Test Automation

Having worked in the development side of projects for so long, donning a tester’s hat for some projects at my current workplace was a new experience, nevertheless a useful one. It was almost like starting from scratch. I always had this idea that testing was largely a manual process. Yes, I knew there was automation testing and I was aware of tools such as HPQC, QTP and so on. But, having never used them before, I was not sure how they were leveraged to test the multitude of requirements. So, here go a few of my observations when performing a tester role.

Results reporting is one of the key stages in the testing phase where the interested project participants or the stakeholders are presented with information on the test progress. Although many of the test automation tools have inbuilt reporting capability, the information may either be too low-level or technical, or it may not be fully relevant for management. As part of test process improvement, I’m working on a requirement to present the test results in an efficient way, so the management can visualise the current status of testing or the overall status for a test cycle, and make decisions accordingly.