Efficient maintenance of your test automation solution
Efficient maintenance of your test automation solution
After a company has decided to deploy test automation, the focus of its attention is on setting up the test automation sets.
Short life cycle of test automation solutions
It is often forgotten that the maintenance, or rather the strategic planning how to organize it efficiently, is in many cases the main reason for the short survival time of test automation projects.
State-of-the-art modular systems as well as a high usability of your test automation helps you to benefit from the automation of the tests in the long run.
Nothing could be worse than putting a lot of effort in test automation and to lose its benefit as you go along and thus to waste the investment.
Efficient test automation and maintenance
In our blog today we would like to outline how you could proceed most efficiently.
The maintenance of your test automation needs to be: easy and efficient.
You should be able, unless you deliberately want to rely on great external consulting costs, to maintain your test set autonomously, without having to employ specialized staff or having to train yours.
Therefore please pay attention to the following aspects while deciding for a test automation tool:
- Convenience during the automation process
- Convenience in changing or customizing existing automated test cases
- No unnecessary test steps or fields which may increase your maintenance costs dramatically
- Well thought-out modular concept.
Each of these bullet points contribute to minimization of your test automation and thus ensures a long-term application.
Convenience during the automation process
Rely on solutions which are intuitive and at the same time have a large function range. Your process owner or the special department should be enabled to automize their processes on their own.
Wins:
- Frictional losses in the process of knowledge transfer between subject matter experts and external automation experts will be prevented
- Unnecessary iterations up to the finalization of the test case are omitted
- Easy expandability of your test set is guaranteed
Convenience in changing and customizing existing automated test cases
Analogous to test case generation, changing and complementing individual test cases have to be possible for each member of your staff. A convenient user interface, self-explaining processing mechanisms and consistent workflows enable you to carry out adaptions in a timely manner and to minimize your costs and efforts.
Wins:
- Prompt and quick adaption of your test cases, no long cycles through involvement of external resources or knowledge transfer to automation experts
- Higher grade of quality for your test automation set due to autonomous execution of adaptions and thus preventing loss of knowledge
- Larger test coverage up to the finalization due to automation by process owner or subject matter departments, without preforming long workflows until an automated test case is finalized
- Support of agile processes due to easy customization of test cases to requirements for new developments and changes.
Avoid including and thus maintaining redundant test steps and fields
The entire screen or transactions, as modules, are often saved in order to enable potential usage later.
This concept reduces the maintenance of your automation solution and creates added value only if changing and complementing of the test cases are complex and costly in the solution you are using.
Here again you should focus on efficiency! Only those input elements which are really used should be saved in the test script. If your process changes in future, thus adapt that specific test case to those aspects and elements which are really necessary.
Wins:
- Neat and clear library of automated elements
- Minimizing the maintenance costs and increasing the readability and comprehensibility of each and every element
- Calculated completion of the automated elements when necessary and understanding of the processes versus ,,What is this? Do I have to automate it as well?”
Elaborate modular concept
Modular systems are quite common in the world of test automation. The following aspects regarding maintenance have priority:
- How complex and difficult is it to set up my modular library?
- Is it guaranteed that an adjustment of a module will lead to a message in the test case in which the module is used?
- How can I replace individual test steps by modules?
Time and effort for setting up a modular library
Very often many hours are put into the diligent planning of the modular library in the implementation phase of a test automation solution.
How big or small should the modules be? Do we use modules to create test cases (which is often the case when the automation tools reveal a low usability and are difficult to handle) or do we replace the automated steps later with existing modules? How can we avoid that the amount of the modules do not rise dramatically?
Count in this case on solutions which provide, fully automized based on objective data, recommendations for the size and the amount of your modules. You thus save many hours of planning and afterwards customizing the modules since your assumptions, to the best of your knowledge, which you made prior to automation do not apply after all.
Retain control over your test case
The application of modules or test case components which have been created and maintained by others always cause problems: what happens when the module is changed by a colleague? It is indispensable that you as the test case owner must be notified when external modules used by you are changed. Only then it is reasonable to use modules, otherwise you always have the risk that your test case does not work as it is actually supposed to do after all.
Replacing test steps with modules
The benefit of modular systems or the maintenance efficiency of your test automation solution is always conditioned by the convenience and efficiency of your module usage.
Modern modular solutions analyze all your test cases and their test steps for you, compare these with existing modules and recommend the replacement of identical test steps so that the maintenance of your automation solution is minimized. And even more, replacement and integration of the modules should preferably be automized.
If your modular system is too complex, then you run the risk that it will not be used and eventually the maintenance of your test automation increases significantly instead of decreasing.
Wins:
- Automation-supported, objective setup of the modular library
- Prevention of explosively growing modular library
- No unintended changes of the test cases due to adaption of the modules by others
- Efficient application of modules, prevention of redundances
Please also take note of the introduced aspects and concepts in this blog and thus increase the durability and the benefit of your test automation drastically. And even more, your maintenance effort will be minimized and you save valuable resources!
If you want to see behind the curtain of a modern modular system and a test automation solution which enables your process owner and your departments to automate your SAP systems autonomously, so contact us for a non-committal product demo! https://www.suxxesso.com/websession/