10 Knowledge to Specialize in Software Test Automation

Software testing automation is considered one of the most effective testing methodologies. It has become a trend plus a must-have learning need for Test Analysts and Software Test Engineers.

To specialize in software test automation, you need to master several basic knowledge and methodologies. Also, you need to learn to program software and handle some of the software test automation tools.

Here are the top 10 knowledge and skills you must learn to become an Automated Software Test Engineer, such as learning programming, database and software architecture, automated testing tools, execution and debugging, how to produce reports from results, practices to develop cases and their continuous integration among other aspects.

1. Manual software testing methodologies and knowledge of the business area

Before venturing into software testing automation, knowledge of manual software testing and methodologies is recommended. Also, it is worth having some experience as a software tester.

This implies that you have the Know-how in software testing, various predictive methodologies, and Agile Testing.
Knowledge of the domain area, the processes, and practices of the business area or industrial sector in which you are specialized are also important, for example, customer service applications in telecommunications, banks, retail trade, etc.

Knowledge of the domain area is essential for designing test cases and keeping track of bugs. These skills you will also need when conducting automated software testing.

Technical knowledge will be of little use to you if you do not have the domain of the business area.

2. Test automation techniques and tools

There are various test automation techniques, the most basic of which are to develop low-level components that send test data to software components.

Most are based on invoking interactions with the system, which are platform-dependent and consist of manipulating the graphical interface (UI) control at runtime.

Some examples for different platforms are:

Web applications:  Selenium WebDriver, JavaScript event triggering, Remote Debugging Webkit, among others. Selenium WebDriver is one of the leading exponents of software test automation tools. 

Desktop applications:  Reflection, Windows API (use the SendInput API to simulate manual mouse or keyboard clicks), Microsoft UIA, Java in-process manipulation, among others.

Mobile applications:  Android UIAutomator, iOS UIAutomation, Appium, among other tools to support mobile software testing.

3. Software programming

To become an Automated Software Test Engineer, you will need to become a competent software programmer by selecting and learning one or more programming languages.

If you have previous experience in programming, you can start with more complex languages ​​such as Java or C++. If you do not have a lot of experience, you can learn fewer easy languages ​​like Python and Ruby, also work with test automation frameworks and tools.

4. Databases and web technology

Specialize in testing automation Databases and web technology

As a software test automation engineer, it will not be enough for you to know about the operation and process flow of the applications you test, but you will also need to know about their internal components and software architecture.

Hence, it is recommended that you study the basics of database technologies such as Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, etc. 

As a manual software test analyst, you probably already have knowledge of structured query language (SQL), and you just need to expand that knowledge with database architecture, administration and learn patterns and anti-patterns, common errors in database development.

It is also advisable to learn web technology since the crucial business applications are based on that technology. Knowledge like HTML5, XML, XPath, Javascript, REST / SOAP (Service Oriented Architecture) is beneficial here. Among others. At this point, you should familiarize yourself with web services testing tools.

Another prior knowledge that can help you get into software testing automation is learning how to perform load and stress tests using a tool with SoapUI.

5. Identification of elements in application software

To carry out an automated test design, you need to know how the application is built internally and the software components that make it up, such as HTML web pages, Java classes, Windows interfaces (WPF).

Then you need to identify which properties to look for to identify graphical interface (UI) controls, structuring these element definitions in a structured way for easier access.

6. Results reports and Data-Driven Test

When using software test automation tools, it is recommended that you also learn how to develop test assertions in the framework of your choice (such as JUnit, for example) to print (in a text file) the results of your tests.

Without the reporting component, you can run the tests, but you will not get detailed results reports.

On the other hand, in most cases, you will need to repeatedly execute the same tests but with different combinations of data, for which it is also necessary to learn to parameterize said combinations in the framework or software test automation tool, as well as to know how to design your test data.

7. Execution and debugging of automated tests

Another essential knowledge to acquire is how to configure test cases and how to identify the root cause of errors.

The challenge is to understand the end-to-end flow of the application and its business rules.

Faults such as insufficient timeout, unexpected pop-ups, and events that did not trigger are complex to identify and correct, especially when you do not have a test environment with the exact settings to reproduce the problem.

8. Principles of software engineering applied to the automation of software tests

Specialize in Testing Automation - Software Engineering Principles

Just as software developers need to apply software engineering practices and avoid common programming mistakes, automated software test engineers also need to produce clean code.

In this sense, they must apply the best software engineering practices, such as:

Ease of reading: Create test cases that can be easily read from a business perspective. For this, you can use your knowledge of the domain area.

Scalability:  Think long-term and ask 'what ifs' questions when designing and scheduling automated software tests. What happens if members join the test team? What if the application under test is going to be migrated from the desktop to the web, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, or any other? Can test cases be reused and thus reduce development work in the future?

Maintainability: You must learn methods so that your development of test cases can handle situations such as that the application under test is subject to new developments, incorporating new business logic, and changes to the graphical user interface (GUI), which could “break” your current test cases. Ways should be explored to parameterize cases and avoid duplication.

9. Code integration

Like developers and their code, the Test Automation Engineer must integrate their automated tests into an Application Lifecycle Management tool, in which the software is developed, tested, delivered, and installed in an application environment.

The automated software test engineer should know how to automate tests and also know the tool used to automate the testing life cycle.

10. Mini support tools

You must learn to use all the tools that can support you and facilitate the design and execution of automated software tests. Some examples:

Inspect: Windows tool that allows you to select an interface and graphical element and view its accessibility data.

UIVerify: Framework that facilitates automated and manual software testing of Windows user interfaces.

Spy++: This allows you to view the properties of any Windows window.

Chrome DevTools (F12): A series of web authoring and debugging tools built within the Google Chrome browser. Other browsers such as Firefox also have their version for developers.

POSTMan: Tools for the development of application program interfaces (API).

Curl: Tool to transfer data to and from servers using any of the protocols handled, such as DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, among others.

WireShark: Network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows.

And what do you think?

Are you studying to specialize in software test automation? What is the primary knowledge that you consider most important to enter the area? Are you searching for automated testing courses online?

Here we share an excellent test automation tutorial on the platform Janbask Training.

What is GEEK

Buddha Community

Top 10 Automation Testing Tools: 2020 Edition

The demand for delivering quality software faster — or “Quality at Speed” — requires organizations to search for solutions in Agile, continuous integration (CI), and DevOps methodologies. Test automation is an essential part of these aspects. The latest World Quality Report 2018–2019 suggests that test automation is the biggest bottleneck to deliver “Quality at Speed,” as it is an enabler of successful Agile and DevOps adoption.

Test automation cannot be realized without good tools; as they determine how automation is performed and whether the benefits of automation can be delivered. Test automation tools is a crucial component in the DevOps toolchain. The current test automation trends have increased in applying artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to offer advanced capabilities for test optimization, intelligent test generation, execution, and reporting. It will be worthwhile to understand which tools are best poised to take advantage of these trends.****

#automation-testing #automation-testing-tools #testing #testing-tools #selenium #open-source #test-automation #automated-testing

Accelerate Test Execution With Self-Healing Mechanism

In recent years, the testing community has witnessed a steady rise in automation testing. Although it has proved significant advantages compared to manual testing, flakiness in locating objects for WebUI testing is still a constant problem that restrains the transition to automated testing for teams. Testers have to spend unnecessary time and effort to manually update the object locators whenever they make new changes to the application.

The Self-healing mechanism is one of the most promising factors to completely change the automation Web testing. By eliminating unnecessary repetitive tasks in execution, this mechanism creates the foundation for test automation to perform at its full potential.

Object Locator Flakiness — A Constant Challenge in Test Automation

Object locator flakiness comes from the root of automation itself: fragile test scripts. Object locators, most often, can no longer identify the target element after the application under test (AUT) changes. Pre-written scripts then will fail to run the test correctly, which results in a false failed result. The QA team has to detect whether their tests fail because they actually have a problem, or the scripts cannot adapt to new element changes. Web testing, in which UI changes happen over and over, appears to suffer the most from this flakiness.

To maximize the speed advantage of automation testing, automation testers demand a mechanism that can recognize and skip these UI changes to keep the scripts running seamlessly. For automation testers, Self-healing function has turned out to be the optimal solution for this pain point.

What Is Self-Healing Automation? Why Is it Important?

Self-Healing Capability: A Definition

The human body is a perfect example to explain the self-healing mechanism. Whenever a human gets injured, the human self-healing function is triggered to find the wound and heal it without any action needed. For any minor injuries, this mechanism can quickly heal wounds without human intervention.

Back to self-healing automation in software testing, it functions exactly like the way the human body works. Based on the object changes in properties, the self-healing mechanism actively studies the characteristics and properties of all available objects, removing similar objects on the page and comparing their historical data. Then, the test engine will automatically pick up an alternative that best assembles the changed locator to keep the test running.

How Does Self-Healing Capability Benefit Test Automation?

Self-healing has been a desirable solution to solve one major challenge of automation testing: Quality at speed.

By identifying new changes and replacing them with similar objects, the self-healing mechanism reduces downtime and significantly speeds up the deployment process. With this capability, QA teams can release the burden of intense script maintenance, and save time and resources.

Additionally, a well-built self-healing mechanism gives QA teams the ability to create generic test frameworks that can apply to a broad range of software, improving the benefits of automation.

More and more automation tools have developed self-healing as an essential part of the tool in response to this enormous demand. Many experts expect that self-healing will become less of a nice-to-have function but a must-have for all automation tools in the near future.

In their latest update — version 7.6 — Katalon Studio company has introduced the new self-healing mechanism to its users. This function allows users to speed up processes and maximize automation efforts for the whole team.

See what’s new in Katalon Studio.

How Katalon Studio’s Self-Healing Capability Enhances Automation Processes

Before the updated version was released, Katalon Studio users were familiar with its Auto-healing Smart XPath. This plugin assists in recovering broken default locators by trying other available XPath alternatives. However, in case there are no suitable alternatives available, the execution will stop running.

To advance its process and provide users with more efficient test maintenance, Katalon Studio developed the Self-healing mechanism that has been released lately. Following the positive impacts of Smart XPath, the self-healing mechanism is made to be more robust and comprehensive to tackle broken locators during each execution.

Get to Know the Self-Healing Mechanism in Katalon Studio

During the execution, if Katalon Studio fails to identify an object with its default locator, the tool tries other pre-configured locators associated with that object. With 4 selection methods, including XPath, Attributes CSS, and image, users can opt to set the object locating priority to ensure accuracy and continuity of the execution.

If Katalon finds a suitable object within the selectors, the test keeps running to completion. With approval from the tester, the locator that is selected to replace the broken object will then be saved for that particular Test Object in future executions. By doing so, Katalon Studio creates a database to make the self-healing mechanism even more efficient by avoiding analyzing one same broken object repeatedly.

Once the execution is over, Katalon Studio will suggest replacing all broken locators with the locators having found the objects. If Katalon Studio cannot find the target objects, the test will either continue or stop running, depending on how users designed the failure handling option.

How to Execute Tests Using Self-Healing Mechanism in Katalon Studio

Requirements:

• Katalon Studio version 7.6 onwards
• An active Katalon Studio Enterprise license

In a Katalon Studio project, you can find a screen in project settings dedicated to Self-healing. You can change the default settings to make the utility better suit your needs.

The self-healing mode is activated by default whenever users run the application. To open the Self-healing window, go to Project/Settings/Self-Healing/Web UI.

Configure Test Design

To start with Katalon Studio’s self-healing, users need to set initial settings to decide the default selection method used during spying and recording. Please note that for Image selection, screenshots for the objects are mandatory.

Go to Project/Settings/Self-healing/Web UI/Test Design to set the default selection method.

Configure Self-Healing Execution

Users can decide which alternative locators to be used in terms of selection methods and their priorities in Project/Settings/Self-Healing/Web UI/ Test Execution.

This predefined order will be applied when Katalon fails to locate the target objects.

All the replacements are recorded in Self-healing Insights when the execution is over. Katalon Studio allows users to decide which alternative locators to be used in terms of selection methods and their priorities.

To read the full tutorial and sample project using the self-healing mechanism, you can visit Katalon’s Document hub here.

Conclusion

With this upgraded Self-healing mechanism, Web testing is made faster and easier as it reduces human efforts on script maintenance with less interruption. This is a valuable addition for Katalon users to have a more powerful automation experience with consistent results.

To try out this new functionality, sign up on the Katalon website with your business email and get a 30-day free trial with full functions in the latest Katalon Studio!

#devops #software testing #automated testing #automation testing #update #software test automation #xpath #automation tools #software testing 2020 #object locator

Is Software Testing a Good for Career?

Software Testing is the hottest job at present time. The requirement for a software tester is increasing day by day with a good salary package depended on their skills in the software development companies.

Software testing has become a core part of application/product implementations. The good who want to make a career in software testing because it has a great scope of software testing is increasing day-by-day in the IT field.

The roles of a software tester are given according to their skills and experience. Here are the following is given below:

QA Analyst (Fresher)
Sr. QA Analyst (2-3 years’ experience)
QA Team Coordinator (5-6 years’ experience)
Test Manager (8-11 years’ experience)
Senior Test Manager (14+ experience)

Reasons Why Software Testing Is Good Career Option

Good Salary Package
Software tester gets paid a high salary package on which a software developer gets. It doesn’t matter beginner or fresher payment scale is on the same level all depended on their skill. Companies raise their salary based on skill, experience, and certification.

High In Demand
Now in the modern age competition is high for a software tester to provide high-quality products and services. For quality, final product testing is a basic core screening element which is the demand for Automation software testing is high in comparison to manual testing. Similarly, both software development and testing have great career opportunities for never-ending opportunities.

Easy To Enter In IT Sector
Whatever stream graduates can easily get into the IT sector by completed their online Software testing course. You don’t need to know advanced coding knowledge if you think that requires it. The only matter is interest to learn and work.

Easy To Learn
Many institutes provide software testing courses or online Software training from where you learn tools used for testing can easily by anyone who has an interest. Those who have basic coding skills can enter into software testing. However, It will not be easy for those who choose software testing just because of the trend and don’t have their interest in it.

Work As Freelancer
Software Testing is a flexible job, you can work on freelancing. Now there is the option to work from home in the IT sector in a flexible to maintain a work-life balance.

In other words, many companies prefer freelance work to reduce the cost and also the result is high, therefore one who has done a software testing training course either can work freelance or regular job the decision is up to you.

#software testing online training #software testing online course #software testing training in noida #software testing training in delhi #software testing training #software testing course

What Are The Software Testing Specializations?

One of the more common problems with going into a specialization is trying to seek out how to interrupt into or learn skills concerning a specialization. A method is to seem for jobs specifically focused on a specialty of your choice and check out to start at an entry-level with less knowledge. Differently is to develop that knowledge and skill via mentors and workshops.

Social networks have an outsized sort of people doing interesting add different places. The simplest place to start with a specialty you’re curious about pursuing is to seek out someone already working within the field that might be willing to mentor you or point to someone that would mentor you into that specialization. Join best software testing online training to develop your skills.

Mobile Testing: Testing on and around mobile applications and possibly the hardware to which applications are deployed.

Data Analyst: This might be anything from analyzing trends in user data to analyzing and testing data created by an application.

Data Testing: Often involves Services, API, and Databases. ensuring data is moving from one place to a different, transformed correctly, stored correctly. this needs knowing how different sorts of data are utilized in an application or several applications.

Usability Tester: Works with domain knowledge and understanding of workflows for an application. the power to ask the user questions on those workflows, and understanding what’s possible with UX/UI designs gives this specialty an ingenious outlet. It’s also utilized within the skill set of an honest UX/UI designer.

Accessibility Testing: All types of tech must be more accessible to parents with a variety of accessibility requirements. Someone testing in these areas would wish to know regulations and skills to interrupt down an app to seek out places that may not meet those standards and regulations. Having empathy and understanding of sites with accessibility requirements are going to be key to being successful during this career choice best option to register in the best software testing training company in Noida.

Security Analysts: Are often testing for vulnerabilities, exploits, and loopholes. It takes on many various forms and sometimes the simplest security testing is knowing social engineering and the way this plays into security concerns.

Performance/Load Testing: This type of testing is employed to get a baseline, optimal, and failure handling for various application and network traffic metrics. this is often an ever-expanding area that may cover a good sort of use cases and concerns.

DevOps: A Tester on an ops team focuses on the testability of the pipeline. They apply lessons learned from automation about how a pipeline is often tested to verify it’s performing correctly. It’s a hybrid role that will cause a transition into ops and infrastructure roles.

Quality Training: This role is vital to emerging and transitioning companies often trying to find culture and process changes. It’s often a consulting position. Classes are there to assist the entire team to thrive and sometimes use their testing skills to show the entire team testing techniques.
Specializations in testing are technical skill sets that are a growing need within the software development market. Having even a little amount of data about any of those specializations can make a Tester extremely valuable to a corporation.

Web sites and Enterprise apps are still an outsized majority of labor and that they are growing in complexity. the necessity to possess more specialized skills is growing, companies will need those skills to narrow in thereon complexity and add up to it.

#software testing online training #software testing online course #software testing training #software testing course #software testing

TestProject Open SDK for Java - Software Testing Material

TestProject is a free automation tool that promises to give painless automation experience. It has the feature of record and plays associated with a developer SDK. It also has the capability to build and utilize addons as per need. It is based on automation tools like Appium and Selenium.

Having said that, TestProject removes the complication of maintaining and downloading multiple browser drivers required for testing an application in various platforms and browsers. This is overcome by having an executable file that can run in the majority of browsers and devices.

#automation #automation testing #codeless test automation #scriptless test automation #test automation #testproject