Being a software quality manager has never been easy. You have to enter the minefield of developers with uncertainties about whether they’ll accept your expertise or withstand everything you stand for. You always have people before you asking different questions, like is the software working? Have you tested everything? How soon can we deliver it?
Yet! You cannot afford to slip those mean bugs peeking out from the code of that software under consideration.
It comes as no surprise that quality executives and engineers, these days, cannot escape agile and DevOps. The World Quality Report 2017-18, a just-released research conducted by Capgemini/Sogeti Group, highlighted different interesting trends in the arena of software quality and testing, including greater test automation and extensive adoption of agile and DevOps practice.
In the words of Mark Buenen, the lead author of the report, “there’s not a dramatic change” in contrast to the previous year. He further explained that the issues with automation, data testing, as well as agile and DevOps management are still the same. Hence, organizations are in crucial need to up their efforts for intelligent automation testing and smart analytics if they want to keep pace with changing testing demands and requirements.
A significant part of test automation revolves around the automation tools. To that end, in this post, we have discussed some best test automation tools and frameworks every software QA analysts should use. Have a look.
Unified Functional Testing (UFT)
UFT is a widely used commercial testing tool aimed to facilitate functional testing. Although it costs a fortune, yet it has been serving the automation testing industry as a leading solution. The tool flaunts a multitude of features for web services, API, as well as GUI testing of mobile, web, and desktop software across different platforms. UFT also provides an advanced feature for image-based object recognition, automated documentation, and reusable test components.
To register the testing processes, UFT utilizes Visual Basic script for customization that makes it easy to learn. It also supports continuous integration software, like Jenkins.
Selenium
Selenium is a comprehensive project offering a plethora of tools and libraries for web browser automation. Created in the 2000s, this open-source automation framework is deliberately chosen by web automation analysts, particularly those with advanced programming and scripting skills. Selenium is also compatible with other open-source automation tools, including Protractor, Katalon Studio, Watir, and Robot Framework.
The framework works well with multiple browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Headless; let alone, different leading system environments, like Windows, Mac, and Linux. The script of selenium can be written in various programming languages, like Java, Ruby, Groovy, Python, C#, Perl, and PHP to name a few.
Watir
Powered by Ruby libraries, this open-source automation testing tool also supports cross-browser testing like headless browser, Firefox, Opera, and IE. Unlike Selenium, changing the registry details (Proxy-http/socks) with watir is considerably easy.
Set to be learnable, the tool helps users to identify the page elements by name, ID, index, value or adjacent text. It further makes data-driven testing easier and incorporates with BBD tools, such as Cucumber, RSpec, and Test/Unit.
Katalon Studio
Counted among the powerful test automation tools, Katalon Studio is more powerful than other selenium-based frameworks. This open-source, feature-packed solution can be used to combat common challenges, including wait-time, iframe, and pop-up in web UI test automation. As a user-friendly solution, it enables the non-coders to get a headstart in an automation testing project, whereas for novice programmers, it can be a time-saver when it comes to building new libraries and maintaining scripts.
Katalon Studio is compatible with leading tools of the QA industry, such as JIRA, Jenkins, qTest, and Git. Katalon Analytics is one of its famous feature that helps the users to get comprehensive views of their test execution reports (metrics, graphs, charts) through an easy to use dashboard.
IBM Rational Functional Tester
IBM RFT is an automation tool for functional and regression testing. This software supports different applications, including.Net, Java, SAP, Flex, and Ajax. It is famous for its automated testing capabilities for regression, data-driven GUI, and functional testing. RFT, with it feature called Storyboard testing, allows the user to record and visualize users’ actions on AUT in a storyboard format as app screenshots.
Besides having an extensive set of APIs, IBM RFT can also be integrated with IBM Rational Quality Manager and IBM Rational Team Concert, helping users access the work items.
TestPlant eggPlant
TestPlant eggplant—another widely used automated functional testing tool allows the QA experts to interact with AUT just as the end-users. This commercial tool, unlike its traditional counterparts, focuses on the user perspective via advanced image recognition, image search, and text recognition, rather than hooking into the code. It allows the testers, who lack a command over coding, to learn and conduct test automation intuitively.
Furthermore, TestPlant eggplant supports multiple platforms such as Web, mobile, and POS systems. It is compatible with every technology and operating system. With Eggplant Aim, the tester can auto-generates the test cases for amplifying the productivity, speed, and coverage. The solution uses AI as well as deep learning to search bugs and glitches.
TestComplete
Created by SmartBear, TestComplete is a popular automation testing tool, effective in mobile, web, and desktop testing. The tool supports different scripting languages, including Python, JavaScript, VBScript, and C++Script. Besides Katalon Studio, TestComplete too can perform data-driven testing. Also, the testers can get streamline the testing process with a user-friendly record and playback feature.
The GUI object recognition feature in TestComplete can detect and update UI objects automatically, saving the analyst a considerable amount of time and efforts involved in maintaining the test scripts when AUT changes.
Robot Framework
You want to leverage on the Python language in your test automation project, right? The Robot Framework is the best option to choose. The Robot Framework is a comprehensive solution created for SQA teams. Accompanied with its open-source awesomeness, this solution has numerous APIs to maximize its extensibility.
Amplifying Robot Framework’s excellence is its capability to test FTP, Android, Appium, MongoDB, and different things other than websites. However, besides a keyword-driven approach ensuring easy-to-read and –create testing, this framework also offers numerous test libraries and tools.
To wrap up:
All these frameworks and tools come with unique features. These features help the quality managers confront the latest challenges in the horizons of software automation. These tools are an obvious lifesaver that prevents software development company experts and analysts from experiencing an ordeal in the testing process. Most of these tools ensure flawless and intuitive testing and integration, management, and reporting. All of them cover continually revolutionizing automation needs for Web, Desktop, and Mobile testing. However, there is also room for improvement for intelligent testing and smart analytics within heterogeneous environments.
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