Introduction

We have a favourite quote on Test Automation Solution by Chief Scientist from Thoughtworks, Martin Fowler. He once said that “Automation Test Coverage Analysis helps you discover the parts of your code that are not tested. It’s usually great to run coverage tools frequently to observe and maintain these sections of untested code.”

Less Automation code coverage hampers the quality of the product and puts unrequired pressure on the testers for manually testing the product. Most QA Analysts encounter some of these hurdles, resulting in low automation coverage. 

• Projects that run longer, at times come with heavy delivery pressures, lots of services, and a lot of data involvement:

In the race to fulfil delivery timelines, automation tests are usually sacrificed and are slowly becoming unimportant. Eventually, manual regression tests are becoming regular and more preferred.

• In the case of a project where the client develops an app’s primary functionalities: If the code has minimal test coverage and you become used to TDD, you’ll also have to work on the non-automated functionality testing and write automation tests for the new ones.

• A legacy application that cannot be unit tested:

This is even if the app’s complete logic exists in database queries because it ends up stacking lots of tests at the highest layers of the test pyramid, with very few unit tests.

Based on personal experiences related to such scenarios, we have gathered ten tips that can be quickly adopted. These will enhance the test automation coverage and bring down manual testing attempts.

1. We should capture the potential tests at an initial stage- as early as story creation!

Test Cases must be a part of the story/feature card and the acceptance measures marked out by Business Analysts. This helps the developers to follow a tester’s perspective and makes it easy to decide what tests should be put into what layer of the test pyramid. Writing down test cases beforehand helps testers understand and decide for story testing.

2. Estimate how much effort is to be put into devising a Test Automation Solution

QAs must be a part of the destination sessions to be actively responsible for roadblocks like additional data setup needs or an alteration in the testing approach. Like, a code change can be tiny, but its effect on the app might end up being great. This would require many more tests that means that a single pointer story will not be a single pointer.

3. Embrace the Acceptance Criteria and write down the API Tests

Along with TDD, writing the unit tests is like a habit for the developers in most automation testing companies.

Whatever the case be, functional tests are rarely given attention in the development stage. BAs keep writing down API Tests as an extra acceptance criterion on a story or feature card used to serve as a fast check for the developers who aren’t yet experts in the process.

4. Check as well as run the tests in Devbox 

QAs can check out the automation tests that are there in the story present on the DevBox. This also makes sure that the functionalities work perfectly and no previous test gets broken. At this level, testers and developers talk to each other about whether the tests are written in perfect layers of the test pyramid and the data setup and assertions are correct.

5. Tracking Git comes with double benefits

• Whenever QAs keep their eye on Github commits with all the features or sub-features that have been chosen for testing, the bigger image of unit or API tests and pending tests becomes visible. Tracking Git commits allows testers to better understand the areas of impact. If changes in some parts of a code influence the functionality, people must write automated software tests for the affected functionality.
• Comparing the release branch to the master branch is useful when automation test coverage is low, and the release has an extensive manual regression phase. In this situation, the testers’ attempts will not be wasted on the untouched areas but will focus on the affected functionalities.

6. Introduce a ‘To Be Automated’ Lane on the end of the Iteration Wall

Every Card whether it be a bug, story or tech after regular manual testing, must shift to the ‘to be automated’ lane before moving out to the ‘done’ street. This makes sure that the tests are penned down for each new feature story or the bug fixes.

More than that, this kind of lane will make sure that the importance of automation testing increases. There are chances that capacity concerns can cause some card accumulation on the recent route, which makes light fall on an existing QA capacity problem.

7. Functional Testing is a mass responsibility

Being sure that the finest quality of a developed product is the entire project team’s responsibility, the team must become familiar with the test pyramid so that the proper tests get shifted into the perfect pyramid layers.The most significant thing is that developers must not be motivated to write down unit tests without pushing them to a higher level in the test pyramid.

If introduced at the perfect time, the measures mentioned above that we just talked about will allow you to do away with a project’s automation backlog. When every stakeholder is inspired to follow procedures, QAs can fulfil the dream of superb automation code coverage, not discounting the saved time and effort.

Conclusion

Hikeqa is a Software Testing Company providing all kinds of quality assurance testing services. Our services include mobile and website application tests like Unit Testing, Integrated Testing, Acceptance Testing, and User Testing. We are experts in manual and test automation solutions performed using white-box, grey-box, or black-box testing methods.