#selenium functional testing

Automated testing has come to the rescue of QA professionals jousting with the challenges of manual testing. In the Agile and DevOps driven software application development process, automated testing has undoubtedly shortened the time to delivery and reduced costs. However, automated testing requires the right selection of automation testing tools. Among the available tools, Selenium is placed right at the top of the technology stack. It is widely used to test web applications.

Why Selenium?

As an open-source testing framework, Selenium supports cross-browser testing of web applications and ensures the product to be market ready. Leveraged both by developers and testers, Selenium testing can be carried out by QA professionals without having a thorough knowledge of the scripting language. Migrating to Selenium testing services can give business outcomes like reduced testing effort, cost effectiveness, speed, platform compatibility, and much more. It has a default test language called ‘Selenese’, which can be used to write test scripts automatically. Moreover, the Selenium test suite comprises several tools such as WebDriver, Remote Control, IDE, and Grid, with each having a distinct functionality.

Selenium offers a slew of benefits over other automation tools. It allows Selenium experts to write test scripts in a particular programming language and use/reuse them across browsers. In fact, Selenium WebDriver has become a standard for browsers. Selenium testing entails testing user interfaces and comparing test results to validate whether they are in accordance with the expected outcomes or not. Its SENDKEYS method translates test scripts written in any language into the one understood by it.

Benefits businesses accrue through Selenium testing

·         Reduces cost: The Selenium tool is open-source and can be easily downloaded from its official site. It comes with a strong community-based development support.

·         Compatibility with browsers: Selenium can be leveraged to test any web application on multiple browsers like Chrome, Edge, IE, Firefox, Yandex, and Safari. The tool enables Selenium testing specialists to check that the web application works seamlessly on multiple browsers. Besides, by changing the scripting language, the tool can be customized to the exact testing requirements of a software application. Furthermore, Selenium WebDriver offers automated solution to the Selenium experts when they try cross-browser testing of any web application.

·         Testing across devices: Since web applications need to be responsive across device platforms for delivering a greater UX, they need to be tested on multiple devices. Selenium testing specialists can write automated test cases for iPhones, Android, Windows, and Blackberry, among others.

·         Speeds up time to delivery: Selenium allows testers to write platform-compatible test scripts, thus leaving them from writing separate scripts for each platform. This saves them from performing regression testing and quickens the time to delivery.

·         Allows CI and CD: The success of DevOps methodology depends on a seamless run of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery outcomes. Thus, by automating the test process, Selenium helps businesses to implement DevOps successfully.

·         Shortens turnarounds: An effective Selenium testing strategy helps QA teams to run multiple automated test cases across browsers or OS platforms in parallel. This, besides enhancing the quality of web applications, reduces the turnaround time to a great extent.

·         Compatible with frameworks and languages: Selenium tool can be easily integrated with a host of frameworks namely, Jenkins, TestNG, ANT, Maven, etc to compile the source code. In fact, its integration with Jenkins can enable CI and CD seamlessly.

·         Community support: The community-based support for Selenium ensures regular updates and upgrades. The support makes sure the tool remains glitch-free and meets the exacting testing standards and industry trends.

·         Simulation of keyboard and mouse cursor: Selenium allows you to simulate and automate several scenarios like keypress, mouse drag and drop, multiple item selection, etc. Such mimicking of real-life scenarios can facilitate QA testing and reduce turnarounds.

·         No specific training required: One of the main reasons for the adoption of Selenium is its short learning curve. The QA teams do not require prior knowledge of a particular language, for the tool supports a slew of programming languages. Just write the test script in a programming language you know and let the same be translated into a Selenium-understandable format. So, while using the tool, Selenium experts do not need to learn any new programming language, thus saving considerable time and effort.

Conclusion

Automated testing tools have become critical in ensuring the flawless delivery of software applications. Among many such tools, Selenium comes with myriad benefits that help businesses to automate QA testing and enhance the quality and delivery of web applications.

The White Paper explores different aspects that lead to market failures with Selenium implementations, and suggests solutions for the same.

The growing role of software applications in bringing about digital transformation has put a renewed focus on their functionality. For unless the features and functionalities of software applications perform as per the expected outcomes, their credibility in the market leaves a lot to be desired. To ensure that software applications remain error free and address the requirements of the business, they should undergo a rigorous functional testing exercise. The absence of such a testing can lead to damaging the credibility of an organization not to speak of harming the interest of the users. To pre-empt the company from suffering damage vis-a-vis its reputation, brand value, and customer trust, the software application should be subjected to a slew of QA testing exercises such as functional testing that is repetitive, consistent, quick and cost effective.

Why functional testing?

With rising competition, businesses have been forced to bring out quality applications within the constraints of turnaround time and cost. However, merely bringing out applications would not cut any ice in the market unless they are adopted by the customers. In other words, customers should derive the best experience while using a software application vis-a-vis similar applications in the market. Although QA is a comprehensive activity comprising several tests, functional testing is about validating the functionality of an application. The functions to be validated while conducting the required testing exercise are user actions, business processes, navigating from one screen to the other, and searches, etc.

Why functional test automation?

The software applications of the day are becoming more and more complex. This is due to their growing interaction with a slew of digital elements viz., device platforms, browsers, operating systems, frameworks, and networks. To validate each and every functionality of the APIs having connections with the above digital elements in a limited timeframe (and cost constraints) functional automation testing should be adopted. The benefits of adopting automated testing are as follows:

Generates a quicker feedback for the stakeholders to analyze and incorporate changes.

Avoids the pitfalls of manual testing while expanding the test coverage area.

Leads to an effective continuous integration and delivery.

Ensures a faster time to market.

How to set up the right test automation solution?

Having the right skillset: The team carrying out QA automation testing should have people with varied skillsets. These include the test automation experts, product experts, and other stakeholders who can help align the test strategy with the overall business objectives.

Tool selection: The test automation framework should ensure use of the right automation tool. Although a single tool might not be able to successfully validate each and every functionality of the application, it should be chosen by keeping in mind factors such as compatibility, desirability, cost, and the expertise of people in handling it. Some of the popular test automation tools are Selenium, Test IO, Coded  UI Test, UFT, and SoapUI etc.

Test Cases: Not all test cases can be automated, but the one’s that ought to be automated should be:

Business critical

Time consuming

Too repetitive to be validated manually

Too tedious to be carried out, say requiring the involvement of hundreds of users

Moreover, each and every test case should have a status of ‘Pass’ or ‘Fail’ to help the test automation experts know about their success (or failure).

Test Environment: The test environment should be similar to the development environment, that is, comprising similar hardware and software configuration. This helps the developers to understand the glitches easily thereby applying correctives quickly and assuredly.

Ensuring reusability and maintainability of the test suite: The automated test suite should reflect the present status of the application. In other words, if the applications undergo any addition or deletion, the same should be incorporated in the test suite as well. Moreover, each version update to the application should include similar updates to the test suite. The test suite should be suitably maintained to ensure its reuse thus saving time, effort, and cost.

Facilitate collaboration: The automation suite should be closely integrated with the development environment so that tests can be executed on multiple platforms, browsers, and operating systems in real time.

Robust reporting mechanism: Each and every functional automation testing cycle should generate accurate reports for multiple test cases across builds. The reports can help stakeholders to understand the various stages of testing and take suitable decisions concerning the business.

Conclusion

Testing the functionality of software application is a business critical activity that ensures the delivery of a robust software thereby meeting the user expectations. Such tests can help the business to become more competitive.