How to Prepare a Strategy for Automated Regression Testing for Agile Environments

In a dynamically changing environment for software development where faster time to market and quality outcomes are the prerequisites, QA teams are being challenged more than ever. The QA specialists need to implement strategies for continuous testing so that the changes made to the software applications are verified and validated as per expectations. Regression testing allows the agile team to focus on new functionality while maintaining stability at every stage of the product update. It has been observed that regular updates can make the software applications prone to errors and bugs. This calls for conducting software regression testing to identify errors before the applications are released into the market.

As business enterprises go for agile development, the frequency of testing software application increases to ensure it works as expected. Also, the QA team should check whether the new code affects the existing features or functionalities of the software application. However, as the software grows in size and complexity, the regression suite grows accordingly, prompting the QA team to automate the whole process.

Understanding regression testing

When developers receive QA reports from testers, they implement the necessary fixes to make the software application free of errors. However, in doing so, the software application can unleash new bugs out of nowhere. So, to ensure these bugs are taken care of and the code changes do not trigger any performance issues in any other part of the software, automated regression testing is conducted to enhance the overall product quality. Regression testing in software testing is used in two major cases, as given below:

l When errors or bugs are fixed by the development team, the product needs to be checked for the impact of the applied changes.

l When the code is changed or updated due to the addition of a new feature or functionality, there are changes in business flows or requirements.

Why bring automation into a regression testing strategy?

At the time of software release, various tests are conducted until the functionalities of the software are verified. Regression testing post development needs a comprehensive QA review to ensure the application performs as expected. Since the testing is conducted frequently, QA regression testing needs to embrace automation. And to maximize the potential of the QA team, automated regression testing has become the norm. Also, since regression testing aims to check the working functionality of the software application, it involves repeating each release cycle. Thereafter, the testing of the software application for various parameters is done to make sure there are no glitches or breaks in the production pipeline.

Further, not every bug emerges due to the addition of new features or as a consequence of bug fixing. In fact, newer bugs can emerge due to the updates of databases or browsers as well. Moreover, issues related to speed and efficiency can occur. So, by automating repeatable and stable test cases, regression testing services can work in numerous environments and complicated cases.

How to create an effective strategy to implement automated regression testing

Automated regression testing becomes important when the project is stable or there are no expected critical changes to be made in the UI or business logic. The regression test suite should be created right from sprint 0 and updated for each sprint thereafter. The process to create an effective regression testing is as follows:

• Identify the platforms to automate - web/mobile/desktop: First, identify the platforms that are likely to be preferred by the end-users for running the software application.
• Identify the tool: Post identification of the platforms, a suitable automation tool needs to be selected based on the following factors:

l Budget

l Open source or premium tool

l Training requirement

l Maintenance of scripts

l Features supported by the tool

l Robustness of the regression testing framework

l Support from the community developing the tool

• Identify the regression tests to be automated: Since every regression test scenario cannot be automated, it is important to identify the ones to be automated. The test scenarios that do not lend themselves to automation are:

l 3rd party integrations

l Tests to verify image capture

l Tests related to a secret code

• Prioritize the automated tests: The regression test scenario with the highest priority should be automated first. This may include the core functionality or features of the application.
• Identify when to begin automation: Automation should ideally begin when the feature or module to be tested is relatively stable and the core logic is not expected to change.
• Prepare the code repository or the regression testing framework: One of the initial processes in test automation is to set up a test automation framework. This ensures consistency in the code by various people, besides being easy to maintain later.

Writing the script and running continuous tests: QA testers should write the test scripts and integrate them with the code repository. And once the test scripts are ready, the test suites should be run using a CI tool.

Conclusion

Automating the regression testing suite can ensure the software application runs smoothly and the time of developers and testers is saved. This can go a long way towards delivering superior customer experiences and upholding brand equity.