The Secrets of Successful Regression Testing
Tags: regression, testing
Published: 2023-08-29 06:13:10

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Software products must be reliable and high quality, especially in complex and dynamic contexts. Regression testing is the procedure used to ensure that a software system continues to function as expected following any modifications or upgrades. Regression testing, however, may also be expensive, tiresome, and time-consuming if done manually. Because of this, many software development teams choose regression automation, which involves automating the execution and validation of regression tests using tools and methodologies.

Here are a few tips for effective regression automation that software teams can use to enhance their enterprise test automation strategy and produce high-quality software.

**Plan Ahead**: Software teams must have a clear plan and vision for their automation goals, scope, approach, and KPIs before automating regression testing. Prioritize the most critical and often modified system components that call for regression testing by evaluating their business value and risk. Additionally, they must select the tools and frameworks that best suit their technological stack, financial situation, and level of expertise. They must establish the success criteria and KPIs that will enable them to assess the ROI and results of their automation.

**Design Smart**: Software teams should adhere to a few principles and best practices while creating regression test cases to increase their effectiveness, maintainability, and reusability. They should, for instance, give their test cases descriptive names, clear instructions, and expected results; modularize their test cases into reusable components or functions; adhere to the principle of least surprise (POLA) and make their test cases independent, consistent, and predictable; and use appropriate assertions and verifications to check the system behavior, and they should also use coding standards to write clean easy-to-read test scripts.

**Execute wisely**: To provide quick, dependable, and correct results when running regression tests, software teams must optimize their test execution environment and methodology. For instance, they should use Continuous Integration (CI) or Continuous Delivery (CD) tools to automatically trigger their regression tests after each code change or build, run their regression tests in parallel or distributed mode to shorten the execution time, use test management tools or dashboards to track and manage their test execution status and progress, and use cloud-based or containerized solutions to scale up or down their tests.

**Analyze wisely**: After running regression tests, software teams must examine test reports and findings to find any flaws or problems in the tested system. To enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their regression automation process, they must also utilize the test findings and data. For instance, they should use straightforward formats and templates for their test reports; include pertinent details like the test case’s name, status, duration, error message, screenshot, etc.; use visual aids like charts, graphs, or heatmaps to highlight critical findings or trends; use root cause analysis (RCA) or defect prevention techniques to determine the causes of failures or errors.

**How can Opkey help**? 

One such solution is Opkey, a cloud-based test automation platform.It makes testing simple and efficient for the software teams to automate their regression testing. Opkey offers features including test management and reporting, CI/CD integration, cross-browser and cross-platform testing, data-driven and keyword-driven testing, and more. Opkey offers 100+ experts with 20+ fortune 500 customers. Opkey lets you implement faster with 30,000+ pre-built test accelerators and it even guarantees 3 days certification for each update. By following these secrets of successful regression automation, software teams can achieve higher efficiency, effectiveness and excellence in their enterprise test automation endeavors. Opkey certifies a 100% risk-free migration for Oracle, SAP, MS Dynamics and more.