Software testing undoubtedly forms an integral part of the application’s software development lifecycle (SDLC) and earlier manual testing was more popular. But, today with agile and DevOps software methodologies on the go, and the enterprises quest for faster releases and quality products, it requires software testing methods that are faster and efficient than manual testing methods. It is at this point the software test automation architecture enabled through test automation frameworks comes into prevalence and is today leading the charts of software testing.

What is Test Automation Framework?

Techopedia defines Test Automation Framework as a set of guidelines for creating and designing test cases. It is a conceptual part of the automated testing that helps testers to use resources more efficiently.

A framework is defined as a set of rules or best practices that can be followed in a systematic way that ensures to deliver the desired results.

Typically, a broader description of test automation framework shows that it consists of a set of processes, tools, and protocols that can be collectively used for automated testing of software applications.

An automation testing framework is a platform developed by integrating various hardware, software resources along with using various tools for automation testing and web service automation framework, based on a qualified set of assumptions. This framework enables efficient design and development of automated test scripts and ensures reliable analysis of issues or bugs for the system or application under test (AUT).

The important functions of software testing automation frameworks are broadly defined as they are effectively used to identify objects and arrange them to be reused in test scripts, perform some action on these identified objects and further also used to evaluate these objects to get the expected results.

It can be inferred that a testing framework is an execution environment for automated tests which revolve around a set of assumptions, concepts, and practices that successfully support the designated process of automated testing.

Why do we use automation framework in test automation?

It is essential to use a framework for automated testing as it specifically improves the automation testing team’s efficiency and test speed. This automation testing framework also helps to improve test accuracy, and drastically reduces the test maintenance costs and lowers risks involved. Due to the numerous advantages of automation frameworks, test automation has become a fundamental component of today’s agile and DevOps practices.

What Is the purpose of a Test Automation Framework?

– Enhances efficiency during the design and development of automated test scripts by enabling the reuse of components or code

– Provides a structured development methodology to ensure uniformity of design across multiple test scripts to reduce dependency on individual test-cases

– Enables reliable issue and bug detection and delivers proper root-cause analysis with minimum human intervention for the system under test

– Reduces dependence on teams by automatically selecting the test to execute according to test scenarios

– Refines dynamically test scope according to changes in the test strategy or conditions of the system under test

– Improves utilization of various resources and enables maximum returns on efforts

– Ensures an uninterrupted automated testing process with little man-power involvement

What is the need for Test Automation Framework for enterprises?

As mentioned, the test automation framework consists of a set of guidelines for creating and designing test cases. They form an important aspect of automated testing as it significantly helps testers to use resources effectively and efficiently. These automation frameworks also help to configure and create test suites by combining various automated tests and make them available for execution.

In general effective test automation support rigorous functional tests and also prove to be more useful as they require shorter design time. These automation testing frameworks ensure more consistency of automation across the organization and brings in higher developmental activity.

Enterprises often face the dilemma of balancing costs and managing resources select automation frameworks that could cover all their business scenarios to deliver quality applications. Evidently, by selecting and implementing best test automation framework, enterprises can significantly increase the speed of test execution and accuracy of the testing process to deliver higher return on investment (ROI) and quality products. Hence, enterprises should choose effective types of automation framework to ensure effective testing of their applications.

Different Types of Framework used in Automation Testing

There has been a significant evolution of these  over the years and some of the important types of these frameworks are:

Linear Scripting Framework:

This framework is based on the concept of record and playback mode that is always achieved in a linear manner. It is more commonly named as record and playback model.

Typically, in this scripting driven framework, the creation and execution of test scripts is done individually and this framework is an effective way to get started for enterprises.

The automation scripting is done in an incremental manner where every new interaction will be added to the automation tests.

Modular Testing Framework:

Abstraction is the concept on which this framework is built. Based on the modules, independent test scripts are developed to test the software. Specifically, an abstraction layer is built for the components to be hidden from the application under test.

This sort of abstraction concept ensures that changes made to the other part of the application does not affect the underlying components.

Data Driven Testing Framework:

In this testing framework, a separate file in a tabular format is used to store both the input and the expected output results. In this framework, a single driver script can execute all the test cases with multiple sets of data.

This driver script contains navigation that spreads through the program which covers both reading of data files and logging of test status information.

Keyword Driven Testing Framework:

Keyword Driven Testing framework is an application independent framework and uses data tables and keywords to explain the actions to be performed on the application under test. This is more so called as keyword driven test automation framework for web based applications and can be stated as an extension of data driven testing framework.

Hybrid Testing Framework:

This form of hybrid testing framework is the combination of modular, data-driven and keyword test automation frameworks. As this is a hybrid framework, it has been based on the combination of many types of end-to-end testing approaches.

Test Driven Development framework (TDD):

Test driven development is a technique of using automated unit tests to drive the design of software and separates it from any dependencies. Earlier, with traditional testing a successful test could find one or more defects, but by using TDD, it increases the speed of tests and improves the confidence that system meets the requirements and is working properly when compared to traditional testing.

Behavior Driven Development Framework (BDD):

This has been derived from the TDD approach and in this method tests are more focussed and are based on the system behavior. In this approach, the testers can create test cases in simple English language. This simple English language helps even the non-technical people to easily analyse and understand the tests.

What are the major advantages of Automation Frameworks for Enterprises?

Cost-Effective Benefits

– Helps reduce time-to-market as it delivers continuous execution of automated test scripts
– Ensures enhanced scalability
– Reduces operational costs
– Delivers faster and quality products for launch
– These frameworks ensure higher test performance over manual testing
– Though initial costs are high but lowers overall maintenance costs
– These automation frameworks become reusable and brings in cost-effectiveness as they can be used for similar testing needs in the future with the same test scripts
– Delivers comprehensive defect management reports

Application-Efficiency Benefits

– Identifies defects early with effective detection of bugs and issues
– Ensures maximum test coverage as end-to-end automation testing frameworks are used
– Reduces manual efforts as tests are fully automated and need less manual intervention
– Most significant usage is with respect to code reusability
– Delivers greater efficiency as testing time consumed is reduced
– Automated scripts save lot of QA time and ensures quality is maintained and delivered
– Automated tests can run anytime,anywhere as the system runs them automatically
– Bug tracking reports deliver comprehensive reporting that is useful to DevOps teams
– With agile and DevOps, and continuous deployment, test automation and continuous integration is the key and pre-requisite to ensures continuous testing is achieved

What are the advantages enterprises get with Cloud test automation frameworks?

– Delivers real-time communication
– Facility to access data and resources anytime/anywhere
– Supports parallel testing across various platforms, OS and environments eases testing process
– No need of any upfront costs
– Ensures faster time to market
– Delivers cost effectiveness

What are the steps for an effective Test Automation Approach?

1. Evaluate to understand the real need for automation based on application type

2. Define automation goals and priorities

3. Plan automated testing strategy

4. Select the right test automation frameworks and tools based on project requirements

5. Decide on what test cases to automate

6. Develop good quality test data

7. Create automated tests more resistant to UI changes

8. Execute the tests for the test scripts developed

9. Test early and often with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pattern

10. Maintain the test scripts for future use

What Is Selenium Automation Framework?

Selenium is a leading test automation framework that is portable and is used for testing web applications. This test automation frameworks and tools provides a record and playback feature for authoring functional tests.

Some of the other test automation frameworks effectively used by testers are integration testing framework, UI testing framework and more commonly used are the keyword driven frameworks.

Based on the application under test, these testing frameworks should be chosen in order to get the complete advantage of using these best test automation frameworks.

What are the types of tests to test automation frameworks?

Before using the testing frameworks, it is important to perform a number of tests on these frameworks which include:
– Functional testing,
– Learning tests,
– Upgradability testing,
– Installability testing,
– Portability testing,
– Interoperability testing,
– Performance testing,
– Suitability testing,
– Syntax testing,
– Usability testing
– Understandability testing along with static analysis
All this can be performed to ensure the successful performance of these test automation frameworks.

Is there an intelligent and easy-to-use Test Automation Framework?

Tx-Automate – An Intelligent and Ready-to-Deploy Test Automation Framework

TestingXperts’ has developed an innovative and extensible test automation framework, ‘Tx-Automate’ – a reusable, integrated and compatible framework. It has ‘out-of-the-box’ and best ‘in-class features’ for test automation. These test automation framework features include rich custom reporting, third party integrations, configurable execution options and supports all latest tools.

This end-to-end testing framework helps to configure test suites by combining various automated tests and makes them available for effective execution.

Tx-Automate helps in drastically reducing the effort to kick-start automation and offers a fully operational test automation solution.

Framework Overview (Tx-Automate)

– Matured Continuous Integration/ Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) solution across a diverse set of applications (Digital, IoT, API, Legacy and more)
– Best-in-class features for test
– Rich custom reporting & configurable execution options
– Supports integration with market-leading test automation framework open source and commercial tools
– Supports functional and non-functional tests within an automated pipeline

Framework Key Features (Tx-Automate)

– Scalable, robust and reusable
– Manages a large number of scripts in real-time
– Easy to maintain test scripts
– Common reusable components include function library, driver script & configuration files
– Consists of separate features related to Test Design
– Consists of separate features related to Test Execution and Test Reporting

Framework Key Advantages (Tx-Automate)

– Tool agnostic solution which can integrate with all leading tools of automation testing like Selenium, Appium
– Generates rich UI based output reports with details for different stakeholders
– Supports complete integration into the development pipeline with CI tools
– Supports integration with third-party tools like test, defect & version management
– Interfaces with Cloud-based providers for on-cloud test execution
– Integrated to deliver performance testing and can be used for functional testing

Why Should Enterprises Leverage Tx-Automate framework?

– Integrates with all latest market trending new technologies
– Flexible framework (as simple as a Plug and Play)
– Integrates well with alternate frameworks supporting many programming languages
– Supports Cross Browser Testing
– Reusable Components
– Command Line Execution
– Integration with Test Management and Bug Tracking Tools
– CI Integration with Jenkins
– Multiple Notification Formats
– Object Identification Page Object Model

Conclusion

With the agile and DevOps practices on the go, there is a need for faster releases and quality products. Test automation using test automation frameworks has many advantages such as faster defect detection, reusable test scripts and minimum intervention by humans while running the test scripts.

However, for enterprises to take the complete advantage of these automation frameworks, they should consider leveraging independent next-gen software testing services providers who have already developed fully functional test automation frameworks that needs a simple plug and play to ensure faster and continuous releases.

The post Test Automation Frameworks – Why, Types, Benefits, Approach first appeared on TestingXperts.

Today, every business needs high-quality software in less time, and to achieve high-quality software, organizations need effective software testing by leveraging automation testing. With agile and DevOps methodologies on the go, software automation testing is taking new heights. The test automation process helps to quicken the testing process with re-usable test suites, and there are many test automation frameworks used by QA testers.

1. Selenium Tool Overview
2. Major differences between Selenium 2 and Selenium 3
3. What is Selenium 4?
4. What is the difference between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4?
5. What are the new features of Selenium 4?
6. What is deprecated and changed in Selenium 4?
7. How can TestingXperts (Tx) help businesses with their Selenium Automation Testing need?
8. Conclusion

Selenium Tool Overview

Though there are varieties of automation frameworks available, one framework that is widely used by testing teams across the globe for automation testing is the selenium framework. Different versions of Selenium released in the market include Selenium 1 (Selenium RC), Selenium 2, Selenium 3, and the recently updated Selenium 4 beta. Selenium tool has a marked presence in the automation testing world due to its open-source nature and numerous features that make the testing process faster when compared to other tools.

Selenium is the most preferred tool suite that is used to automate tests for web applications. The tool has the capability to operate across different browsers and operating systems. Selenium  is an automation test suite that has various components given below:

– Selenium Core

– Selenium RC

– Selenium IDE

– Selenium Grid

– Selenium Webdriver

Selenium 2 and Selenium 3 have been in use for many years now, and have some differences between them given in a tabular form below.

Major differences between Selenium 2 and Selenium 3

What is Selenium 4?

Selenium 4 Beta 1 is the latest version of Selenium that has been released on 15^th February 2021. This new tool suite comes with advanced features such as Selenium grid, W3C compliance, advanced IDE, New APIs, and many more. Selenium 4  is a suite of tools that has various components in it as given below:

Selenium WebDriver –

It is an open-source API that allows the creation of robust browser-based regression automation suites and tests, scales, and distributes scripts across many environments. The webDriver also allows to interact with the browser just like a real user

Selenium IDE –

It is a Chrome and Firefox add-on that simply records and playbacks the user interactions with the browser

Selenium Grid-

It allows saving time by distributing and running tests on multiple browsers, operating systems, and machines. It enables the management of multiple environments from a central point.

What is the difference between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4?

Typically, there are some significant differences between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4 listed below:

What are the new features of Selenium 4?

1. WebDriver became W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Standardization:

• Selenium WebDriver is now W3C Standardized, and this WebDriver provides a friendly and flexible API for browser automation

• W3C standard encourages compatibility across various software implementations of WebDriver and API.

• Most of the W3C standards revolve around the standardization of web technologies, making the framework more stable and reducing complexities across browsers.

2. Selenium Grid enhanced with updates:

• The earlier versions of Selenium Grid were complex as it was based on Hub and Node(s) architecture. The Hub and Node(s) need to be separately started when performing automation tests.

• In Selenium 4, Hub and Node (s) are packed in a single jar file, which means once the server starts, it acts as both Hub and Node.

• The Grid also supports IPV6 addresses, allowing its users to communicate with the Grid using the HTTPS protocol with support for TLS connections.

• Selenium Grid has a more scalable and traceable infrastructure that supports four processes: Router, Session Map, Distributor, and Node.

• The new Selenium Grid comes with Docker support, allowing testers and developers to spin up containers rather than setting up heavy virtual machines.

The above feature gives users the flexibility of deploying Selenium Grid on Kubernetes. Selenium Grid 4 can be beneficial and can result in the DevOps process as it supports tools like AWS, Azure, and more.

3. Selenium 4 IDE upgraded:

• Selenium IDE is a record and playback tool that was available as an add-on for Firefox in the earlier Selenium versions but got deprecated as the latest Firefox versions were standardized under the Web Extension Mechanism.

• Selenium 4 version has it as an add-on for major web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, MS Edge, etc.

• The latest update has a user interface to deliver an intuitive user experience, and it also comes with a SIDE tool, i.e., Selenium IDE runner, that allows QAs to run projects on a node.js platform.

• This feature enables QA teams to run cross-browser tests on local or Cloud Selenium Grid. It has an improved control flow mechanism that allows testers to write better “while” and “if” conditions.

• Another feature includes the code for test cases recorded using updated Selenium IDE can be exported to the desired programming language like Java, C#, Python, .NET, and JavaScript, thus giving more flexibility to testers.

4. Relative Locators for automation scripts

• Selenium 4 brought an easy way of locating elements with the inclusion of relative locators.

• Relative locators, also referred to as Friendly locators, help locate WebElements near to, left of, right of, above, and below a specified element.

• It supports the usage of withTagName (in Selenium 4 Java) or with_tag_name (in Selenium 4 Python). It helps locate web elements based on the visual location relative to other DOM elements.

5. Chrome Debugging Protocol (CDP)

• Selenium 4 provides native support for Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) through the DevTools interface.

• It allows QAs to use Chrome development properties like Fetch, Network, Profiler, Performance, Application cache, and more.

• This feature helps developers and QAs to test and resolve critical bugs for specific web pages faster and on the fly.

• QA teams can also leverage the APIs offered by Chrome DevTools to simulate poor network conditions and perform geolocation testing.

• This feature also allows testers to check how the product performs under varying network conditions such as 3G, 4G, 5G, etc.

6. Multiple Windows and Tabs Management

• While testing the software testers have to switch across multiple windows, tabs, or applications in a single test flow.

• In the earlier versions on Selenium, it was not easy to manage multiple windows or tabs as it required testers to create a new Web Driver object. Post which used to switch to the new window (or tab) using the unique WindowHandle to perform subsequent actions in that window (or tab).

• But this has improved in Selenium 4. The latest version of Selenium comes with a new API – newWindow that allows testers to create and switch to a new window/tab without creating a new WebDriver object in a single test flow or session.

7. Telemetry and GraphQL:

A framework called Open Telemetry has been added to Selenium Grid. This feature brings more observability into Grid as it allows testers to see what’s happening inside the Grid, especially when something goes wrong while running the test.

Also, the Grid now has a new front-end console, which is powered by a GraphQL endpoint. It allows testers to run a GraphQL query against the Selenium grid, either distributed or on the local machine. This feature helps testers extract useful metrics and information from the Grid to fulfill the monitoring needs.

Joe Colantonio in his latest article on “What is Selenium 4? The latest in Automated Browser Testing” has in detail explained about all these above features and the importance of Selenium 4.

8. Improved Documentation:

With the earlier versions of Selenium, users use to face a lot of difficulties with the documentation part as there were some lackings in the documentation capabilities of Selenium.

This has significantly improved in the latest versions of Selenium. Selenium 4.0 provides better documentation capabilities.

• Its documentation part has been completely revamped with a neat UI that allows users to easily navigate to the desired section of the page and covers all information about tools and APIs that comes under the Selenium umbrella.

• This will help testers gain information about all the features required to get started with selenium testing.

What is deprecated and changed in Selenium 4?

1. Deprecation of Desired Capabilities

Desired capabilities were primarily used in the test script for defining the test environment (browser name, version, operating system) for executing tests on Selenium Grid. This has now been replaced with Options. It means testers now have to create an Options object, set test requirements, and pass the object to the Driver constructor. Below listed are the Options objects that have been included in Selenium 4.0

Firefox – FirefoxOptions

Chrome – ChromeOptions

Internet Explorer (IE) – InternetExplorerOptions

Microsoft Edge – EdgeOptions

Safari – SafariOptions

2. Changes in the Action Class

Action class is used to simulate input actions from a keyboard or mouse on specific web elements. For e.g, Left-click, Right-click, Double-click, etc.

Following changes have been made to Action Class in Selenium 4.0

• click(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).click() {}

• clickAndHold(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).clickAndHold()

• contextClick(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).contextClick()

• doubleClick(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(element).doubleClick()

• release() which was ealier a part of org.openqa.selenium.interactions.ButtonReleaseAction class has now been moved to Action class as per new update of Selenium 4.0

3. Deprecation of FindsBy

In the older version of Selenium, FindsBy interfaces were a part of org.openqa.selenium.internal package. It contains findElement(By) and findElements(By) methods, implemented by the RemoteWebDriver class. However, these have now been deprecated in Selenium 4.0.

4. Changes in FluentWait

In Selenium 4.0, the methods withTimeout() and pollingEvery() that are a part of the FluentWait class have been modified. The pollingEvery() method only accepts one parameter – Duration that can be in Seconds, MilliSeconds, NanoSeconds, Hours, Days, etc. Similarly, the withTimeOut() method also accepts only one parameter – Duration.

How can TestingXperts (Tx) help businesses with their Selenium Automation Testing need?

Enterprises must note that Selenium testing should be done by experienced selenium test automation engineers. To get the complete benefits of selenium testing, businesses can partner with an experienced automation engineer from an independent testing services provider.

TestingXperts (Tx) is a NextGen QA and Software testing company that has dedicated teams with core expertise on all industry-leading tools like Selenium, HP UFT, Coded UI, TestComplete, Ranorex, Appium, etc. We have a global presence with offices in the USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands, Singapore, and test labs strategically placed in multiple locations in India (Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Bangalore).

Conclusion

Today, almost every business has realized the importance of automation testing. And to fulfil this growing demand for automation testing numerous test automation tools and frameworks are made available in the market today. Out of all the available automation testing frameworks and tools, one tool that is widely used by testers all across the globe is Selenium. Recently a new update of Selenium was rolled out in the market that gained a lot of attraction from the audience. The latest Selenium version i.e., Selenium 4.0 has several additional benefits like seamless integration, parallel testing, cross-browser testing, better documentation, etc. that make Selenium testing much easier. Businesses must read all the features and differentiators of Selenium 4.0 as mentioned in this blog before investing in any automation testing framework or tool.

The post What’s new in Selenium 4 – Key Features and Differentiators first appeared on TestingXperts.

There are certain selenium testing best practices businesses should know and it is also necessary for selenium automation testers to follow them to enable effective test automation services.

6 Best Practices for Selenium Testing

The post Selenium Testing Best Practices first appeared on TestingXperts.