How To Convert Manual Test Cases Into Automated Test Cases And Why

In this era, every organization is on the path of test automation to increase efficiency. Just like manual testing, automation testing also needs proper planning, structure, monitoring, and maintenance. Test cases can be defined as a set of conditions wherein a tester determines whether an application/software system or one of its features is working as expected or not. Test cases help clarify what needs to be done in order to test a system.

The main objective of automation testing is to reduce the number of test cases that need to be run manually. Successive development cycles need to execute the same test suite repeatedly using a test automation tool. No human intervention is required once the test suite is automated. This is sure to improve the ROI.

Automation Testing always comes ahead of manual testing. Manual testing should be done at least once and automated test scripts need to be created based on the manual test cases.

Importance of Converting Manual Test Cases into Automated Test scripts

It’s important to convert manual test cases into automated test cases as it comes with several advantages:

• Increases efficiency
• Wider test coverage of application features
• Lowers cost
• Delivers the required and bug-free product on time
• Play a vital role in achieving the desired ROI
• Ensure consistency
• Human intervention is not required while execution
• More cycle of execution can be achieved through automation
• Reusable test scripts

How to Convert Manual Test Cases into Automated Test Cases?

Suppose there is a requirement for ‘Signing into the google’. The first step is to prepare the test design. 

The test design should be in the below format i.e. test cases documented and split into different stages. Below is a table that shows the same:

S.No.	Pre-Condition	Test Steps	Test Data	Expected Result
1	Launch Browser {Chrome / Firefox / Safari} and Enter URL	1. Launch the selected browser2. Enter the URL in the browser address bar and open	URL: https://google.com	Google home page opens
2	Gmail link	Click on the Gmail link	NA	Clicking on it redirects to Gmail page
3.	UserName	Enter the userName in the “Email or Phone” SignIn textbox and then click next	userName: <TEST>	licking on Next after entering the correct username will show the password textbox
4	Password	Enter the Password in the “Enter your password” textbox	Password: <TestPass>	Entering the correct password should not show any error
5	Submit	Click on the SignIn button	NA	Clicking on the SignIn button should redirect to the mailbox

Now, you can use one of the automation tools for translating manual test cases to automated test cases. Following are the components we need to take care of during the translation:

a) State of the Application: The state of the application is important and needs to be the same every time a particular test is performed. When beginning a test, you need a browser in a ready state for performing all the operations. And configuring the browser is an extra step.

For instance, if you are using Selenium to automate tests, we need the below boilerplate code every time to set up and initialize the browser.

For Chrome:

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

System.SetProperty(“webriver.chrome.driver”,<Path>);

driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(TimeOut, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

For Firefox:

WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();

System.SetProperty(“webdriver.gecko.driver”,<Path>);

driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(TimeOut, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

Along with this, we need to set up the local environment with necessary testing libraries and also driver executables.

Using Testsigma there are none of these additional setup steps. Everything is preconfigured in the cloud and we just need to provide the URL of the application to get started!

And for verifying the application state in Selenium, we need to use the functions like the ones given below:

1. elementToBeClickable()
2. alertIsPresent()
3. presenceOfElementLocated()
4.  titleContains()
5. visibilityOfAllElementsLocatedBy()

All of these required state verifications can be done using simple NLP grammar in Testsigma like wait until the element is clickable, wait until an alert is present & more.

Test Steps: Test steps should be easily readable for everyone who is familiar with the application. In Selenium, we can have logical names for variables and methods so that the tester can easily understand what’s happening in the system. Also, we need to make sure to add comments, debugging statements, and output statements so that the output can be written to a console.

In Testsigma, the test steps are in simple English and they are self-explanatory.

Verification & Validation: Verification and validation is the core part of the testing process and without it, it is pure automation without the checks. You should have several checkpoints, loop statements, and conditional statements in order to test the application effectively.

Testsigma provides a huge set of verification grammar for verifying almost every input and value in the application.

Test Data: Test data is a crucial part of testing. You should have answers to the following questions as your test data requirements:

• Where to place the data?
• You should hard code the data or not?
• Concerns related to security
• Concerns related to reusability

You can use the excel sheet for storing your data and then fetch it to use in your test case. It is important to notice that having test data, username and password is one of the prerequisites to begin the test.

In-built Test Data management feature provided by Testsigma helps to manage the Test Data with ease.

Results: In the case of manual tests, you can put the result of each step in the “actual result” column but, in automation, the result is stored when executed. Automation test results have robust reporting features but it is still a good practice to have an excel sheet or a notepad associated with each test to put in comments while executing the test. Your automation tool should have some good reporting add-on to get good quality reports.

Testsigma has a robust test result interface that provides easy to understand reports in pictorial format. The results can also be exported to a file in a single click.

Post Operation: After the completion of the test step, there is no need to close the program in manual testing. But as an automation tester, it is important to close the browser in case of automation. In the case of an automation test case, you need to make sure that you clean up the activities, kill all the connections you created, close all the apps and release the memory.

Testsigma handles all the tasks for ending the session safely and without resource wastage. You don’t need to add additional steps to end the session.

Importance of Choosing the Right Test Cases for Automation Testing

Software testing and retesting is a continuous process in the software development lifecycle to find out errors as early as possible. But, without clear and practical objectives, a test automation project will fail drastically. Identifying which test cases should be automated and which should remain manual is one of the key factors in setting automation testing objectives. 

This filtering becomes especially important for Regression Testing. Regression testing is used to ensure the validity of the updated software. It is a costly process and it consumes a significant amount of resources. Here are some of the main points to keep in mind while choosing the right cases for regression testing:

• Include test cases frequently having defects
• Include critical test cases which verify core features of the product
• Include all the integration test cases
• Include all the complex test cases
• Prioritize the test cases for regression testing
• Change the regression test cases whenever required

For Regression Testing, Testsigma has an inbuilt mechanism to filter the Test Cases on the basis of multiple criteria and this helps in the filtration for Regression Test Suite.

Running a test suite at night and getting the test reports in the morning? Pretty cool, right?

There are many automated testing tools available in the market and tool selection is one of the biggest challenges you need to tackle before going for automation testing. You need to identify the requirements, explore the capabilities of the tool among others.

Testsigma, a cloud-based test automation ecosystem, is a complete package for those who are looking for quality and speed. You can easily integrate with your favourite CI/CD tools to run automated regression tests for each new build continuously. With simple English based tests, complex automated test cases are now as simple as manual tests and helps you save time, cost and effort thereby increasing the ROI.