Question

• The process of automating software testing is very crucial to its success.
• In this discussion, evaluate and compare three different software testing tools based on their usability and effectiveness to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes with predicted outcomes.
• In addition, describe how to select the most proper test cases for automation testing?

Answer 1

Software Test Automation: The software test automation is the process of automating the software testing test cases using any tool. Every time we need to execute the test case, the automation tool runs the test cases and produces the result. The software automation includes the following phases in the process:

1. Choosing the automation tool
2. Creating automation framework
3. Creating automation scripts (transformation of manual test cases to automation script)
4. Executing the script in tool
5. Evaluating the results.

Different software testing automation tools

We have various automation tools available for automating the software testing. Please find below three tools and description:

1. Selenium: Selenium is most commonly used automation tool as it is open source. The framework can be implemented in many languages i.e. it supports java, c# as well as other languages. The tester can choose the programming language as per the programming interest. This is used to automate the web application.

Features:

1. 1. This tool can only automate the web applications.
   2. Selenium can work on multiple browsers at once.
   3. HTML elements (elements we see on the web pages) can be identified in a number of ways to be used in the script.
   4. Cannot handle the window pop-ups, so we cannot automate the test cases having window pop-ups included in the steps.
   5. Selenium is mainly software package installed with programming tool.
2. Appium: It is used to automate android and iOS mobile applications. It has the feature of record and playback tool. The user performs various actions on the application. The tool records the action along with the results. The actions for checking a test case can be recorded under single script and can be played to execute the test cases automatically.

Features:

2. 1. Allows the programming script in multiple languages i.e. java , c++, PHP, Python, etc
   2. Appium can be used to automate mobile applications
   3. A single platform can be used to automate Android as well as iOS applications
   4. Appium is a desktop application to be installed on the system.  
3. UFT/QTP: This tool is used to automate the web as well as the window applications. This is a paid tool for automating the test cases. It uses VBScripts to write the script of test cases

Features:

1. It is a paid tool having 60 days of trial version.
2. It supports record and playback functionality also.
3. The test case can be executed only on a single machine at a time.

Comparison of all three tools:

Feature	Selenium	Appium	QTP
Software Type	It can automate web applications only	It is mainly used to automate mobile application, mobile web versions and native applications	It can automate the web applications as well as desktop application
Programming Language	Programming can be done in various languages e.g. Java, c#, ruby, perl, PHP, .Net etc.	Programming can be done in multiple languages i.e. java , c++, PHP, Python, etc.	Scripts can be created in VBScripts language only
Browser support	Selenium supports 9 browsers including opera, safari, chrome, IE, etc.	Appium officially supports chrome/chromium browser only	It supports chrome, safari, Firefox and IE only
Cost	It is an open source	It is an open source	we have to purchase license after 60 days of trial#
Operating Systems	It supports windows/LINUX/MAC	It automates Android and iOS applications	It supports only Windows OS

How to select the most proper test cases for automation

Below are the factors which can be considering before selecting the test cases for automation:

1. Priority of the test case: The test cases with High priority should be considered for automation.
2. Steps in the test case: The high priority test cases which have bulk number of steps should be automated to save the time in running those test cases in manual testing.
3. Frequency of execution of the test case: There can be few test cases which are used to check the basic health of the software. These test cases are executed with every new build. This test suite should get automated to save the time with every new build.
4. Challenges in implementing the automation: The test cases which are of high priority with less complexity should get automated first. As it will save the time of automation team. Once the simple test cases are automated, the team can invest the time in complex as manual work will get reduce for execution of total test cases.
5. Test cases with bulk data i.e. performance test cases: The test cases, which need to load the bulk records, should get automated. This type of test cases consumes a lot of manual time, but the automation will not get effected with bulk number of records.