Automation Testing Life Cycle (ATLC)
Today's topic, Automation Testing Life Cycle (ATLC). As we all know there is a life cycle for development, manual testing, as well as for automation also we have life cycle known as Automation Testing Life Cycle (ATLC). Now a days, everyone is looking for automation rather than manual.
The implementation of Automation Testing Life Cycle (ATLC) executes in parallel with the software development life cycle process.The completely structured automation testing process involves a multi-stage procedure that includes activities needed for utilizing and introducing an automated testing tool, developing the design, and handling the environment and data.
There are main 6 stages in Automation Testing Life Cycle(ATLC). Each stage is equally important in ATLC.
1. Determination of the scope of the test automation
2. Selecting the right tool for automation
3. Test plan/ Test design
4. Environment setup
5. Automate test script development/ Execution
6. Analysis of the test results
We will discuss each stage now in detail.paint
1. Determination of the scope of the test automation:
This is the first step in ATLC. In this stage you have to think from different perpestive.Every aspect should be considered while analyzing the feasibility.
In this particular stage your main focus should be on below poins:
1. Which features can be automated and which cannot be automated?
2. Which test cases can be automated and how we can automate them?
3. Take into consideration the following factors like team size, cost involved for tools.
Before starting the automation, we should check following feasibility.
Try to find out automation testing tools that can help to automate UI components with few alterations. Which brings us to our next phase!
2. Selecting the right tool for automaion:
Finding proper testing tools for automation is one of the most important aspects of the automation testing life cycle. There are so many automation tools are availble. While looking for best automation tool, you will have to consider the following things
3. Test plan/ Test design:
One more important stage in Automation Testing Life Cycle (ATLC) is Test plan/Test design. During the test planning phase, the testing team decides the test procedure creation standards and guidelines, hardware, software and network to support test environment, a preliminary test schedule, test data requirements, defect tracking procedure and associated tracking tool and a procedure to control test configuration and staging environments.
When planning the test, the following things need to be consider:
4. Environment setup:
By name itself you can understand that we need to setup machine or remote machine where our test case will execute. Environment setup phase needs a thorough planning, you need to ensure that you are able to maximize your test coverage across as many different scenarios as possible.
5. Automate test script development/ Execution:
Once done the test environment setup, it is time to develop and execute the test scripts.
After the script development, execution part will come in line. Here comes the execution part, where the below things have to be kept in mind:
6. Analysis of the test results:
This is the last phase of Automation test life cycle (ATLC). After all types of testing are performed, the testing team analyzes to identify particular functionality or components that experience a relative number of problem reports. In this stage we will gather test result and will share with all team/client/stack holders.
Wrapping up with final note
Automation testing offers the most effective way of meeting the testing goals while keeping within the deadlines and taking care of the available resources. But, in order to get the expected results, you will need to go through the entire cycle, and that too, in the right environment with the right tools.
A planned and well-structured automation life cycle methodology is all you need for successful automated testing. Happy testing!