5 Best Practices For Functional Testing In Agile

Functional Testing, also known as Specification-based testing, evaluates individual functions of a software system to verify that they adhere to pre-defined specifications. It tests the functional accuracy, usability, interoperability of subsystems, and overall compliance with pre-defined standards in the context of functional and business requirements.

The primary focus of this type of testing is validating the end results of processing, not “how” the processing is done.

This article covers the best practices to follow for conducting functional testing in Agile. If you want to understand the core concepts of functional testing and more, then read our detailed blogs by clicking here “All about functional testing”.

Automate

Each software build needs to be tested as soon as it is checked in. Conducting manual testing for every check-in is a herculean task. Test automation comes in handy for stable and repetitive tests. It not only saves time and effort but also prevents the testers from testing fatigue.

Test automation, if done correctly, enhances the overall scalability quotient of the software testing process. Read more about the “Do’s and Don’ts of test automation” to understand what needs to be done and what needs to be avoided during test automation.

Webomates provides cost-effective services that can help you in generating and automating the test cases using the AI Modeler engine. Our tool reduces the human effort of writing or maintaining the Automation suite by more than 50%. We help in automating your test process by offering codeless testing and generating test cases as early as 1 week and a maximum of 4 weeks’ time frame. We also have a provision of scaling up and down of functional testing as per the need.

Performing Smoke and Sanity Tests

Running a whole test suite for minor changes or bug fixes is a time-consuming process. Ideally, Smoke testing and Sanity testing should be conducted to test the health of software applications before conducting full-fledged functional testing. It not only saves time and effort involved but also intercepts issues much earlier, which makes defect tracking and rectification much easier.

Webomates CQ helps in performing effective smoke testing and sanity testing, using various Continuous Testing methodologies that run using Automation and AI Automation channels. It provides better accuracy in testing and the results are generated within a short period, approximately 15 mins to 1 hour.

Test Smart

Having a smart strategy in place is the key to successful testing.

Test case prioritization and preparing mini test suites to be executed at every build check-in is the right way forward to prevent bottlenecks in CI/CD/CT pipelines. These test mini-suites can be made by selecting the test cases based on importance, risk factor, time-taken for execution. It would be prudent to identify and build tests around frequently traversed logical paths and high-risk areas.  Identify and include the test cases with maximum code coverage in your test suite.

You can read more in detail about smart testing on our blog “Test Smarter – Develop faster”.

Webomates’ patented AI Test Strategy and creator, along with a highly competent team of experienced analysts and testers, can help you in devising a smart test strategy for your application. We have an advanced human-assisted AI system that can create thousands and more test scenarios, execute the tests and provide the user with triaged pass/fail reports.
Reach out to us at info@webomates.com to know more.

Make Continuous Testing a Habit

Continuous testing is a process of evaluating software quality by testing it at every stage of software development. It adds more value to the CI/CD process by testing early and testing often. In order to implement this, a holistic testing strategy is needed, which can be devised when a meaningful collaboration and information exchange is done frequently. All the stakeholders need to be on the same page about the user stories, their conversion to requirements, design, implementation, testing etc. Besides this, defect triaging, reporting, and sharing the defect details across the board is extremely important to keep the ball rolling for aCI/CD/CT process.

Webomates has resources and expertise to help you in the required setup for Continuous testing. Our CI/CD API can be easily embedded in the application of customers’ CI/CD pipeline by integrating seamlessly with Jenkins or CircleCI. We provide expertise, tools, and services to achieve in-sprint shift left testing, aiding the developers in testing as early as possible. This increases overall test velocity.

Keep Test Suite Up to Date

One of the thumb rules of a holistic approach towards functional testing is to keep track of any changes in user stories/epics/requirements and updating the tests to reflect those changes. Outdated tests may give improper outcomes leading to failed functionalities at the user end. Besides this, tests should be updated regularly based on the changes due to defect rectifications.

Webomates’ applies AI and ML algorithms to its self-healing test automation framework to dynamically adapt the testing scope to any changes. Healed test suites lead to faster testing and development, thus speeding up the entire release process. Our services include intelligent analytics using our ingenious Test Package Analyzer that identifies all the test cases which are impacted due to a defect, traces them to impacted user stories/epics/requirements. Thus, giving you the exact origin of the defect encountered. This aids in updating the relevant test cases.

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Tags: Agile Testing, Continous Testing, Functional Testing, Test Automation