A Beginners Guide to Test Automation Framework

A testing framework is a combination of practices and tools designed to provide a foundation for test automation. Test automation uses software to run the test cases and check the actual and predicted outcome. The Test automation framework is an execution environment for running automated test scripts.

A test automation framework is important for effective and efficient automated testing. It provides reusable components like utilities and libraries and helps the QA team to test effectively in a shorter time frame.

Advantages of a test automation framework

There are many advantages of using a test automation framework. It accelerates script development and execution. It primarily saves time and cost and makes it easy for the QA team to adopt standard practices.

• Reusable code
• Low maintenance
• Less manual intervention
• Increased test coverage
• Reliable and consistent
• Efficiency and accuracy
• Easy analysis of results

Types of Test Automation Framework

There are different types of test automation framework available.

• Linear automation Framework
• Modular Testing Framework
• Data-Driven Testing Framework Keyword Driven Testing Framework
• Hybrid Testing Framework
• Library Architecture Testing Framework

• Linear automation Framework

This is a basic level test automation framework that operates in a linear fashion. The tester records each step and plays the script to execute the test in linear order. This framework is suitable for testing small-sized applications.

• Modular Testing Framework

In this model, the testers divide the entire application into multiple modules and test scripts are created module wise. This framework is commonly referred to as a module-based framework. The individual test scripts are combined to build a larger test using a master script. The master script invokes the modules to run test scenarios.

• Data Driven Testing Framework

The Data-driven framework allows creating test scripts for different sets of test data. All possible inputs and expected outcomes are kept in data files. This framework comes handy when functionality has to be tested for different set of inputs. The test framework provides input through external files such as Excel sheets, MS Access tables, SQL Database, XML files and observes test outcomes.

• Keyword Driven Testing Framework

This framework is similar to a data-driven testing framework. In this model, keywords or action words for each function are defined in table format. Test scripts are created based on the keywords.

• Hybrid Testing Framework

This framework is a combination of the above frameworks. It can be customized to the project needs and it leverages the benefits of all associated frameworks.

• Library Architecture Testing Framework

This is similar to the modular testing framework. Instead of dividing the application based on test scripts it is split based on common functions. These functions are placed in a library that can be accessed by test scripts.

This article briefs about popular testing frameworks used for automation testing. The testing framework should be scalable and application independent. It is helpful when a team of developers is programming different modules of an application. A standard framework will help developers to adopt a common approach towards automation.