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Feature Friday – How In-Sprint Automation Enhances Testing Processes
Inhale. Hold. Release.
As we submit our sprint updates and reports, and find our headspace sprinting towards a relaxing dinner, it’s important not to lose sight of the tasks at hand. In that respect, you can thank me or just thank yourself later for tuning into this week’s Feature Friday discussing in-sprint automation.
You’ve heard it around, the “shift left” everyone’s endlessly imploring, and it makes sense why. Testing simultaneously along development poses a range of benefits but typically costs an arm and leg in testing resources. But, with recent strides in automation testing, Qyrus has created a testing environment that enables just that: in-sprint automated testing.
To better understand this powerful capability, we interviewed Meghana from our team based in India and Parth from our team based in Chicago, asking them a few questions about in-sprint automation and how it works.
Tell us more about in-sprint automated testing offered by Qyrus, its use cases, and impact on testing processes?
Meghana:
In-sprint automation aims to automate user stories at a unit, API, and UI level. Unit tests form the foundation of a solid test automation strategy. API testing can start early, even before the UI is ready or finished. This enables users to identify issues early in the development cycle. And lastly, users can come up with a plan to map locators at the beginning of the sprint to effectively test changes.
Parth:
Those are great points, Meghana. To add to that, in-sprint automation also creates a better way for testing teams to collaborate with development teams. In-sprint automation has a huge impact on the overall SDLC of an application. If we are able to effectively test alongside sprints, a huge chunk of testing is taken care of early on.
Are we dreaming? Without the addition of automation, in-sprint testing seems like an impossibility or at the very least a near insurmountable task. So, we had to ask:
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Parth:
Most competitors do not allow users to organize tests into a sprint to enable in-sprint testing. With Qyrus, you just have to set up the sprint and make sure to give it a start and end date.
Meghana:
On top of that, previously to perform in-sprint testing you needed to have a combined approach of TDD (test-driven development) and BDD (behavior-driven development). Testers would most likely also have to track the development cycle in another application or even manually.
The workplace is full of different people, positions, and requirements. So, we took a finer comb to understand the fundamental impact of this technology across a range of user personas:
How might in-sprint automation help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value does it bring?
Meghana:
For testers and developers, collaboration becomes much easier. Testers are able to automate acceptance criteria for new features within the sprint itself and developers are able to write unit tests quickly and get extremely fast feedback on code quality.
Parth:
And for business technologists, they get a better understanding of the progress of the application. Looking at the specific sprint reports, they can get an idea of what areas of the sprint are finished and what areas are still in progress.
Looking to the future, we want to know what else Qyrus has planned for in-sprint automation testing.
What’s in store for the future of in-sprint automated testing on Qyrus?
Parth:
Currently, in-sprint automation only exists in our Web automation service. It’s directly connected with our test repository and test case management solution. Essentially, you’re able to pull a set of specific tests from a repository that would coincide with your sprint.
Meghana:
Yes, Parth. And with that being said, we are in the progress of bringing it to all of our other services.
With a unique perspective to offer as daily users and testers of Qyrus’ in-sprint automation feature, we grasped the opportunity for some expert testimony to understand the scale at which this feature impacts quality assurance.
What is in-sprint automation’s overall impact on the testing process?
Parth:
Well, overall, in-sprint automation enables the testing process to start earlier. Instead of having to wait for the development to finish they can start pretty much right away. Furthermore, test reports are better organized which helps everyone involved in the process.
Meghana:
And one last point, once the sprint ends, the automated tests become part of a regression suite, making everything effortless.
That concludes our interview with Parth and Meghana about in-sprint automation testing on Qyrus. We’ve discussed use cases and specifics, how in-sprint automation can help different users, and the overall impact on the testing process. Join us next week on Feature Friday as spring begins to bud and bloom lets figure out just how many more solutions Qyrus test automation has for you!
