Why is Automated Functional Testing Critical for your Business?

Organizations developing software to reach out to their target customers are always in a hurry to deliver at a faster pace. In doing so, they often cut corners with quality testing and end up delivering a product that leaves a lot to be desired. With new development paradigms like Agile-DevOps, organizations have renewed their focus on performing quality testing to ensure the reliability, scalability, usability, functionality, security, and performance of the software application. And among the above-mentioned tests, functional testing takes the cake for verifying whether the application works as it was intended to, as per the client’s mandate/users’ requirements. Furthermore, since these tests can be pretty exhaustive and time-consuming, organizations employ automated functional testing in their value chain.

What is functional testing?

Functional testing ensures the performance of the application as per the functional requirements that are to be met. Here, the focus is more on how the application functions in relation to the rest of the system and users. It is a black box testing that does not take into account the application’s internal coding structure, but only what it does. The functions that are usually tested in functional automation testing include databases, user interfaces, APIs, security, and communication between the client and the server, among others. In functional testing, testers only care about what the system achieves rather than how it achieves it. By testing each functional element of the application, testers verify whether the output is accurate and in accordance with users’ requirements.

How functional testing differs from other types of testing

At its core, functional testing is not about finding bugs but verifying whether the application meets the specifications as laid out by the client. It is definitely not user acceptance testing (UAT), because UAT is performed at the end of the development cycle. Whereas automated functional testing is executed as soon as a working UI is developed. Here, testers do not bother with the performance, usability, reliability, or stability of the application unless these affect the functionality.

Why automate functional testing?

Executing rigorous functional testing is the key to successful application development. However, speeding up QA testing without compromising on accuracy requires organizations. Although manual testing does have a role in some cases, it is quite tedious and inefficient. Besides, it does not fit into the Agile-DevOps’ mold of achieving shorter development cycles.

Functional automation testing, on the other hand, runs scripted test cases at speeds that are inconceivable in manual testing. And when the output of such testing does not match the script, the cases are red-flagged for review.

How to build a successful automated functional testing strategy?

The steps involved in building an automated functional testing strategy are as follows:

Creating test data: Since functional testing may be executed in different environments, it is important to know the right test data and put in place a test data management strategy. To achieve accurate results for every functional module to be tested, the relevant test data should also be created in parallel. This should be done alongside other activities for a specific test phase. This ensures the availability of appropriate test data as input for each testing phase. Here, test data can be obtained through the insert operation on the database or the UI of the software application.

Setting up a test environment: A test environment for functional testing of web applications comprises configured hardware, software, and a network in which the test team executes test cases. The environment can be divided into three parts; setup, execution, and teardown. Initially, the database is seeded with common data, followed by an individual test run where the database is populated with specific test data. Thereafter, the database is emptied again. For continuous integration tools running functional testing services in the cloud, they can set up tasks and run scripts automatically.

Maintaining a test suite: It is important to maintain a test suite for reusability by taking the following steps:

• Locate test assets in a central repository where they can be accessed by the developers.
• Keep some form of access control to ensure the integrity of the test suite. For example, managers can be given read-only access, while testers and developers can be given read-write access.
• Carry out corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance, and adaptive maintenance for the test suite in collaboration with developers. For example, use the test suite to increase the level of abstraction or clarify test targets for developers.

Conclusion

Automated functional testing can ensure quality during pre-production by verifying the application’s end-user functionality. It allows both the development and testing teams to improve the accuracy and speed of testing, thereby facilitating the delivery of a better customer experience and achieving a higher ROI.

James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality