This document discusses using functional test automation to prevent defects from escaping the development phase. It recommends automating acceptance tests during development to catch bugs early from the user perspective. The process involves preparing for automation by exploring and selecting test candidates, automating the tests as close to development as possible, and repeating the automation across areas, platforms and versions to prevent regression bugs. Continuous integration and handling test errors are also suggested to provide feedback and react to issues identified through automation. The overall goal is to shift testing left in the development cycle through early and frequent automation from a user perspective.