Author: Suresh Menon (Associate Director-Testing-Digital Stream Consulting-A Rambus Group Venture).
Some Points are given below for the usage of tools for test automation
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Challenges of test Automation-There are n number of tools available in the market and choosing a good automation tool is one of the major challenges that an organization often faces. This is majorly because there are several commercial tools which are expensive and then there are open source tools which might not be reliable.
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Points to consider while calculating the ROI for automation.
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Can automation tool be used beyond regression-Automation tools can be used beyond regression depending on the complexity of the Application if it is a complex ERP or Banking application we have to carefully segregate the test cases , if there are any logical testing whereby the integration of the various modules of the application has to be tested it is suggested to be best done manually.
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To what extent can you automate
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When to start automation-The best phase to start your automation planning is during the design phase of the development life cycle. This is during this phase that you can know about the application design in terms of screen , user control and their properties which make the building block of your automation script.
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Proof of Concept(POC)-This activity involves creating a few sample scripts that validate a few important business workflows in one or two of your most important application.
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Points to be considered while calculating ROI –Number of test cases that have been identified as automation candidate. The test cases that should be executed multiple times with different sets of data, should be identified.
Manual Execution effort for identified test cases:
If you multiply the time taken in executing one test case with the total number of test cases you will get the total manual effort.
Automation Execution effort:
This is the time taken for the tool in successfully executing one test case, you should benchmark the execution time.Normally simple to medium test cases will not take more than 2 min for execution.
Number of Iterations Planned in a year:
This is one of the deciding factors for automation.
Automation Cost:
After you complete the estimation , you can arrive at the cost by multiplying the effort with the cost per hour.
You should also take into account maintenance cost this depends from tool to tool.
How Much can you Automate? This is a very basic question of management, the answer to the question depends on the complexity of the application , if it is a complex ERP Application you can target to automate at least 30% to 40%.
Estimation methods:
One excellent tool for test automation is Work break Down Structure where the project is broken done into phases, activities and task. For Testing Projects start with the following methods given below.
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Planning.
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Staffing (If Applicable).
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Test environment acquisition.
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Test Development.
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Test execution including retest and bug fixes.
You can also use techniques like Delphi or Expert Judgement based on similar projects done in the history of the organization.
The Author can be contacted at suresh@digitalstream.in for queries and comments.
