Real-life example of building solid test automation strategy
In the previous blog post, we spoke about all the aspects that should be taken into account to build a proper test automation strategy. Now it’s time to bring in the real-world example.
The client – anti-virus solutions provider – was on a hunt for a test automation vendor.
All of the described above was taken into account by the a1qa test automation team that was hired to deliver the automation projects and achieve the following goals: reduce deployment and smoke testing duration, eliminate X number of manual testing man-hours a week, and ensure the customer’s portal localization to 31 language.
Automation was a part of a huge and costly business project: the development of a new web portal that was meant to provide users with the opportunities to install security apps on their devices, remotely manage licenses and protection features, and purchase new products.
The developed portal should have become the company’s flagship product so it was decided to invest in test automation.
Scope of work
The primary objective was to automate time and efforts consuming regression testing. When this task was fulfilled, it was decided to get down to automating other tests that covered scenarios of high business value.
At that point, the a1qa test automation team was assigned to develop automated tests to check the functionality that was delivering maximum business value.
Automation of localization testing
After the thorough discussion, it was decided to start with the automation of localization testing, which was conducted regularly and covered 31 locales.
The objective for the localization team was to adapt the portal to new cultural regions, which meant working on developing new functionality and making the existing functionality available to new countries in new languages.
The approach implemented by the test automation team made it possible to automatically compare the same pages of different product versions for regression and compare the same pages in multiple localizations.
Due to the application of automated tests, the deployment sped up fivefold.
Automation to monitor availability of third-party services
Another business value functionality was the notification on third-party services failure. The portal functionality greatly depended on the performance of the third-party services. The a1qa engineers developed automated tests to monitor the availability of the services.
In case of any troubles discovered, the system reported the defects and notified the stakeholders (developers, managers, testers) about the issues occurred so that they could be eliminated promptly.
Making right choice brings results
The implemented strategy focused on product strategy, functionality value, and the project goals. It helped achieve the following results:
- Deployment process and smoke testing time in production were reduced fivefold.
- Test automation coverage was equal to 900 hours of manual testing efforts on a daily basis and about 200 additional hours every week.
- Monthly environment downtime was reduced by 26 times.
- Test automation paid off and started to bring a positive financial effect six months after it was implemented.
Summing up
Test automation is a great solution for those who want to deliver business value faster than competitors do.
However, as you see, test automation shouldn’t be a one-side decision, rather than technical and management teams should discuss the benefits, costs and possible risks.
To choose a proper set of test cases to automate, consider the strategy of your product, calculate the cost of opportunity, and prioritize the product functionality by its value.
The well-built strategy will bring you significant benefits and put you one step ahead of your competitors.
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