Perhaps you have looked at how you manually test your application and sorted through all of your tests to select some good candidates for automation. You’ve selected an automated testing tool and have started converting some of your manual tests to scripts. But is the extent of automated testing just to change manual tests into automated ones? Now that you’ve embraced automated testing, what can you do now that you couldn’t do before?
Here are some ideas of things that you can do with automated testing that were too hard or impractical to do with just manual testing. You can even add some new tests or types of tests that were not possible before.
- Test every build. Manually testing each build is a bit impractical, but with an automated test, you can run a quick smoke test each time a build is completed.
- Work 24/7. An automated testing machine does not require downtime, it can run tests all day, every day without needing any breaks.
- Work with large sets of data. Perhaps you’ve tested your product with one thousand database entries. Automation could let you test millions of entries.
- Work with less-often seen interfaces. In addition to verifying that a value displayed to a user is correct, an automated test can also look into the database and verify that the value stored in the table is correct. It can also make API calls to see if that same value is correct when retrieved via an API.
- Simulate heavier loads. Multiple automated testing machines can put more stress on a server than the same number of manual testers. Automated testing machines can also run in parallel to manual testers so the testers can visibly see how a server performs under a heavy load.
Hopefully this list gives you some ideas on how to make automated testing work better for you and let you accomplish things that weren’t possible before. If you have any other ideas, feel free to leave a comment.
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