Automation Best Practices

A u t o m a t io n Be s t P ra c t i c e s

L e o L a s k i n , T e s t A u t o m a t i o n A d v i s o r

About Me

• Twitter: @LeoLaskin

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/llaskin

• Email: [email protected]

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Manual Tests

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No Manual Tests*

*TestingExtremeProgramming byLisaCrispin andTipHouse

Start with a Clean System

• Having a clean system every time is paramount for reproducible results

• SaaS grid based systems can be setup to be fresh with no system cache, browser cache, cookies, etc.

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Paralle li zatio n

• Serialized tests take more time and cost more money

• Using a Selenium Grid like Sauce Labs, parallelized tests can spin up multiple browsers for you or multiple tests simultaneously

• 300 minute long tests can take either 5 hours or as little as 1 minute.

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Page Object Pattern

• Encourage reusable code throughout your test app

• Test code more organized for update if test parameters like selectors change

• Tests are more readable with a natural feeling Domain-Specific Language(DSL)

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Test Constant ly

• Don’t ever stop testing

• Having tests run on every commit is going to provide significantly higher confidence in your software

• You have unlimited amounts of time to test. Use it!

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Speed things up

• The average attention span of an adult is less then 5 minutes

• Try to provide results before context is switched

• Make the devs work for you not against you

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Start Small

• Don’t rush to automate every test case

• Identify test case priority then automate

• Don’t automate end-to-end

• Divide and conquer

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Divide your testing up

• By Functional Area

• By hosted server

• By backend server

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Automation = Development Activ ity

• Automation is a real development endeavor, treat it as such

• Beware of Cowboy Coding

• Copy/Pasting inside your code can be replaced by reusable methods

• Source control is cheap insurance

• Bad coding practices = bad testing practices (and vice versa)

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Don’t Forget to Wait!

• Web pages don’t load instantaneously, and not all elements load at the same time

• A lot of your failures in finding an element will disappear if you use these

• Explicit or fluent waits are preferred for waiting for single elements

• Implicit waits for waiting all the time

• Fluent waits for elements that can take variable time to load

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Avoid Dependencies

• Don’t allow tests to be dependent on each other

• One test’s actions should not drive another tests assertion criteria

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Prep Your Environment

• Make sure your CI rig can handle the number of jobs running on it simultaneously

• Make sure your SUT can handle the number of tests running on it simultaneously

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Collect Metr ics

• How long did test runs take before and after automation?

• How many bugs do automated tests identify per release?

• How many engineers does a test run require?

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SAUCE LABS RESOURCES

February 29, 2016 © Sauce Labs, Inc.

• Sign up for a free trial of Sauce

https://saucelabs.com/signup/trial

• Check out our docs on Automation and how to use Sauce at https://wiki.saucelabs.com

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