Automated Software Testing: What Is the Need and Benefits
Tags: automated, software, testing
Published: 2023-07-17 05:01:24

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Software testing is a crucial process that ensures the quality and reliability of software applications. In the present era, where software is used in almost every aspect of our lives, it becomes essential to ensure that the software works as intended and does not have any glitches or errors.

Software testing is a comprehensive process that evaluates various aspects of software like functionality, usability, performance, security, and compatibility, among others. It helps in identifying defects or bugs in the software and ensures that they are fixed before the software is released to the end-users. Thus, software testing is a critical process that helps in delivering a high-quality software product that meets the customer’s requirements and expectations.

However, with the current trend of Agile and DevOps being adopted by organizations, manual testing is no longer practical. This is further emphasized by the Gitlab Devsecops survey, which states that manual testing is the most significant obstacle in achieving Agile and DevOps. This is where automated software testing comes into picture. In this blog, we’ll discuss what automated software testing is and how it can help in improving testing speed and risk coverage.

**Challenges With Manual Testing Approaches**

Manual testing approaches have several challenges that can hinder the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the testing process. Some of these challenges include:

**Human error**: Manual testing is prone to errors as it is performed by humans, who may overlook or miss critical issues.

**Limited coverage**: Manual testing can only cover a limited number of test cases, which can lead to important issues being missed.

**Time-consuming**: It is time-consuming, especially when it comes to repetitive tasks, which can lead to delays in the development cycle. For example, regression testing in case of ERPs can be very time consuming and challenging. As far as Oracle Cloud Applications are concerned, they need at least 4 times of regression testing in a year which can be very challenging by following manual approaches.

**Costly**: It can be expensive as it requires a significant amount of resources, such as skilled testers and testing infrastructure.

**Inconsistent results**: It can produce inconsistent results due to differences in testers’ skills, knowledge, and approach.

**Difficulty in reproducing issues**: It can make it difficult to reproduce issues, making it challenging for developers to fix them.

**Lack of scalability**: Manual testing is not scalable and can be difficult to manage when testing large or complex software systems.

**What is Automated Testing**?

Automated software testing is a type of software testing where software tools and scripts are used to control the execution of tests and compare the actual results with the expected results. This process involves the use of automation software that can execute tests, report results, and compare results with expected outcomes. Automated software testing helps to improve testing efficiency and accuracy, reduce testing time, and increase test coverage. It is especially useful in Agile and DevOps environments, where speed and accuracy are essential.

**Benefits of Automated Software Testing**

**Faster Testing**: Automated testing is much faster than manual testing as it can perform tests in parallel, leading to quicker feedback on the application’s functionality.

**Improved Accuracy**: Automated tests are not prone to human error, making them more accurate and reliable than manual tests.

**Increased Test Coverage**: With automated testing, it is possible to test multiple scenarios and data sets that are difficult or impossible to test manually, thus improving the test coverage.

**Cost-effective**: Automated testing saves time and reduces costs associated with manual testing, including resource allocation and test execution.

**Early Detection of Bugs**: It can detect defects early in the development cycle, making it easier and cheaper to fix them.

**Reusability**: It can be reused for regression testing, saving time and resources.

**Challenges With Automated Testing**

There are basically two main challenges with automated testing. The first is the code based testing framework. Since in the case of regression testing, which is the most preferred case of test automation, testing is performed by business users. And, business users are non-technical folks. Thus, it is recommended to always opt for no code test automation framework like Opkey that requires no coding knowledge to operate.

Another challenge is automation script maintenance. In case, your test automation framework is unable to maintain test automation scripts, all the benefits related to automation will erase out. Thus, it is recommended that you should opt for a test automation platform that autonomously maintains scripts without requiring human intervention. Opkey is one such platform.