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Beginners’ Guide to Automated Regression Testing: What is It and How to Perform

In this blog, we will cover the following questions: • What is regression testing? • Why do we need automated regression testing? • How do I perform automated regression testing?

What is regression testing?

As a part of the software life cycle, regression testing occupies a large proportion of the workload in the whole software testing process. They are performed at all stages of software development. In progressive and rapid iterative development, the continuous release of new versions makes regression testing more frequent, and in extreme programming methods, several regression tests per day are required. Automated regression testing will greatly reduce the cost of system testing, maintenance, and upgrade.

 

Why do you need automated regression testing?

Because regression testing needs to be thoroughly tested before the next phase of development, this is undoubtedly expensive and delays development. However, without detailed regression testing, the loss caused by software failure is also incalculable. By conducting thorough testing in the early stages of development, you can not only catch errors in time, but also avoid the high cost of correcting them. This is where automated regression testing comes into play.

To summarize more fully, automated regression testing also has the following benefits:

• Higher test coverage - Automation allows us to run more regression tests to examine all aspects of the system. Obviously, this is a level of thoroughness that manual regression testing cannot achieve.

• Higher ROI on testing - Although automated testing can sometimes lead to higher initial investments, automated regression testing can often save teams a lot of time and money for the foreseeable future and reap greater returns in the long run because software development and maintenance is a continuous process.

• Fewer labor costs - With an automated test platform, teams need only one QA(Quality inspection) engineer to test scripts. In contrast, manual regression testing will require several professionals to achieve similar results. As a result, automation dramatically reduces the overall time and labor costs required for regression testing.

• Enhanced stability - The results of manual regression testing often depend on the expertise and testing methodology of the QA experts on the team. Automation ensures that all aspects of the entire system are tested with the same expertise.

• Repeatability - Automated regression testing can be performed whenever needed, regardless of whether the QA team has the time and energy. Manual testing, on the other hand, requires sufficient QA staff for each new project.

How to perform automated regression testing?

Tools are important for automated testing. Choosing the most popular automated regression testing tools on the market can help you do more with less. If you're looking for more automated testing tools, click here to check out WeTest Automation, a cloud-based mobile application testing tool that integrates with popular CI/CD tools for efficient and cost-effective testing.

 

We can then follow the following four steps to automate regression testing:

  1. Discovery and planning - First outline the scope of the product to be released and determine which test cases may be included in the regression testing suite.
  2. Design and development - After determining all the tasks to be included in the test project, start writing automated scripts for each test case.
  3. Test execution - Run tests and identify errors during execution.
  4. Test completion - Finally, the test report is recorded and submitted, and other subsequent tests are performed.

Sum up

Regression testing is an effective way to reduce potential technical problems and improve the maintenance posture of software projects. With automated testing tools, development teams can not only simplify the overall effort of testing but also ensure the stability and code quality of the product before it is delivered to production.

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