The daily consumption of technology has led to various applications suiting different purposes. Agile test automation allows the environment to foster collaborative work culture toward achieving goals with the support of automation. Regression testing agile systems have brought about a host of perks that have undeniably improved the process.
Achieving quicker time-to-market, better-incorporating user input, and continual upgrades: these benefits have made Agile the most popular development approach in the business.
Regression testing agile systems enables the continuation of business functions with any quick change in the program. In an agile setting, it allows the team to focus on the creation of new features as well as general functioning within the sprint. It aids in the maintenance of software stability with each new product increment.
Regression testing is used in agile to improve software quality. A well-defined regression testing strategy helps to ensure that any recent changes to the program do not affect the software’s existing functioning.
WHAT IS REGRESSION TESTING?
Regression Testing is performing the current test cases to ensure that the existing functionality operates well. Agile’s emergence has had a substantial influence on testing techniques. Testing was supposed to be the “final stage” in the classic waterfall paradigm before software release.
The application’s testing frequency has grown in response to the rising customer demand for agile development. With each release, testers must ensure that the program is operating as planned and that there are no side effects from the new code that may harm the existing working functions.
Regression Testing helps to:
- Reduce the testing time between iterations.
- Reduce the possibility of poor customer experience.
WHY IS AUTOMATED REGRESSION TESTING NECESSARY?
Regression testing is used to validate the system’s current functioning; it must be repeated with each release cycle.
A significant amount of regression testing is necessary to ensure that no new development generates defects or breakdowns in the production environment. Not all bugs result from new features.
Bugs can also occur owing to database upgrades or new browser versions in the case of web applications. There is also an issue with efficiency and speed.
By automating reliable and repeatable situations, testers may devote more time to testing in different contexts and integrating more complex scenarios. Automation also relieves the tester of the monotonous task of repeating the same tests.
Automated regression testing facilitates by :
- Saving manual work
- Reduces the time of testing
- It helps to detect more defects and increases test coverage.
CREATING A REGRESSION TESTING STRATEGY FOR AGILE TEAMS
To ensure that regression tests are executed smoothly, the testing team can create a test strategy before the start of the development phase and adapt it with each subsequent sprint cycle. Smoke and sanity testing should be the initial step in developing a regression test strategy plan.
Sanity testing is the execution of high-priority tests to verify the operation of an application before the extra testing of a new release to ensure functionality functions as expected.
To achieve fluid regression test execution, the testing team might establish a test strategy during the development process and adapt it to every new sprint cycle.
The steps for creating a regression testing strategy are as follows:
1. Create a regression test script that can be tweaked and evaluated with each new update to ensure accuracy.
2. Prioritize test cases that cover error-prone areas (those that fail more frequently). Sometimes, some functionalities in the program are so error-prone that they will fail even with the last update in the code.
3. Good communication should be maintained across all parties. The testing team should connect with feature engineers, product owners, and developers to understand any change needed to monitor and analyze the same.
4. Aim to concentrate on the risk areas (non-functioning of existing functionality due to code changes) that jeopardize product quality.
5. The automation test script should cover all potential situations to ensure bug-free product delivery.
6. With every sprint run, maintain track of these failed test cases and them in the regression test suite.
7. Analyze the defect report since, with each test execution cycle, the automated tool provides a test report that defines the failed test cases, which step in the test case was impacted, and how this affected a specific functionality. During regression testing, error-tracking systems create screenshots and failure metrics.
AN EFFECTIVE AUTOMATED REGRESSION TESTING STRATEGY
When a project is stabilized, automated regression testing becomes vital for big and medium-sized projects (six months or more) (no critical changes in business logic and UI are expected). The regression test suite should be started from the first sprint and updated with each sprint.
The steps for developing a successful automated regression testing approach are as follows:
1. Determine the platforms:
The first step is determining which platforms you wish to use to automate regression testing. You can prioritize it depending on the platforms that are utilized by the people the most.
2. Identifying the correct tool:
This is a crucial stage since the right instrument may aid in various ways. Identifying the right tools depend on many factors:
- Budget
- If it is open source or not.
- Required training
- Maintenance
- Robustness of the tool’s framework
- Features the tool claims to provide.
3. Prioritizing the automated test:
It is generally best to first automate the most important tests. The essential functionality/features of the project should always be automated first. The priority and severity of the tests should be determined to understand which tests should be automated.
4. Determining when to begin automation:
It would help if you started automation only when the module/feature is stable and not much of its basic logic is likely to change shortly. If you change the functionality frequently, the automated regression testing will fail.
5. Getting the test automation framework ready:
One of the most critical initial tasks in the test automation process is to define and set up the fundamental test automation framework so that code generated by many individuals is consistent and organized.
It will also aid in setting up reporting capabilities and ensure a seamless procedure in the future. In the early stages of test automation, you should establish a code repository and a separate test environment where the tests may be executed regularly.
6. Creating an automated test script:
It’s now up to the Automation Testers to develop the test scripts and frequently merge their code into the source repository.
CONCLUSION
HeadSpin Regression Platform is a regression testing platform for online and mobile apps that leverages intelligent test automation.
HeadSpin created the technology to assist developers in swiftly identifying and correcting any regressions before they reach production. HeadSpin Regression Platform connects with various development tools and works with many browsers and operating systems, making it a versatile alternative for regression testing.