Agile, DevOps, and Scriptless Automation Testing: An Advanced Approach

Automation testing was introduced to control the execution of test scripts using software to compare the actual outcomes of the software/application to those predicted during the design stage. But over time, automation testing gained its reputation for handling repetitive tasks in formalized testing making way for continuous testing and faster product deliveries.

Thus, the concept of test automation had its own place in the testing and development industry for a very long. However, like any other technology available in the market, automation testing has its own set of challenges which are required to be replaced for making the testing and development process more agile using advanced techniques like script less approach.

Especially, when conventional automation techniques involved so much resource investment for scripting, infrastructure, and tools, the test automation process turned out to be heavily consuming. Besides, the regular maintenance of scripts with old-fashioned testing methods made the task even more difficult. This simply leads to slower feedback and making the functional teams comprehend on automated scripts.

Nevertheless, the dynamics of software testing have changed with time considering the changed requirements of the end-users and so the developers. Eventually, this made applications even more loaded with features making way for complex codes that results from frequent changes in the development requirements. Since Agile and DevOps involve short release cycles, script-less automation could help the DevOps teams to get the necessary speed they need to foster their agile goals.

In short, script-less automation turned out to be the perfect solution to counter all the hassle associated with traditional automation testing practices. Especially, the more refined use of Agile, DevOps, and Script-less testing made way for quicker testing on products before they are taken to the public.

Test Automation: An Essential in Agile & DevOps

With development practices turning to be more rapid to meet the requirements of the end-users, technologies like automation even changed the metrics for testing. Though testing and development technologies have not grown at the same pace, testers have eventually started to bring a change by replacing their age-old testing techniques. This change had a huge consideration for automation testing practices that have the potential to meet the goals related to rapid development.

All in all, testing teams understood the need for adopting automated test processes to keep up with the DevOps and CD progress. Moreover, when automated testing has the potential to align better with changing needs of the applications, leveraging test automation in agile and DevOps could help yield greater coverage and effective results. However, the only thing that might affect the process of automation is setting the test automation ecosystem while aligning with the essential elements of testing.

Why Choose Scriptless Testing Approach?

The scriptless coding approach is made for those who need to ensure rapid development while seeking maximum code reusability and test participation.

Since the biggest challenge involved with automation testing is the time involved in the development of test scripts, scriptless frameworks make the process much easier and simplified. Moreover, scriptless automation allows stakeholders to work on quality improvement process even when they have low technical knowledge.

Above all, it helps to cut off any time and effort on automating the testing process while ensuring maintainability and aligning with change requirements. In a nutshell, the evolution of automation testing tools along with scriptless approach meet the quality requirements of agile and DevOps process with rapid releases.

The Present Challenges With Automation

When we talk about test automation, the process may look like a retreat but the actual implementation requires extensive programming knowledge. Besides, only an expert with sound technical understanding could work on designing, writing test scripts, and maintaining the overall framework.

Besides, Automation testers need to write complex test scripts for every unique test case. And the process needs testers to work on an extensive underlying framework, exploring application functionalities, have strong programming skills, and several other technicalities that help test every feature in detail.

Moreover, the type of application defines the language proficiency requirements that are must for testing a project which can turn to be an overwhelming scenario if testers have never worked on the automated functional tests earlier.

Most importantly, automation testing needs testers to keep a continuous watch on the tests to maintain the authenticity of the test process. However, these challenges could be easily worked with the use of scriptless test automation which is much reliable practice to cut off unaffordable test projects and develop better returns.

The Advantages Of Scriptless Automation

Escorted by rapid agile practices and DevOps trends being widely adopted, scriptless test automation could help offer so many benefits to the testing teams. These include:

• Scriptless automation could help to keep the underlying complexities of the test scripts hidden, which means no test scripts are erased for the users.
• Scriptless automation allows cutting off the time for agile development principles which means faster delivery of the software through a more manageable process.
• Scriptless test automation could help simplify the test cycle without compromising on the quality of the tests. The approach even aids in improving the quality of software until release with constant amendments and error-fixing.
• The Scriptless approach could help testers to enjoy massive ramp-up time which means greater goals could be achieved with a shorter learning curve.
• All in all, scriptless testing is good for all non-technical and technical users when they need to ensure faster time to market without compromising on the cost factor. Thus, moving towards a scriptless approach could help address rapid delivery needs.

Scriptless testing allows testers to enjoy advanced flexibility and support on scalability requirements when there are enterprise-level projects that need critical automation success using the right automation testing tool.

Some Key Aspects Related To Scriptless Automation

1. A scalable approach to automation with added robustness
2. Unified approach on diversifying app types for different platforms or browsers
3. Reduced or zero ramp-up time
4. Automation could be initiated long before the app is available
5. Maximum test coverage with minimum maintenance
6. Easy change updates with easy to reuse test groups which allow frequent regression testing
7. Improved team participation in the automation process when functional experts, SMEs, and business analysts are involved
8. Easy to review test scripts for improved ROI growth
9. Achieving the full potential of scriptless testing needs the right selection of automation test tools.

Making The Choice With Scriptless Automation Tool

When the goal is scriptless automation, record, and playback tools are the primary requirements. Especially, when smart features like record and playback are making their way into the automation testing trends, it always seems a convincing idea to explore. Though it may look like a compelling process, the system-made scripts are much complex and need extensive technical understanding to maintain and do rework.

On the other hand, legacy test automation practices involve the challenge of maintaining a robust test framework through advanced tracking of identifiers and objects. Moreover, automation tests should necessarily be reusable and must offer a space for changes without breaking automated tests, when developers need to enhance UI or features.

Since most of the test scripts are developed on the building of the application, lack of feedback at the early stages of testing and development could bother quality. However, such issues could be easily addressed by picking the right scriptless test automation tool. The tool must be simple and allow all the stakeholders to participate in the development process for added flexibility needs of enterprise-class test automation projects.

The Approach To Implementation

Since automation testing needs to be a hassle-free journey, only a scriptless approach has the potential to match the requirements of DevOps and Agile development plans. With scriptless, even manual testers could be made to take charge of the test automation process using natural language and minimal coding.

All in all, there is no specific approach to the implementation of scriptless automation due to its easy to foster implementation requirements. Scriptless offers a unified testing mechanism that can be fitted to any complex test process where there is a need for collaborative efforts from the various product teams.

As development projects these days need collaborative actions from business users and subject experts along with testers, scriptless automation allows such efforts with no intense coding involved. Right from the selection of test cases for regression test suites to meeting the feature workability goals, Scriptless automation allows easy retention of codes with successful deliveries.

However, a common implementation approach that could help meet the purpose is using the shift-left approach and continuous testing together to improve the automation efficiency and analyze more complex functionalities.

Bottom Line: Scriptless is the new Normal

Concluding it all, scriptless could be the best thing to do for your shift-left agile strategy as well as CD/DevOps practices. It can be easily worked by your stakeholders and manual testers to work on the test automation process while allowing a greater user and test experience.

Though other test automation techniques were available in the process, the traditional concept had so many challenges involved for the testing communities. Some of this involved extensive investment in creating test infrastructure, and intense scripting environment, and the use of the right automation test tools.

Moreover, regular maintenance of scripts turned out to be an expensive affair with the traditional approach making things much more time-consuming. Adding to that, the traditional approach even made the receipt feedback very slow which means it extremely tough to comprehend automated scripts that could not be managed by functional teams as well as stakeholders.

Putting it to the end, scriptless automation testing into the agile and DevOps scenario could work as a perfect solution to all the complexity concerns involved in the process. Since DevOps and Agile both are software development methods with an advanced underlying approach, using scriptless automation testing could help yield great control on time without losing on the market trends.

And if you are looking for some rapid testing technology that could help you yield great profits by taking your product quickly to the market, you can enjoy a feature-rich and highly stable solution through scriptless automation testing.