How End-to-End Automation Testing Accelerates Software Delivery and Quality

The software testing in earlier times was a purely manual method, which was quite labor-intensive and included a high chance of errors. Over the years, the complexity of systems led to the need for a better and more effective method for testing these software systems. This is where automation testing transforms the face of software testing. First, automation was used for unit tests or simple checks of the components of a system that are not connected with other components. 

But now, as technologies are emerging, automation has become so advanced that end-to-end testing is possible, providing quality assurance to even complex real-world systems. Now that you know what automated testing and integrated testing are, let’s explore what is meant by end-to-end (E2E) automation testing. Full system test automation refers to testing an application throughout the frontend to the backend.

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Why Automation Testing Is More Important Than Ever?

QA automation is crucial today due to the rapid development cycles in Agile and DevOps environments. It ensures robust testing for complex applications, including microservices and cloud-based systems, at a global scale.

• The Rise of Agile and DevOps: Techniques such as Agile and DevOps have meant that there is a need to increase testing speed while at the same time ensuring better quality. QA automation benefits are helpful in such fast-release schedules by making sure that new additions are properly tested without slowing the process.
• Complexity of Modern Applications: Applications have become complicated with the use of microservices and cloud services. This is why this complexity needs a very efficient and highly scalable testing strategy, only made possible by automation. New end-to-end automation to meet the fast pace of development and respond to scale and quality standards of world classifications.

Key Benefits of End-to-End Automation Testing for Software Delivery

Full end-to-end automation has now become a standard in the software delivery process. It guarantees that releases meet the necessary quality requirements while maintaining an answer to the growing pressure for a faster frequency of releases. Below are the key benefits that explain why end-to-end automation testing is essential for modern software development:

Boosting Delivery Speed

• Eliminates manual bottlenecks: Automation complements conventional testing by eliminating lengthy manual checks and therefore increases the rate of testing.
• Faster release cycles: This approach is continuous, and the outcomes provide immediate feedback to the teams in case of a problem.

Extensive quality assurance

Full user journey testing: E2E automation is the practice of automating every touch point a user uses in the process, from login up to the end of the transaction process.

Real-world scenario testing Automates complex scenarios like:

• E-commerce checkout processes.
• File uploads and downloads.
• Data synchronization across multiple devices.

Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing, and Continuous Delivery (CI/CT/CD)

• Ensures seamless integration: Automated E2E testing is crucial for maintaining the integrity of new features within the CI/CD pipeline. 
• Prevents code conflicts: Code integration helps identify and resolve issues before they reach production.

Eliminating Technical Debt

• Early dependency uncovering: This article shows that although automated testing exponentially shows dependencies in the system early, it can lead to potential technical debt.
• Maintains code quality: Regression testing conducted on a recurring basis means that new tests introduced into the programs will not harm existing features.

Coordination between Manual and Automated Testing

Automated testing is perfect in cases when it is necessary to perform routine exercises and test large amounts of data and applications that are under continuous improvement. It accelerates work and standardizes software testing. Nevertheless, regression testing should be performed manually, at least, for some aspects that require human-like thinking, like UI/UX reviews, heuristic testing, and usual extensive testing.

When to use

• Automated Testing: Very useful for regression tests, performance tests, and any task that requires multiple iterations. It is fast, comparable in terms of speed and use of resources, and works well with CI/CD.
• Manual Testing: Incredibly helpful for UI/UX testing, exploratory testing, and special, unique or especially complex cases that cannot be fully automated.

Balancing both approaches

• Use a hybrid approach: Automate stable, repetitive tasks while reserving manual testing for areas requiring human judgment.
• Complementary Roles: Let automation handle routine checks, freeing up manual testers to explore new features and edge cases.

Can QA Automation Replace Manual Testing Entirely?

On the one hand, with the help of QA automation, companies gain such advantages as effectiveness and speed of the corresponding activity; on the other hand, it will not be enough to exclude manual testing.

• Automation’s Limits: There will always be certain aspects in the process that cannot be made to go automated. Automated tools can never replace human skill and intelligence in testing phases like UI/UX evaluation, usability testing, exploratory testing and many more.
• Subjective Scenarios: Automated tests perform well in simple and transnational data-driven approaches. However, when it comes to things that only a human mind can decide, like, for instance, confirming that the buttons on a certain application look good or checking if some specific interactions seem natural, the bots produce no results.
• Edge Cases: Exploratory testing where testers just use a piece of software to look for any strange behaviour of the system relies purely on the creativity of the human mind. Automated tests cannot contain all this smarts and be smart enough to look for every possible combination of scenarios, unlike the human mind of a good software tester.
• Balancing the Two: Run tests whose execution and analysis produce similar results automatically (e.g., regression tests) and keep testing tasks that involve disparate evaluations, such as testing graphics or user interfaces, for manual tests.
• Regression Testing: In this aspect, the automated tests are best suited to repetitive and boring tests. Mainly, it helps in testing features to be certain that no other integration harms existing functionalities by running automated regression tests. For example, to ensure that login functions, payment gateways or data input forms function properly across releases.

Automating Cricitcal User Journeys

• Sign-up and sign-in: Basically, it is crucial to automate the procedure of account creation, login, or password retrieval. These flows are normally the first thing a user experiences when using an application, and one knows the implications of a bad first impression.
• Shopping Carts and Payment Processes: For online shopping websites, issues such as carts, discounts, and payments should be very important. Thus, automation of this flow guarantees that purchasing becomes efficient and consistent and will therefore impact the conversion ratio and customer satisfaction.
• Search and Navigation: Make it an unsheltered experience to relocate products or even browse through a menu. This makes sure that the users get what they want within the right interface to make the usability better.
• Smoke and Sanity Testing: Automate smoke testing to rapidly validate essential features. Sanity testing should be conducted following upgrades to confirm that certain modules continue to function, with a focus on high-risk areas that affect user experience.

End-to-End Testing on Real Device

End-to-end testing on actual hardware is essential because it verifies that your software operates as intended under real-world circumstances and records user interactions and device-specific problems.

Requirement

• Node.js: Install Node.js, which includes npm (Node Package Manager).
• Selenium WebDriver: Install the webdriverIO package.
• Appium: Install the Appium package for mobile automation testing.
• Assert: Install assertion chai library.

Step by step to perform end-to-end automation testing

Step 1: Setup a new Nodejs project.

Step 2: Add the test configuration to a file called wdio.conf.js

Platforms
Osversion: 15
platformName: Android
deviceName: emulator-5554
appname: webdriver

Step 3: Write test code

// Drag and drop puzzles

const TabBar = require('../Pages/components/TabBar');
const NativeAlert = require('../Pages/components/NativeAlert');
const Picker = require('../Pages/components/Picker');
const FormsScreen = require('../Pages/FormsScreen');
describe('WebdriverIO and Appium, when interacting with form elements', () => {
    beforeEach(async () => {
        await TabBar.waitForTabBarShown();
        await TabBar.goToForms();
        await FormsScreen.waitForIsShown();
    });
    it('should swipe down', async () => {
        const header = driver.getWindowSize();
        const anchorPercentage = 50;
        const startPointPercentage = 90;
        const endPointPercentage = 10;
        const headerHeight = (await header).height;

        const anchor = headerHeight * anchorPercentage / 100;
        const startPoint = headerHeight * startPointPercentage / 100;
        const endPoint = headerHeight * endPointPercentage / 100;

        await $('~Forms-screen').click();
        console.log(header);
        console.log(anchor);
        console.log(startPoint);
        console.log(endPoint);
        await driver.touchAction([
            { action: 'press', x: anchor, y: startPoint },
            { action: 'wait', ms: 1000 },
            { action: 'moveTo', x: anchor, y: endPoint },
            'release'
        ]);
        await driver.pause(5000);
    })

// Interacting with login form
 
const TabBar = require('../Pages/components/TabBar');
const NativeAlert = require('../Pages/components/NativeAlert');
const LoginScreen = require('../Pages/LoginScreen');

describe('WebdriverIO and Appium, when interacting with a login form', () => {
    const username = 'test@test.com';
    const password = 'test12345';

    beforeEach(async () => {
        await TabBar.waitForTabBarShown();
        await TabBar.goToLogin();
        await LoginScreen.waitForIsShown();
    });

    it('should be able to login successfully', async () => {
        await LoginScreen.tapOnLoginContainerButton();
        await LoginScreen.submitLoginForm(username, password);
  
        await NativeAlert.waitForIsShown();
        await expect(await NativeAlert.text()).toEqual('Success\nYou are logged in!');

        await NativeAlert.tapOnButtonWithText('OK');
        await NativeAlert.waitForIsShown(false);
    });
    
    it('should be able to sign up successfully', async () => {
        await LoginScreen.tapOnSignUpContainerButton();
        await LoginScreen.submitSignUpForm(username, password);
    
        await NativeAlert.waitForIsShown();
        await expect(await NativeAlert.text()).toEqual('Signed Up!\nYou successfully signed up!');
    
        await NativeAlert.tapOnButtonWithText('OK');
        await NativeAlert.waitForIsShown(false);
    });
});

Step 4: Run test

npm run androidApp

Step 5: Review result

Common Pitfalls When Implementing QA Automation

QA automation is the way to implement automated processes to reduce testing time and provide better-quality software. However, many teams suffer from common mistakes that reduce the execution of automation testing strategies. Here’s a rundown of some of these common pitfalls and how to avoid them:

Automating The Wrong Test Cases

• Pitfall: Frequent, unstable, and infrequent tests should not be automated because the activity would be expensive and create maintenance problems.
• Avoidance: It is advised to give preference to those tests that are stable, high impact, and repetitive in nature, commonly referred to as regression and smoke tests.

Lack of a Clear Strategy

• Pitfall: Automating tests without a strategy leads to the creation of irregular, unhelpful test suites.
• Avoidance: A decision should be made on which tests to automate, and goals, scope, and the processes involved in coming up with an efficient strategy should be defined.

Over-Automation

• Pitfall: Automating all tests raises the level of complication and cost of maintenance whenever the tests require human input.
• Avoidance: Automate and perform testing as well as have learned towards the automated testing approach to deal with repetitive and stable features.

Choosing Inappropriate Tools

• Pitfall: The biggest issue that comes with acquiring tools that do not belong to the tech stack or the team’s capabilities is that they cause inefficiency.
• Avoidance: Beware of the compatibility issue and involve QA when selecting the tools that shall be used with the specific application and the expertise level of the working team.

Poor Test Design

• Pitfall: As the application expands, maintaining rigorous or robust testing becomes more challenging.
• Avoidance: Applying principles such as modular architecture and the usage of timeless values, i.e., the Page Object Model.

Lack of Team Collaboration

• Pitfall: The problem with using automation primarily as a QA tool is that what ends up getting tested is not well integrated with development.
• Avoidance: Engage multiple members from QA, the development, and product teams for joined-up automation.

Poor Test Data Management

• Pitfall: This means that if there is inconsistency in the test data, the results will always be inaccurate.
• Avoidance: Start using proper test data management, and try to utilize techniques that are based on data testing.

The Role of End-to-End QA in DevOps Culture

In DevOps, end-to-end quality assurance, or QA, has a major role in achieving an environment where software is efficient, reliable, and of superior quality. Here’s how E2E QA integrates into DevOps:

1. Continuous Testing

E2E QA is geared towards helping to establish continuous delivery; it incorporates the aspect of testing into the various development stages. This kind of continuous testing also guarantees that each change is tested on the spot so that defects are often detected on the spot.

2. Collaboration

E2E QA aligns with the DevOps objective of delivering continuous testing quality assurance throughout the software development process. This kind of continuous testing also guarantees that each change is tested on the spot so that defects are often detected on the spot.

3. Automated Test Suits

In a DevOps environment, E2E test cases and regression test suites are used to ensure the functionality of the total application throughout several environments. This automation accelerates the change, regression testing, which checks whether new features have impacted the key feature negatively or not, which enhances the CI/CD.

4. Monitoring and Feedback

E2E testing also includes the non-functional testing of the application in the production mode, whereby whatever problem is identified is reported in the development cycle. There is continuous feedback that assists in sustaining quality as well as addressing issues that affect production in the course of its implementation.

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Conclusion

End-to-end (E2E) automation testing is mandatory in order to deliver software faster and increase its quality. This way, key tests become automation-ready, and teams can easily and frequently verify complex systems with a low likelihood of bugs being released to the product. Automated testing tests the application and gives the developers immediate feedback within a shorter amount of time when changes are made.

Alphabin does this by providing software automation testing solutions that will meet your application needs. By making testing easier, time is saved, making it easier to achieve quality at every level with the aid of better tools. Thus, organizations can deliver software more quickly without any detriment to quality.