Independency
Write each test as its own unit. Write the tests in a way that won't be reliant on other
tests to complete.