Functional test automation is intended to speed up validation processes for companies while improving application quality. However, automation is not foolproof and can fail for a variety of reasons.
Time savings, cost reductions, shorter time to market, faster deployment to production, and better test coverage: there are a number of good reasons to embark on a functional test automation initiative. But if it isn’t properly prepared in advance, automation can fail.
Automated testing may then prove to be more expensive than the benefits it brings to the company, take more time than it saves, or even fail to detect anomalies quickly enough. It all depends on the goals you’ve set for yourself, but if one of them isn’t being met, it means there’s a problem somewhere. And we recommend looking into these four reasons.
Are the tests to be automated being targeted incorrectly?
You might say we’re repeating ourselves, but a little reminder never hurts: it’s not necessary to automate all your tests, and in fact, doing so would be counterproductive. Simply put, some tests need to remain manual, allowing a human to spot things a machine wouldn’t notice—particularly when it comes to usability, accessibility, and so on.
To ensure the quality of web and mobile application development and achieve an optimal return on investment, it is therefore essential to combine automated and manual testing. However, you must still choose carefully which tests to automate, because poor targeting can render your automation strategy completely ineffective and end up costing you more time and money than anything else.
At Mr Suricate, we recommend prioritizing the automation of the most frequent and repetitive tests—such as non-regression tests—as well as the most critical user flows and features, which have a direct impact on the company (business, legal, and reputation).
Is this tool unsuitable?
There are many tools available to meet automation needs, but it’s important not to make the wrong choice. Not all tools are created equal. Some may be too technical and require skills that don’t match those of your team. Others have high implementation and maintenance costs, which must be taken into account. And still others don’t allow you to test everything.
This means you need to carefully assess your needs, but also take into account your development project (whether it involves an API, a thick client, a web interface, a mobile app, or multi-device support…), as well as your team’s skills, the level of complexity of the functional tests you want to automate, and the budget you’re willing to allocate to this effort.
A lack of maintenance?
In the long run, automation often fails due to maintenance issues. In fact, it’s important to remember to update automated test scenarios as soon as changes occur—whether to the UI, features, operating system, browser, data, etc. Otherwise, there is a risk of failing to detect anomalies properly and wasting the development teams’ time—even though the very purpose of automation is to save them time.
A lack of analysis?
Automating functional tests can bring significant benefits to your business, but there’s no point in getting started if you don’t plan to analyze the results of the tests you run.
After all, what’s the point of running automated testing campaigns if you decide to deploy to production without verifying that any issues have been detected? You then run the risk of deploying a low-quality application riddled with critical bugs—not to mention the negative impact this could have on your users.
Running automated tests by the tens, hundreds, or thousands is not enough; you must also implement systems to analyze failures and streamline the reporting of those failures—for example, by automatically creating incident reports—so that you can take the necessary actions afterward: rerun the test that failed, update it, or correct the detected issue.
FAQ
Are the tests to be automated being targeted incorrectly?
You might say we’re repeating ourselves, but a little reminder never hurts: it’s not necessary to automate all your tests, and in fact, it would be counterproductive.
Is this tool unsuitable?
There are many tools available to meet automation needs, but it’s important not to make the wrong choice. Not all tools are created equal. Some may be too technical and require skills that don’t match those of your team. Others come with high implementation and maintenance costs, so you’ll need to take that into account.
A lack of maintenance?
In the long run, automation often fails due to maintenance issues. Indeed, it’s important not to forget to update your automated test scenarios as soon as changes occur—whether to the UI, functionality, operating system, browser, data, etc.
Further Reading
To see the solution in action, check out our functional tests.
