July 2022 Summaries

testRigor is an automation tool that enables organizations to enhance test coverage while reducing costs by allowing manual testers to create automated tests efficiently, achieving 15 times the speed of traditional QA Automation Engineers using systems like Selenium. It significantly reduces the time spent on test maintenance, freeing up resources to build new tests, and allowing users to achieve nearly full test coverage in a short time frame. Companies like IDT have reported achieving over 90% automation within months of adopting testRigor, thanks to its user-friendly interface that requires no coding skills, and by addressing the prevalent industry challenge of test maintenance, which typically consumes substantial engineering resources. The tool not only facilitates more effective communication and processes within organizations but also prevents bugs from reaching production, ultimately safeguarding companies from potential financial losses.

Low-code and no-code platforms are gaining traction in the software industry as they simplify the development process by minimizing or entirely eliminating the need for traditional coding, making them accessible to individuals with limited coding knowledge. Low-code platforms, which can reduce coding by up to 90%, often feature drag-and-drop interfaces to streamline workflows and are particularly beneficial in mobile app development and software testing environments. No-code platforms go a step further by completely removing coding from the equation, using intuitive interfaces to facilitate rapid solution implementation, as evidenced by tools like Airtable and Canva. Despite their advantages, such as faster time to market and reduced bottlenecks due to scarce coding resources, these platforms may face challenges with scalability and performance. However, advanced options in platforms like SalesForce and testRigor can address these issues. As low-code and no-code solutions continue to evolve, supported by advancements in AI and machine learning, they are expected to play a significant role in transforming software development and testing, offering streamlined processes and enhanced efficiency.

testRigor offers a seamless integration with CI/CD pipelines, allowing users to easily incorporate automated testing by copying and pasting pre-populated scripts into their existing systems. It provides a bash script for Linux-based systems and a PowerShell script for Microsoft systems, enabling the integration to trigger tests automatically. This setup ensures that the testRigor tests directly influence the results of the CI/CD process, causing the pipeline to pass if the tests succeed and fail if the tests do not.

QAOps, an extension of DevOps, integrates quality assurance into the software delivery pipeline, particularly benefiting Agile environments and mid-size to large enterprises with frequent releases. By incorporating continuous testing into the software development lifecycle, QAOps enhances collaboration between QA, developers, and other stakeholders, leading to faster, higher-quality release cycles and improved market delivery. Key strategies for implementing QAOps include leveraging automated testing, such as unit, smoke, regression, parallel, and scalability testing, to streamline QA processes and minimize bottlenecks. Tools like testRigor facilitate the QAOps approach by allowing teams to create automated tests using simple English commands, harnessing machine learning and AI to optimize the testing process. The integration of QAOps ultimately results in empowered QA teams, better communication, and a reduced defect escape rate, ensuring a robust and scalable software development process.

testRigor is a comprehensive end-to-end test automation tool that supports testing across desktop and mobile web applications, native mobile apps, and native desktop applications. It facilitates seamless end-to-end scenarios through cross-browser and cross-platform testing capabilities.

CEO Artem Golubev will be presenting at the DevOps World 2022 conference, where attendees can learn how to enhance the productivity of their Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) processes. Interested participants are encouraged to register for the event.

The company offers unique tools that significantly reduce the time spent on test maintenance by enabling customers to manage their own tests, claiming to be the only provider of such tools worldwide. This approach results in dramatically less time spent on test maintenance compared to other frameworks, as it eliminates the need for maintenance related to implementation details and focuses solely on business processes or UI changes. The company emphasizes the ease of updating tests, as modifications can be made quickly and effortlessly in plain English, allowing for rapid adjustments to business processes or UI changes.

testRigor is a tool designed to facilitate and make accessible testing procedures, including complex scenarios such as login with two-factor authentication (2FA) and testing for sending and receiving text messages (SMS).

TestRigor is a testing tool that prioritizes stability by emulating human interactions with a browser, ensuring that tests remain unaffected by changes in HTML or XML structures, unlike other frameworks that rely on implementation details. This approach allows TestRigor to serve as a reliable monitoring tool for customers, maintaining test stability regardless of changes in XPath or selectors. Additionally, TestRigor offers features that facilitate rapid adjustments to UI changes, enabling users to implement necessary modifications in minutes rather than days.

In a session led by Artem Golubev, participants learned how to efficiently organize test reports within a test suite using labels and how to implement "before" and "after" test suite hooks to manage test parameters. Golubev demonstrated the process of adding labels to test cases, allowing for dynamic report breakdowns and better visibility into test results, including those segregated by browsers. The session also covered the use of hooks to execute scripts that set up and clean up test data before and after running tests, which is particularly useful in parallel test executions. This approach ensures that parameters needed for tests are set up dynamically, even if they are not specified in the test data. Golubev also addressed a question about using labels versus folder structures for organizing tests, explaining the versatility of labels and hinting at the potential future inclusion of folder structures to enhance test management.

TestRigor is a tool designed to facilitate the automation of end-to-end testing, offering support for transitioning existing automated tests into its framework or creating new tests. It aims to simplify the process for manual QA teams by enabling them to automate frequently repeated tasks efficiently. TestRigor's technology also assists in seamlessly integrating existing tests and automation frameworks, enhancing the overall testing process.

Last week, testRigor introduced a new feature allowing users to achieve 2-factor authentication using Google Authenticator by implementing a command that generates a pin code from a QR code. This enhancement enables users to test 2-factor authentication more effectively by requiring the QR code to be included in the test data, which can then be input into the command to generate the necessary pin. The feature provides flexibility by allowing the generated Google Authenticator code to be saved as a variable, facilitating streamlined testing processes. Additional resources, such as documentation and instructional videos, are available to assist users in setting up and utilizing this new functionality.

Recent updates introduced several enhancements, including the ability to enable Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for specific check and click commands without needing to activate it for the entire test suite. Users can now employ OCR to verify the presence of text or to click buttons within tests. Additionally, a new feature allows users to view server utilization metrics, specifically the maximum number of parallelizations used over the past three months. A new setting in Speed Optimizations automatically scrolls validations to the center of the screen, impacting all test cases and influencing test case construction, though its use is cautioned against in older suites with numerous test cases.

End-to-end testing is crucial for verifying the functionality of various applications, including web, native desktop, mobile apps, and platforms like SAP, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics, by simulating the complete user experience from start to finish. These tests encompass API interactions, communications such as emails and text messages, and other user-related functions, focusing on the user's journey through processes, such as Amazon's purchasing and checkout system. Automating these tests is critical for most companies to ensure seamless user flows, and tools like testRigor are recommended to facilitate this automation.

Software testing is crucial for determining if an application meets stakeholder requirements, with popular approaches including black box, white box, and gray box testing. Black box testing evaluates system functionality without knowledge of its internal workings, making it relatable to end-users, whereas white box testing involves examining the code structure, typically done by developers, to ensure robustness and integration. Gray box testing merges both approaches, providing testers partial insight into the code while focusing on user-impacting functionalities. Each testing type serves distinct purposes and can be automated, with white box tests often being quicker and black box tests offering comprehensive end-to-end UI coverage. Gray box is useful for its blended perspective. The document also highlights the advantages of using tools like testRigor for simplifying UI end-to-end test automation.

TestRigor distinguishes itself from Selenium by allowing users without technical expertise to write tests significantly faster and with minimal maintenance, addressing the scarcity and expense of hiring specialized QA automation engineers. Unlike Selenium, testRigor provides a broader range of features and reduces the time and technical skill needed to create and maintain tests, making it a more efficient and accessible option for test creation and management.

Cypress has faced criticism for its limitations as an end-to-end testing framework, particularly when compared to Selenium and more modern alternatives like testRigor. It lacks support for various browsers and mobile platforms, limiting its utility in a world where a significant portion of web traffic is mobile-based. Unlike frameworks that allow non-developers to create and understand tests, Cypress remains developer-centric, restricting broader team collaboration in testing processes. Its reliance on implementation details, such as CSS selectors, leads to frequent test breakages with any changes in page design, undermining its stability and adaptability. Additionally, Cypress struggles with testing common scenarios involving forms and tables, particularly when there are changes in UI frameworks. Difficulty in managing test issues and its inability to handle comprehensive end-to-end scenarios, such as those involving integration with other systems or testing across web and mobile, further diminish its effectiveness. Consequently, Cypress can impede development speed by requiring significant maintenance and engineering effort, offering a low return on investment compared to alternatives that reduce test maintenance and increase efficiency.

Recent updates introduced several new features and improvements, including enhanced database connection management, allowing multiple connections within a single suite and enabling runtime updates for connection settings. SQL commands now support specifying connection names, defaulting to the first connection if unspecified. Users can export test case executions as .docx or .pdf files by accessing the execution link and selecting the desired format. Scrolling functionality with the mouse wheel has been added, and video validation commands now allow checking if videos or other elements are playing or changing, with options for negative tests. Additionally, a new feature for applying reusable rules automatically based on preconditions has been introduced, useful for handling unpredictable events like random popups. A confirmation popup now appears when clicking the Rerun button in the Test Suite Details Section.