Tester Automation Frameworks

What are they, what do they include, and what are their benefits?

Testing is an integral part of a product’s development and manufacturing process. But, the days of fully manual testing are over. It’s time-consuming, tedious, and much less reliable than automated testing. However, many people still don’t know what test automation means, and what are test automation frameworks. This article is here to provide a thorough explanation of what is test automation, what are test automation frameworks, what test automation frameworks include, and what are their benefits.

What is Test Automation?

‘Automation’ references the automatic handling of industrial processes. It means that these processes require very little manual intervention.
‘Automated testing’ means using automated tools to test products and systems, and gather data about the way they work.
‘Test automation’ is the process of automating test procedures, to make sure that the unit or System under test (UUT/SUT) function properly.
There are two ways to go about automated testing – starting from scratch, or using a tester automation framework.

The automated tester development process consists of three parts:

• Hardware interface
• Software development
• System integration

Starting from scratch means going through each of these steps during the automated tester development. However, a test automation framework can be used instead of a specifically developed software. That means that the test engineer doesn’t have to invest any time and effort at all in software development during the automated tester development process.

What are Tester Automation Frameworks?

A test automation framework is a software that provides the platform and the tools used for developing automated tests and automated test processes. It is a combination of various features, programs, tools and so on, that together provide a comfortable environment for automated testing and automated tester development. These tools could include built-in tests and test sequences, report modules, compatibility for different hardware and for different coding languages. A framework like this allows the efficient development of automated test cases and reliably analysis of the issues or bugs in the UUT or the DUT.
While test engineers could do without these tools, an organized framework usually provides additional benefits that would otherwise be missed out on. It makes the job of test engineers simpler and the tester development process more efficient.

What do Test Automation Frameworks Include?

Here are some of the features and tools that most of the test automation frameworks include:

• Report Viewer
  Report viewers enable viewing, sorting, and filtering all the records in the database (text files or SQL).
• Test generator
  Test generators allow you to select, copy, and edit from a wide selection of readymade tests and test templates.
• Multi-Product and Configuration Support
  Those allow you to define and manage a list of products, and to set software and hardware parameters for each product.
• Sequence Editor
  Sequence editors allow you to easily create, edit and manage test sequences and test parameters.

What are the Benefits of a Test Automation Framework?

Using an automated testing framework will increase the research and development (D&R) team’s tester development speed and ease the effort involved in this endeavor.
Testing frameworks are essential to an efficient testing process because of a few key reasons:

• Minimizing development time and testing time on the production line
• Reusability of code
• Uniformity of data across testers
• Reliable issue and bug detection
• Easy adjustment to changes in test strategies, testing or test technology

An effective test automation framework supports efficient functional tests and usually proves to be more useful, as it requires shorter
development and maintenance time.

What is the Testview Integrator (TVI)?

TVI is a comprehensive, flexible, and easy-to-use test automation framework. It is a simple and cost-effective framework for tester
development. TVI has all the benefits listed above, and much more, including seamless integration with LabVIEW™, while supporting also Python and .NET, and features like a large resource library, dynamic test loading. Plus, it is super easy to learn and to use.
To read more about the benefits of TVI, click here .
Using the tools that TVI provides, you can save yourself the time and effort of software development for automated testers.

Download the software for a free 30-day trial here .