This document discusses test automation, including its benefits, types, skills needed, and challenges. Some key benefits of test automation include: saving time by allowing software to execute test cases faster than humans; freeing up test engineers from repetitive tasks; and enabling more reliable and immediate testing. There are three generations of test automation: record and playback, data driven, and action driven. Setting up an effective test automation framework requires skills in programming languages, framework design, and understanding the product being tested. Challenges of test automation include gaining management commitment and the initial costs and learning curve.

1. UNIT V
TEST AUTOMATION

2. Software Test Automation
• When the test cases are executed and verified,
there is a good improvement in
> Test coverage
> Quality of testing

3. Test automation
• A s/w is developed in order to test the s/w. this is
termed as test automation.
• It finds many solutions for the problems. They are
1. Automation saves time as s/w can execute test
cases faster than human do.
2. It frees the test engineers from mundane tasks &
so they concentrates on several creative tasks.
3. Automated tests can be more reliable.

4. 4. Automation leads to immediate testing
5. Automation can save an organization against
attrition of test engineers
6. Test automation gives chances to use the global
resources
7. Without automation, some sort of testing
cannot be conducted
8. Automation refers the end to end activity and it
is not only the test execution

5. • Test data generators:
Automation holds some scripts which gives
the test data to increase the coverage of
(i) Performance & combinations of i/ps
(ii) Expected output for result comparisons.
This is referred as test data generators.
Terms used in automation:
Test case
It is the collection of sequential steps to
run a test operating on a collection of
predefined inputs to give the expected result.

6. Types
1.Manual
2.Automated
Test case is represented in many ways,
They are
• Documented as a collection of simple steps
• Assertion statement
• Set of assertions

7. Skills needed for test automation
• Test automation skills are based on the generation
of automation.
• 3 generation
1. Record and playback- removes the
repetitiveness of test execution.
2. Data driven-creates a set of test scripts which
produces (i) set of i/p conditions (ii) expected o/p
3. Action driven- execute automatically depending
upon the generic set of controls defined for
automation.

8. • Third generation has 2 criteria
1. Test case automation
> scripting language
> programming language
> design & architecture of product under test
> usage of the framework
2. Framework design
> programming languages
> design & architecture skills for framework
creation
> generic test requirements for many products

9. Scope and automation
• General tips to know the scope of automation
1. Finding testing types which are amenable to
the automation
2. Automating areas less prone to change
3. Automate tests that pertain to standards
4. Management aspects in automation
5. Return on investment

10. Design and architecture for
automation
• There are 5 modules.
• They are
1.External module- test case DB, defect DB
2. Scenario and configuration file modules- how to
run a specific test case
3. Test framework modules and test cases
4. Tools and results module
5. Report generator and reports/metrics modules-
customized report, technical report,
debug/detailed reports.

11. Requirements for a test tool
1. There is no hard coding in the test suite
2. Test case/suite expandability
3. Reusing the code for various types of testing
and test cases
4. Automatic arrangement for setup & cleanup
5. Independent test cases
6. Test case dependency
7. Insulating test cases during execution

12. 8. Coding standards and directory structure
9. Selective execution of test cases
10. Random execution of test cases
11. Parallel execution of test cases
12. Looping the test cases
13. Grouping of test scenarios
14. Test case execution based on previous
results
15. Remote execution of test cases
16. Automatic archival of test data
17. Portability to different platforms

13. Challenges in automation
• Management commitment
• It takes time and effort and pays off in the long
run.
• It needs initial outlay of money as well as a steep
learning curve for test engineers
• Management should hold patience and persist
with the automation.
• the heavy front loading of costs of test
automation

14. Test metrics and measurements
• Measurement is an integral part of tracking.
• It first collects the data and then it is analyzed
to take suitable conclusions.
• Metrics takes the information from raw data
with a view to help in decision making.

15. • There are 3 types of metrics like
1.Project metrics-starts with requirements
gathering and ends with product release.
2.Progress metrics-the goal is find as many
defects as possible before any customer finds
them.
3.Productivity metrics- combine many
measurements and parameters with effort
spent on the product.