Why Should You Move to Functional Automation Testing?

Do you get bored with manually testing your code for defects again and again? Proper functioning of the code is the first thing that values.  If your code does not work as per the requirement spec, it is no longer of any use.

Functional testing ensures that your code performs as per the requirements. But alas! Even a small change or modification in your code can alter its working. Hence it is advisable to retest your code each time a modification is made to the code.

But running some test cases repeatedly can be daunting. And there starts automation testing. Automating your functional testing can discharge you of a lot of difficulties and can save you a lot of time.

What is Functional Automation Testing? 

Before proceeding on to functional automation testing, let us first understand a little about Functional Testing.

As discussed earlier functional testing verifies that every function of your code runs in accordance with the requirement spec. Functional testing needs you to send appropriate inputs and to check the actual output with the expected output.

But being the foremost quality assurance method, you may be needed to repeat functional testing. And therefore to ease out your work it is advisable to automate your functional testing method.

Functional Automation testing is a method that helps you in the easy and faster execution of your functional test cases. Manual testing needs you to perform the test case step by step, which can be time-consuming as it is performed by hand.

And to the outcast, this peril, automating functional test cases appears as a savior saving on both time and effort. It helps in performing functional test cases automatically with no human interference.

Before moving forward let’s see some drawbacks of manual functional testing.

Drawbacks of Manual Testing

Here are some drawbacks of manual testing that promote testers to utilize automated testing:

• Manual functional testing is very time-consuming.
• Functional testing like regression testing becomes very monotonous and losses testers’ engagement.
• It needs various resources.
• It might miss out on several scopes of functional testing.

Why Functional Automation Testing?

Considering the current scenario where we generate software at a fast speed and modifications and enhancements are performed at an equally fast speed, we require a methodology where we can test our code at a fairly high speed. And that is where a requirement arises for functional automation testing.

Organizations are now moving toward Agile and DevOps, enhancing the importance of automation than ever before. The frequent integrations and improvements in the code need test cases to run quickly and correctly. And automation functional testing ensures the best accuracy and quick run bypassing all human errors.

The main goal for a switch to functional automation testing is to save both time and money. It supports quick feedback to the developers for any defects and errors.

Apart from time and money savings, Functional automated testing also helps in:

• More accurate benchmarking.
• Fewer faults because of human error.
• Gives wider test coverage.
• Assists reusability.
• Helps in faster delivery of the software.
• Assists in faster feedback to the developers about the defects in the code.

Functional test automation as software development

Functional automation tests or any other automation tests are a part of software code that relies on one or other programing language. This makes it a whole software development activity where you acquire a code to test another part of code.

Developing functional testing code is fairly complicated as other software development projects and offering related issues like them.

So take care to comprehend software development best practices to produce a successful functional automation test case.

Should you automate all your test cases?

Automating all the test cases does not appear to be a good purpose. Rather, not everything is yet automatable. To look out for what test cases you should ideally automate, examine the following things:

• Deterministic test cases
• Automate test cases that do not need manual communication
• Test cases that works with fiscal-related areas of the software
• Test cases that works with risk areas of the software
• Test that needs running on different data sets.
• Test cases those are hard for manual testing.
• Test cases those are needed to run on several browsers, systems, etc.
• Test cases that are time-consuming.
• Stress/load test cases
• Unit test cases

You can consider automating the more time-consuming and repeated test cases. Though, the criterion may change depending on several other conditions.

Functional Automation Testing ROI 

Finally, it is ROI that majorly rules any business decisions. Whether to automate your test cases or not; is also mostly dependent on ROI. The determination of ROI for automation testing is critical. Here is a small formula that can help you discover a rough approximation of the automation cost.

Automation Cost = automation tool cost + cost of the labor to automate test cases + maintenance cost

If your automation test cost sets out to be lower than the manual testing cost, you should watch out for automating test cases.  Moreover, the testing cost grows with every run in manual testing, whereas the ROI sums up with each run-in automation testing

But there are some other factors aside from ROI that can influence your judgment as to whether or not to automate test cases.

What Not to Automate

Functional automation testing, no doubt protects time and effort. But automating all the test cases is not a good plan. There are several kinds of test cases you should not consider automating.

• Test cases that are to be executed only once.
• Ad Hoc based test cases.
• Test cases that do not have a predictive result.
• Usability test cases.

Be wise in your choice of test cases to automate. Functional test case automation can be highly useful for you if performed wisely.

Also Read: Top Automation Programming Languages Of 2021

Conclusion:

Functional testing is one of the most significant phases of STLC. But seldom functional testing can be a very time-consuming and frantic job.

Automating function test cases is one most suitable solutions to overcome this difficulty. Functional automation testing can spare you both time and money.

So be clever and consider functional automation testing for your upcoming projects.

Need to implement functional automation testing in your project? Think no more! TestUnity provides the testing services on-demand, serves with projects of any scale, and is ready to start with a few days’ advance notice. Choose to team up with a QA services provider like TestUnity. Our team of testing experts specializes in QA and has years of experience implementing tests with different testing software. Get in touch with a TestUnity expert today.

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