How to introduce Codeless Automation to your existing QA team

When one of our clients sought a ramp up in their product development, we hit a plateau. We had successfully implemented a DevOps culture and development was at optimum. Our automation and manual test teams were also at their peak- what then, we wondered, could be done to make this team better?

After a few weeks of sprints and research, we decided that the test team was great, but wasn’t at par with our Dev Team- and that was the leak. We decided to fix the weak link by talking to our QA teams and working out a possible solution. It was then that one of our members proposed seeking a codeless alternative to backbreaking code-based scripts of automation. Manual testers couldn’t possibly keep up with automation if they had to construct pages and pages of codes every time.

A few weeks later, we assembled codeless testing for our teams- both manual and automation, as a litmus. While it took us a couple of weeks to iron out the different approaches, we found a mid-way that kept our test teams happy, without bothering our developers. And of course, our team “ramp up” drastically affected our client’s output.

Weaving Codeless in your Existing Testing Fabric

New age tools and especially automation tools, tend to bring a sense of apprehension among users. We had our fair share of critique in our brainstorming sessions- is it necessary? Does it really reduce the cycle? Will it replace manual testing? However, like any organization in the throes of Digital Transformation, we knew the criticality of being an early adopter. Codeless automation is here to stay- and we needed to capitalize on its benefits and address the fears, systematically, to make it work for our client.

The Right Approach

The right approach forms a mix of good leadership, clear strategy, and thorough need analysis. Treading into relatively unknown territory, forgoing traditional processes needs a reliable team with rock-solid leadership. Your team will have to adjust workflows, rewrite maintenance and execution to make room for codeless.

Choose Elements of the Test Plan To Migrate

As suggested in a previous blog, migrating to codeless is not an all-in approach. You need to identify the elements from your testing process that needs to be moved to codeless and choose which ones stay back. There are many cases where codeless may not be the best fit for your team. While a framework like Selenium has some limitations, we encountered situations where it was best suited to our process. Selenium was more compatible than other tools when it came to improving test maintenance code and reducing duplication.

The Polarity Between Codeless And Code-based Testing

Codeless testing increased the team efficiency and reduced our testing cycles, but not from the onset. Once we decided to adopt codeless in our existing code-based fabric, we had to be considerate of the existing differences in the two models. It took the team some careful analysis to navigate through the changes and reach a point of unanimity. Some of the upfront parallels are-

1. Test Authoring

Unlike code based scripting, codeless test creation is done via a record and playback feature- making it easier for the team. The speed of test authoring is remarkably faster, thanks to record-and-playback smart solutions backed by AI and machine learning algorithms. The only caution here would be to ensure the automated scripting does not scramble with existing triggers.

2. Test Maintenance

Codeless automation is a great way to boost test maintenance. Self-healing, auto-correction, and object scoring are some of the rich features that aid in less manual involvement in the test maintenance. You can generate a process to monitor and update the tool scripts manually proactively.

3. Test Execution

Executing tests in a framework like Selenium can cause frustration among QA teams. Scalability is a significant hindrance when running extensive tests. Besides, testers have to develop entire frameworks from scratch. Instead of the usual approach of integrating IDE’s or other third-party tools, teams can choose to integrate the codeless framework instead. Codeless tools can manage test execution through in-built features and allows direct test execution without any third party involvement.

4. App Support

The codeless testing process has only begun emerging in the market, while code-based has been around much, much longer. Keeping in mind the diversity of devices being used today, testing on a plethora of platforms is a natural expectation- and this may fall short in codeless automation. While the code-based process is tedious, they do provide all-round support. Undoubtedly, codeless will get these sooner or later, but for the time being, teams need to remember this.

Conclusion

While we did get over the hunches after a while, we realized that there isn’t one solution that is better than the other. Like ours, every team needs to carefully sieve through the set of requirements before choosing one over the other- or keep both. In critical cases like these, what also helps most QA teams is the aid of a professional or a trailblazer who has had the relevant experience in drafting a favorable process. Consulting a trusted and experienced product-engineering expert can accelerate the adoption of codeless automation in your existing process.

Are you considering about making a move to codeless? Take a beat and contact us. We can assist.