Category Archives: Software QA Testing

test automation

Challenges and Considerations in AI-Driven Test Automation

AI/ML, Software Outsourcing, Software QA TestingMindfire Solutions

As the field of software testing continues to evolve, organizations are increasingly exploring the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in test automation. AI-driven test automation promises enhanced efficiency, accuracy, and coverage in software testing processes. However, implementing AI in test automation comes with its own set of challenges and considerations. In this blog post, we will delve into the key challenges and considerations when incorporating AI into test automation, including data quality, model interpretability, ethical considerations, and the balance between human expertise and automated approaches.

Data Quality

One of the fundamental requirements for successful AI-driven test automation is high-quality data. AI models heavily rely on training data to learn patterns and make predictions. Therefore, organizations need to ensure that the data used to train AI models is accurate, diverse, and representative of the system being tested. Poor data quality, such as incomplete or biased data, can lead to unreliable or skewed results.

To address data quality challenges, organizations should invest in data collection and preprocessing techniques that maintain data integrity and diversity. Data validation processes should be implemented to identify and rectify any anomalies or biases. Moreover, organizations should continuously monitor and update their data sets to reflect the evolving nature of the software systems under test.

 

Model Interpretability

In the realm of AI-driven test automation, one of the key challenges that organizations face is model interpretability. While AI models can offer remarkable accuracy and efficiency in software testing, their inner workings often remain obscure and difficult to comprehend. This lack of transparency poses a significant hurdle in building trust and understanding the decisions made by AI models.

To address the challenge of model interpretability, organizations must prioritize the use of AI models that can provide human-understandable explanations for their decisions. Techniques such as explainable AI (XAI) are emerging to bridge this gap by shedding light on the reasoning behind AI model outputs. By utilizing XAI methods, testers and stakeholders can gain insights into how the model arrived at its conclusions.

There are several approaches to achieving model interpretability. One approach is to use simpler and more transparent models, such as decision trees or rule-based systems, which are inherently interpretable. While these models may not offer the same level of accuracy as complex neural networks, they provide a clear understanding of how input data influences the output.

Another approach involves post-hoc interpretation techniques that aim to explain the behavior of complex AI models. These techniques include generating feature importance scores, visualizing activation patterns, or creating saliency maps to highlight the significant factors that contribute to the model’s decision-making process.

By ensuring model interpretability, organizations can build trust in the results produced by AI-driven test automation. Testers and stakeholders can gain confidence in understanding why certain defects were identified or missed, enabling them to make informed decisions based on the AI model’s outputs. Ultimately, model interpretability contributes to more effective and reliable software testing processes.

 

Ethical Considerations

AI-driven test automation raises ethical considerations that organizations must carefully address. Testing AI systems themselves requires a thorough understanding of the ethical implications surrounding AI technologies. Testers should be aware of potential biases, privacy concerns, and the ethical use of user data in the testing process.

Organizations should establish ethical guidelines and frameworks to ensure responsible and fair use of AI in test automation. This may involve adhering to relevant regulations, conducting ethical reviews of AI models, and implementing mechanisms for addressing potential biases and discrimination. It is crucial to prioritize transparency, accountability, and user consent when collecting and using data for testing AI systems.

 

Balancing Human Expertise with Automated Approaches

While AI-driven test automation offers significant benefits, it is important to strike a balance between automated approaches and human expertise. AI models excel at handling large-scale data analysis and repetitive tasks, but human testers possess critical domain knowledge, intuition, and creativity that AI cannot replicate.

Organizations should recognize that AI-driven test automation is a complementary tool to human expertise, rather than a complete replacement. Human testers play a vital role in designing test scenarios, validating results, and making critical decisions based on context and intuition. Collaboration between AI models and human testers ensures a holistic approach to software testing and maximizes the effectiveness of the testing process.

 

The Future Ahead

AI-driven test automation holds great promise for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of software testing. However, organizations must be aware of the challenges and considerations that come with its implementation. By addressing issues related to data quality, model interpretability, ethical considerations, and the balance between human expertise and automated approaches, organizations can navigate the complexities of AI-driven test automation and unlock its full potential. By doing so, they can improve the quality of their software products, streamline their testing processes, and gain a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

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cognitive test automation featured img

Cognitive Test Automation: Harnessing Cognitive Computing for Complex Scenarios

AI/ML, Software Outsourcing, Software QA TestingMindfire Solutions

In today’s fast-paced digital world, software testing has become an essential part of the software development life cycle. With the increasing complexity of software applications, traditional testing methods are no longer sufficient to ensure the quality of software products. This is where cognitive test automation comes into play. In this blog, we will explore the integration of cognitive computing capabilities, such as natural language processing (NLP) and image recognition, into test automation frameworks to handle complex testing scenarios.

What is Cognitive Test Automation?

Cognitive test automation is a subset of test automation that leverages cognitive computing capabilities to handle complex testing scenarios. Cognitive computing is a type of artificial intelligence that mimics human thought processes. It involves the use of natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and other advanced technologies to enable computers to understand and interpret human language and behavior.

Cognitive test automation uses these cognitive computing capabilities to automate testing scenarios that were previously difficult or impossible to automate using traditional testing methods. For example, cognitive test automation can be used to automate testing scenarios that involve natural language processing, image recognition, and other complex tasks.

Benefits of Cognitive Test Automation

Cognitive test automation offers several benefits over traditional testing methods. Some of the key benefits include:

  1. Improved Test Coverage: Cognitive test automation can handle complex testing scenarios that were previously difficult or impossible to automate using traditional testing methods. This improves test coverage and ensures that all aspects of the software application are thoroughly tested.
  2. Increased Efficiency: Cognitive test automation can automate repetitive and time-consuming testing tasks, freeing up testers to focus on more complex testing scenarios. This increases efficiency and reduces the time and cost of software testing.
  3. Improved Accuracy: Cognitive test automation uses advanced technologies such as NLP and image recognition to ensure accurate and reliable testing results. This reduces the risk of human error and ensures that testing results are consistent and reliable.
  4. Faster Time-to-Market: Cognitive test automation can speed up the software development life cycle by automating testing tasks and reducing the time and cost of software testing. This enables organizations to bring software products to market faster and stay ahead of the competition.

 

Challenges of Cognitive Test Automation

While cognitive test automation offers several benefits, it also presents several challenges. Some of the key challenges include:

  1. Complexity: Cognitive test automation involves the integration of advanced technologies such as NLP and image recognition into test automation frameworks. This can be complex and requires specialized skills and expertise.
  2. Cost: Cognitive test automation requires specialized tools and technologies, which can be expensive to acquire and maintain. This can be a barrier to adoption for some organizations.
  3. Integration: Cognitive test automation must be integrated with existing test automation frameworks and processes. This can be challenging and requires careful planning and execution.
  4. Data Quality: Cognitive test automation relies on high-quality data to ensure accurate and reliable testing results. This can be a challenge if the data is incomplete, inaccurate, or inconsistent.

 

Methodologies for Cognitive Test Automation

There are several methodologies for implementing cognitive test automation. Some of the key methodologies include:

  1. Scriptless Test Automation: Scriptless test automation involves the use of visual models and drag-and-drop interfaces to create test cases. This approach simplifies the test automation process and reduces the need for specialized skills and expertise.
  2. Model-Based Testing: Model-based testing involves the creation of models that represent the behavior of the software application. These models are then used to generate test cases automatically. This approach reduces the time and cost of test case creation and ensures comprehensive test coverage.
  3. Behavior-Driven Development (BDD): BDD involves the creation of test cases that are based on the behavior of the software application. This approach ensures that testing is aligned with the business requirements and improves the accuracy and relevance of testing results.
  4. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): AI and ML can be used to automate testing tasks that involve natural language processing, image recognition, and other complex tasks. These technologies can also be used to analyze testing results and identify patterns and trends.

 

Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Test Automation

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of artificial intelligence that focuses on the interaction between computers and humans using natural language. NLP can be used in test automation to automate testing tasks that involve natural language processing, such as testing chatbots and voice assistants.

NLP-based test automation involves the use of NLP algorithms to analyze and understand natural language inputs and outputs. This enables testers to create test cases that are based on natural language inputs and outputs, rather than code-based inputs and outputs.

 

Benefits of NLP-based Test Automation

NLP-based test automation offers several benefits over traditional testing methods. Some of the key benefits include:

  1. Improved Test Coverage: NLP-based test automation can handle complex testing scenarios that were previously difficult or impossible to automate using traditional testing methods. This improves test coverage and ensures that all aspects of the software application are thoroughly tested.
  2. Increased Efficiency: NLP-based test automation can automate repetitive and time-consuming testing tasks, freeing up testers to focus on more complex testing scenarios. This increases efficiency and reduces the time and cost of software testing.
  3. Improved Accuracy: NLP-based test automation uses advanced technologies such as NLP algorithms to ensure accurate and reliable testing results. This reduces the risk of human error and ensures that testing results are consistent and reliable.
  4. Faster Time-to-Market: NLP-based test automation can speed up the software development life cycle by automating testing tasks and reducing the time and cost of software testing. This enables organizations to bring software products to market faster and stay ahead of the competition.

 

Challenges of NLP-based Test Automation

While NLP-based test automation offers several benefits, it also presents several challenges. Some of the key challenges include:

  1. Complexity: NLP-based test automation involves the integration of NLP algorithms into test automation frameworks. This can be complex and requires specialized skills and expertise.
  2. Data Quality: NLP-based test automation relies on high-quality data to ensure accurate and reliable testing results. This can be a challenge if the data is incomplete, inaccurate, or inconsistent.
  3. Integration: NLP-based test automation must be integrated with existing test automation frameworks and processes. This can be challenging and requires careful planning and execution.

 

Image Recognition in Test Automation

Image recognition is a technology that enables computers to interpret and understand visual information, such as images and videos. Image recognition can be used in test automation to automate testing tasks that involve image recognition, such as testing user interfaces and web applications.

Image recognition-based test automation involves the use of image recognition algorithms to analyze and understand visual information. This enables testers to create test cases that are based on visual inputs and outputs, rather than code-based inputs and outputs.

 

Benefits of Image Recognition-based Test Automation

Image recognition-based test automation offers several benefits over traditional testing methods. Some of the key benefits include:

  1. Improved Test Coverage: Image recognition-based test automation can handle complex testing scenarios that were previously difficult or impossible to automate using traditional testing methods. This improves test coverage and ensures that all aspects of the software application are thoroughly tested.
  2. Increased Efficiency: Image recognition-based test automation can automate repetitive and time-consuming testing tasks, freeing up testers to focus on more complex testing scenarios. This increases efficiency and reduces the time and cost of software testing.
  3. Improved Accuracy: Image recognition-based test automation uses advanced technologies such as image recognition algorithms to ensure accurate and reliable testing results. This reduces the risk of human error and ensures that testing results are consistent and reliable.
  4. Faster Time-to-Market: Image recognition-based test automation can speed up the software development life cycle by automating testing tasks and reducing the time and cost of software testing. This enables organizations to bring software products to market faster and stay ahead of the competition.

 

Challenges of Image Recognition-based Test Automation

While image recognition-based test automation offers several benefits, it also presents several challenges. Some of the key challenges include:

  1. Complexity: Image recognition-based test automation involves the integration of image recognition algorithms into test automation frameworks. This can be complex and requires specialized skills and expertise.
  2. Data Quality: Image recognition-based test automation relies on high-quality visual data to ensure accurate and reliable testing results. This can be a challenge if the data is incomplete, inaccurate, or inconsistent.
  3. Integration: Image recognition-based test automation must be integrated with existing test automation frameworks and processes. This can be challenging and requires careful planning and execution.

 

Conclusion

Cognitive test automation, NLP-based test automation, and image recognition-based test automation are powerful tools for handling complex testing scenarios in today’s fast-paced digital world. By leveraging cognitive computing capabilities such as NLP and image recognition, organizations can improve test coverage, increase efficiency, improve accuracy, and reduce the time and cost of software testing. While these approaches present several challenges, there are several methodologies and technologies available to help organizations overcome these challenges and reap the benefits of cognitive test automation.

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Medical Device Testing

The critical role of QA in Medical Device Testing

Software QA TestingMindfire Solutions

Introduction:

Digitization has brought significant advancements to the healthcare industry in recent years. This has made it easier to connect people with the most up-to-date medical gadgets and software, resulting in better healthcare services. Medical devices are essential for patient care because they have a direct impact on human lives by delivering valuable data and observations.

Due to different advancements in healthcare, medical device software continues to get increasingly sophisticated. Certain critical compliance factors, such as regulatory delays and the adoption of international standards, have an impact on the software quality of medical devices.

Given the current demand for medical devices to serve the millions of patients caught up in the COVID fight, ensuring adequate quality and delivering products quickly has become a must. We need our MedTech producers to be adaptable and robust in the face of rising demand for medical equipment such as ventilators, oximeters, and other devices in such unusual times.

What is Medical Device Testing?

Medical device testing, for those unfamiliar, is the process of establishing that a gadget will be reliable and safe to use in the event of a medical emergency. This is one of the most important processes in the process of turning an inventive concept into a reliable and marketable product.

Multiple regulatory organizations oversee these devices, as well as the overall MedTech business, and they must meet a set of compliance and standardization before moving forward. Hence, this is where professional medical device testing services come into play. These massive software testing firms devise effective device testing methodologies and ensure that your devices are well integrated with your mobile apps, thoroughly tested, and fully functional prior to release. Furthermore, they must provide effective performance, accurate readings, and be safe to use.

Medical device testing guarantees that devices meet all quality-related aspects of the product, which necessitates severe Quality Assurance assistance to ensure that these devices are of the highest quality and reliability.

Types of Medical device testing

When it comes to a software-enabled medical equipment, there are several different forms of testing:

1. Lifecycle Verification &Validation:

Software verification provides objective proof that the design outputs of a specific phase of the software development life cycle meet all of the phase’s requirements. Furthermore, it checks the programme and its supporting documentation for consistency, completeness, and correctness as it is being produced. It also offers evidence for the judgement that the software has been validated.

2. GUI testing:

GUI testing ensures that the medical gadget responds to UI-based inputs correctly. Issues like UI complexity creates user confusion, usage delay, data entry mistakes, false inputs. These can be avoided with GUI testing for medical devices so that they do not become a reason for a life-threatening situation during real-world application.

3. Performance testing or Bench testing:

This type of testing rules out any mechanical or design problems in the medical device’s performance. Hence, medical equipment are subjected to performance bench testing to determine their endurance and capacity to work at the same level of efficiency under various loads.

4. Compliance testing:

Different medical authorities have established distinct federal and regulatory criteria to ensure that a medical gadget in circulation is safe and effective. Thus, compliance testing ensures that the medical device meets all of the quality and safety requirements by using the best design and manufacturing techniques available.

5. Interoperability testing:

Medical device interoperability is the capacity to share and use information between one or more devices, products, technologies, or systems in a safe, secure, and effective manner. Thus, interoperability testing assesses a medical device’s capacity to communicate data across systems and platforms. It thus, improves patient care, reduces errors and adverse events.

6. Reliability testing:

A medical device’s reliability is determined by its ability to work satisfactorily over a long timeframe and under stress. It basically checks the medical device’s dependability in any situation.

The Important Role of Quality Assurance in Medical Device Testing

The PDCA cycle, a four-step procedure, helps in control and continual improvement of processes and products. It has 4 basic steps: Plan, Do, Check and Act.

  • PLAN: Make a change plan ahead of time. Analyze and forecast the outcomes.
  • DO: carry out the strategy, one step at a time, in a controlled environment.
  • CHECK: examine the outcomes.
  • ACT: Take steps to assure process uniformity and improvement.

Streamlined Quality Outcomes With The Best QA Solutions

If you’re a medical device manufacturer, the most critical decision is to make sure your company follow the quality assurance and quality control rules. Thus, it leads to cost inefficiencies, if the final product fails to deliver the quality you expect. It’s critical to either have a full-fledged in-house software team or outsource QA to avoid any major fatalities.

The following are some benefits you may gain if you hire a QA consultant for a medical device testing service

  • Reduced project budget
  • Faster time-to-market
  • Continuous support & maintenance
  • Efficient domain expertise

Final Thoughts:

Medical devices are  important since they have a direct impact on a patient’s heath. End-to-end medical device software testing helps to ensure optimal device performance.

Any performance difficulties with these devices are deadly to the patient’s health. Businesses should use effective software quality assurance to assure completely functional medical device software.

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Like other businesses, if you too are looking for medical device testing Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, who have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

Here is an interesting project we have done. Click here to know more:

Automated Testing for Healthcare IoT Product.

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Leveraging Kubernetes for End-to-End Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance, Software QA TestingAjit Singh .mindfiresolutions.com

Kubernetes is an all-in-one container orchestration tool that helps in the management, deployment, monitoring, and scaling of systems for containerized applications which are all packaged in one open-source system. If your organization works with containerized applications using Docker, then you would already know that things become tedious, and it becomes difficult to manage them when they scale up.

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Classic QA Process:

Here, the end-user only interacts with the front-end user interface in both monolithic and containerized applications. Similarly, the traditional QA process can be used for containerized applications but should be seen as a subset of the QA process in the Kubernetes world. UI or API testing using tools like selenium or Rest- assured can be used for automation testing for applications running on Kubernetes, but this is a costly process that requires high investment in terms of time, money & resources. To overcome this, it requires us to look outside the box to find better solutions that can be paired up with these and provide better coverage right from the beginning. This would result in the scope of the QA process getting increased when applied to Kubernetes applications.

Enhanced QA Process (hybrid) for Kubernetes Applications:

Kubernetes applications are generally deployed using continuous integration and continuous delivery. To assist the developers in the release cycle, the traditional approach of creating end-to-end tests is not adequate and now requires QA to work very closely with developers on the tests so that it can be written quickly and executed swiftly.

Hybrid QA Process

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The following are the new technologies that help in accomplishing the full potential of the QA process in the Kubernetes world.

  1. AB Testing
  2. Chaos Engineering
  3. Consumer-Driven Contract Testing
  4. Helm Tests
AB Testing:

The complexity of applications has increased vastly, and business requires constant UI updates and feedback based on the frontend changes. The business stakeholders hire marketing and research teams to attract more customers and convert more leads from different marketing campaigns.

Here Kubernetes gives us the power to leverage continuous feedback by using the customers as testers and present real-time statistics for businesses to make decisions in real-time

AB Testing

Chaos Engineering:

Chaos engineering tests the resilience and weakness of a system in production by creating expected chaos in the system to verify that none of the activities has affected the performance and stability of the system. This builds confidence that the system can handle unexpected situations and that any failures that exist can be addressed before the customers face the brunt.  Since they get known to the QA team in advance, it gives them the opportunity to fix those unexpected outages before they actually affect large groups of users. Some examples can include scenarios like increasing load on a Microservice, introducing DNS failures, Mimicking hard drive failure, etc.

This can be achieved by using Free and open-source tools available depending upon the cloud provider on which the system is hosted. For example, one of the better-known tools is Chaos Monkey used by Netflix for cloud-hosted Kubernetes clusters.

Chaos Engineering

Consumer-Driven Contract Testing:

Often times while working with microservices, creating full end-to-end integration tests are expensive and requires high execution time. Even if you hit failures, it is hard to figure out which service is causing the failure if the complexity of the system is high. We can create Consumer-Driven Contract Testing using Pact which is available in almost all languages. It makes it easy to write the integration tests and helps us to test consumer-provider rules using JSON files.

So, what is a pact? PACT is a binding contract between the consumer and the provider, which has to be always followed. In the world of microservices, the pact is based on the API call (consumer) and response (provider). It can be done using either a single isolated microservice (while mocking the other microservices) or on a real system with all microservices running.

Why use PACT when we can write end-to-end integration tests?  Well, it helps us create tests before we move to write expensive integration tests and can provide us with the general sanity of all the microservices running in our system.

Consumer Driven Contract Testing

Helm Tests:

Most organizations use Helm charts to deploy Kubernetes resources on Kubernetes clusters. These charts are really powerful and often contain tests written in the chart which can be used to test if all the resources got deployed successfully to our Kubernetes cluster.

Since Helm tests use a scripting language to perform basic sanity checks on the deployed resource, we should leverage the tests provided by popular charts over the internet. In case, you are making in-house helm charts, then you might want to skip this for some better integration test since tests written in scripting language can be difficult to write and maintain.

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With the fast evolution of the application architecture and introduction of DevOps culture, the traditional QA process is not able to provide the same value for money and is often seen as one of the bottlenecks when it comes to the release cycle. Hence, QA must design and plan their framework to provide a blend of fast test results and improved end-to-end integration tests. The role of QA is now changing from Quality Assurance to Quality Assistance. Since the QA process has to be optimized as per the AUT, this article hopefully has helped you in identifying the process of a robust end-to-end QA framework for applications running on the Kubernetes cluster.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. To know more about our company, please click on Mindfire Solutions.  For over 20+ years now, we have been the preferred Software Development Partner of over 1000+ Small and Medium-sized enterprises across the globe.

 

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RPA Image

Is Robotic Process Automation changing the Test Automation Game?

Automation Testing Tools, IT Outsourcing, Software QA Testing

RPA has taken the IT world by storm. I won’t say that it is the newest thing in business because it has been there around for about 10 years now. But now is the time when it is spreading like wildfire. More and more companies want to adopt it.

To set the context, let’s look at how AI has broken all the barriers of our imagination. I bet that a few years ago when we used to see robots in movies, we would think that they are just part of our imagination or even if we considered them to become reality someday, we always thought that the day to be many years away. But what we never imagined was that technology will progress so much so soon. Today Artificial intelligence is making machines more and more human-like. They want machines to not only follow our instructions but to think, and possibly also to exhibit emotions. It is almost like humans want to assemble humans in labs. No wonder then that a robot named Sophia was very recently even given citizenship of Saudi Arabia.

Now going back to Robotic Process Automation. Going just by the words,  it seems like  Robots automating processes. The catch, however, is that that when we say Robot, we don’t mean an actual physical robot, but a virtual one –  the automation program.

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What’s the big deal about RPA in Software Test Automation?

Many could argue that in traditional Automation also we were creating automation programs. So what is all the hype about?

The key distinctions according to me are :

  • It is script less: Coming from a Manual testing background it was always a challenge for me to always keep learning the latest scripting languages but now I don’t need to learn any programming language to automate a test scenario. You just need to be good with your logics and should be able to think out of the box scenarios.
  • Focus is back to product quality: I am not saying that in Traditional automation the product quality was getting hampered, But in my own experience I feel that when I was working on Automation via scripts, most of my time was getting consumed in writing code and at the end of the day, only very few scenarios were automated, and I was not able to cover as much scenario and I didn’t have the time to dive into variety of scenario. So I feel that out of two 1 thing was always getting compromised either the Coverage or the deadline. But with RPA tool this problem of mine has been resolved to a great extent.

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How things work when Automating Test cases with RPA

There are many RPA tools available in the market like UI Path, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and many more. You can use any (FYI: I am not promoting any specific tool).

There are few basic criteria on which all the RPA tools are based on:

  • Already defined user actions: Most of the user actions that one can think of while automating a test case like the click of a button, mouse hover, opening browser, typing into a text box and many more, they are already defined and the user doesn’t have to code.
  • Built-in decision logics and looping statements: The best part about using RPA tool for creating scripts was, I didn’t have to worry about the syntax of my decision logic and adding loops, for example, do-while, for, etc. They are built-in and I just needed to use them.
  • Configuring of user events through Parameters: Every user action or event that we use can be easily configured using its parameters. Almost every property of a user event is made available so as it can be customized as much and as easily as possible.
  • Easy to create variables: RPA tools make it very easy to create a variable without stressing upon the syntax.
  • Error handling: If there is an error that occurs while configuring the user events or in the full flow, RPA tools have very good error handling mechanism. It helps the user to narrow down the area of error and also gives very clear and specific error messages making it very convenient for the user to correct the error.

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What RPA has changed in my Automation Testing approach?
  • So as I said above, for me RPA has put the focus back to thinking about logic, covering some out of the box test scenarios, rather than spending hours just automating the basic functionality.
  • RPA has improved my testing coverage also, as I am able to cover number and different types of scenarios.
  • Thanks to RPA, I am able to automate the test scenarios faster as I don’t have to write every single line of code on my own.
  • Another advantage of using an RPA tool is, I face less number of errors while automating a test case. As in RPA tool, they have built-in codes for most of the logics and I just have to make sure that I use them in correct flow.
  • With RPA tool, I was able to manage my scripts much easily as most of the times it just making tweaking into the properties of the built-in user actions.
  • Also when I create my scripts using RPA tool, they are more easily readable and I am able to explain them to another person in a better way
  • Being from a manual testing background, it was always a big challenge for me to always keep on learning the latest scripting languages but now I don’t have to invest my time learning the coding languages.
  • I can invest my mind in more decision making tasks rather than some boring and repetitive tasks that can be done by machines also.

Now, when I extract the essence of all the benefits, the bigger picture that I get is RPA helps to increase Test Automation Coverage, reduces the time required, hence reducing in the process the cost of Testing and in turn increasing the Company’s profit.

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Having said that, I did face some challenges while automating test scripts with RPA tool

1) I was not able to automate everything
Having worked with different scripting automation tools, I feel that there are some scenarios which I can’t achieve using RPA tools like I am not able to automate scenario which deals with complex Database entries, multiple formats of input or unstructured input data.

2) It executes at a slower pace
When I execute a script created via any RPA tool it executes at a UI speed but when I run a script created using scripting languages, it is much faster. So I feel that RPA is comparatively slower than the processes automated using traditional automation.

3) Not much available on Web, so need to explore yourself
Test Automation using RPA is relatively new. So there are many built-in user actions and functionalities of different tools that you have to explore on your own and not much help is available on the web. So that was also one of the challenges that I faced.

4) It can increase a company’s Test Automation cost
When I started automation using RPA, most of the RPA tools that I came across were paid and just 1 or 2 had free versions available and that too had not much-advanced features contrary to the open-source scripting tools available in the market. So I feel that this can also prove to be a disadvantage as it will increase the cost of Automation for a company.

But I feel that the pros somewhere outnumber the cons and the proof of this is that more and more companies are investing in Test Automation using RPA. So in my opinion, if you are the one who wants to adopt RPA in Test Automation, then the time to act is now.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. To know more about our company, please click on Mindfire Solutions. 

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Google Puppeteer

Puppeteer : Is it time to ditch Selenium?

Automation Testing Tools, JavaScript, Software QA Testing, ,

Google has introduced a new library based on Chromium’s dev tool protocol. The library grants high-level API to interact with chromium and handle most tasks which you can perform using Chromium dev tools. The library is implemented in node.js and is really easy to get started once you install required packages using the node package manager.

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Why Puppeteer?

Puppeteer flexes its muscle where selenium misses out. It is not just limited to interactions with the web application under test performing tasks like for e.g. interacting with dom, submitting forms, generating screenshots and pdf of web pages but also in intercepting network activity, throttling CPU and network, generating timeline trace and mocking API amongst some. The puppeteer can be easily be used to write end-to-end automation test suites with the benefit of getting a detailed timeline of the performance of all the assets (images, javascript files and so on).

Engineers can easily switch between headless and non-headless modes. While writing the automation suite, non-headless mode gives a good view of how the browser is interacting with the application under test and helps in debugging; just like in Selenium. But in production, we can execute suite in a headless mode as it reduces execution time and save resources.

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Is it really that Good?

Yes, it enjoys the goodness of async code execution. You can always perform multiple tasks simultaneously following the latest javascript async await conventions. You can test the behavior of your application under different screen sizes. The network can be throttled on demand to find out how your application will run at low internet speeds. For e.g. if you want to test the error messages in an application when a user loses internet connectivity, puppeteer can easily handle such a scenario. Mocking APIs can also be achieved with utmost ease. For instance, if you want to test your “payment completed” screen but don’t want to go through the payment gateway flow, you can easily perform it with puppeteer by mocking the API response. With a detailed performance matrix, puppeteer can easily be used for performance testing.

So what are the drawbacks?

Google puppeteer supports only Chromium and Chrome out of the box. Third party implementations are available for Firefox and Internet Explorer. But they are experimental as of now and are missing a good chunk of the firepower. The documentation available is minimal as compared to selenium.

Why should you prefer Puppeteer over Selenium?

The targeted audience is the major deciding factor. If it majorly comprises of Chrome users you should go ahead with Puppeteer. Other factors include performing automation tasks which are not possible with selenium, like testing Chrome extensions, mocking API calls and so on. Selenium follows WebDriver protocol and has been from a very long time in the market compared to puppeteer hence itis better documented compared to puppeteer.

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Conclusion

Puppeteer is a powerful library which has revolutionized the automation testing by overcoming functionalities missing in WebDriver protocol used by Selenium. Although it is still in the early stages, it promises a bright future, backed up as it is by the illustrious Chrome dev tools team.

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If you have any queries in this field, talk to Mindfire Solutions. For over 19+ years now, we have been the preferred Software Development Partner of over 1000+ Small and Medium-sized enterprises across the globe.

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Software Product Development Best Practices

Outsourced Product Development, Software Engineering, Software Industry, Software Product Development, Software Programming, Software QA Testing, ,

Software Product Development Best PracticesThe digital technologies enable enterprises to automate various business processes and operations. But the technological needs differ from one enterprise to another. Based on the technological and business requirements, programmers nowadays have to write a variety of custom software products – desktop applications, web applications and mobile apps. Each type of application is built to meet specific business needs and based on predefined business requirements. Continue reading Software Product Development Best Practices →

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Best Automation Testing Tools For 2018

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Best Automation Testing Tools For 2018

A steady increase is being noted in the number of enterprises implementing agile methodology to deliver software applications rapidly. Many enterprises adopt DevOps – as an extension of agile methodology – to deliver high quality software applications by unifying software development and IT operations. Both agile methodology and DevOps emphasize on continuous delivery and test automation. The enterprises should coordinate the manual and automation testing efforts to get the best results. Continue reading Best Automation Testing Tools For 2018 →

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Benefits of Outsourcing Web Application Testing

Software QA Testing, , , Mindfire Solutions
Benefits of Outsourcing Web Application Testing
Benefits of Outsourcing Web Application Testing

A very large percentage of consumers nowadays access websites and web applications on their mobile devices. But several studies suggest that consumers spend most of their digital media time on specific mobile apps. While developing a web application, an enterprise must focus on its mobile user experience to keep consumers engaged and persuade them to buy. The use experience delivered by a web application depends on a number of factors – accessibility, functionality, usability, performance, and security. Also, the user experience delivered by a single web application differs across browsers, devices, operating systems, and networks. An enterprise must implement a comprehensive web application testing strategy to measure its website’s user experience accurately. Continue reading Benefits of Outsourcing Web Application Testing →

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Why should you outsource Software QA Testing?

Software QA Testing, , Mindfire Solutions
Outsource Software QA Testing
Outsource Software QA Testing

Nowadays, consumers access the same software application on varying devices, platforms, and browsers. Your software application must functional flawlessly and deliver richer user experience across different user environments to become profitable. You need to perform elaborate software QA testing to assess the quality and user experience of the software properly. To assess the quality of the software properly, you need to perform various types of software testing – functional testing, performance testing, usability testing, integration testing, acceptance testing, and beta testing. Also, you have to repeat the tests across various devices, platforms, browsers, and networks to generate more reliable test results. Continue reading Why should you outsource Software QA Testing? →

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