What is Parallel Testing in Test Automation?

Parallel testing involves executing multiple automated tests simultaneously across different environments or configurations. This approach speeds up the testing process, increases coverage, and enhances efficiency.

How Can Codeless Test Automation Tools Improve Efficiency?

Codeless test automation tools allow teams to create and execute tests without writing code. This simplifies the testing process, making it accessible to those with limited coding skills and speeds up cross-platform and cross-browser testing.

What is the Benefit of Using Caching in Test Automation?

Caching in test automation stores and reuses previously computed data, reducing the need for repeated database or API calls. This approach decreases wait times and improves the overall speed and efficiency of the testing process.

Why is Headless Browser Execution Useful in Test Automation?

Headless browser execution runs browsers without a graphical user interface, allowing for faster, resource-efficient testing. It's particularly useful for simulating multiple browsers on a single system.

How Does Removing Obsolete Code Help in Test Automation?

Removing unused or obsolete code makes the codebase easier to read, maintain, and monitor. It also prevents wasting time on testing irrelevant or outdated code segments.

What Role Do Real-time Notifications Play in Test Automation?

Real-time notifications in test automation provide immediate alerts on test or build failures, enhancing debugging efficiency and keeping stakeholders informed about testing progress and outcomes.

Why Should Features in the Beta Phase Be Skipped in Automated Testing?

Features in the beta phase are prone to frequent changes, making automated tests for them unreliable and prone to breakage. It's more efficient to automate tests for features that have passed the beta stage.

What is ACCELQ and How Does It Help in Test Automation?

ACCELQ is an AI-powered, cloud-enabled, codeless test automation platform that speeds up the automated testing process. It integrates test creation and maintenance into the release pipeline, enhancing test coverage and reducing execution time.

Tips To Reduce Test Automation Execution Times

Posted On: 10 November 2023

Today, just delivering high-quality software is not enough. Speed has become a critical priority and an important differentiating factor. Introducing new (and good-quality) products and features quickly is what leads to a competitive edge. This means teams need to seek new ways to reduce test automation execution times.

In this blog, we will walk you through a few such ways:

Leverage parallel testing
Define a target execution time
Make use of a codeless test automation tool
Efficiently administer test setup and teardown
Use caching to decrease wait times
Leverage headless browser execution
Skip features in the beta phase
Get rid of obsolete code
Enable real-time notifications into the build status
Accelerate Time Market with ACCELQ

1. Leverage Parallel Testing

Enabling parallel testing for test automation is a great way to improve speed-to-market. Instead of running different tests at different times, teams can use modern automated testing tools to spin up and execute multiple test cases simultaneously.

By conducting different types of tests in different environments or configurations, teams can achieve faster feedback on the quality of their products. This allows them to reduce testing time significantly while also increasing test coverage, reliability, and efficiency. Parallel testing also allows for greater scalability and speeds up the testing process as required.

2. Define a Target Test Execution Time

Defining a target test execution time is a critical aspect of test automation planning and management. By clearly stating the target test execution time, teams can know which set of test cases should ideally be completed when executed.

Setting a target test execution time can also enable teams to manage testing schedules effectively. In addition, they can more efficiently plan resource allocation and deliver timely feedback to stakeholders.

3. Make Use of a Codeless Test Automation Tool

Let’s face it. Writing new test suites to meet different testing requirements is a back-breaking exercise. Not only is it time-consuming, but it is also highly mundane and repetitive. Making use of a low-code/no-code automation testing tool can enable testing teams to create and execute automated test cases without writing a single line of code.

Codeless automated testing tools simplify the test automation process, making it easy even for individuals with little or no programming or coding skills to conduct testing. They can speed up cross-platform andcross-browser testing using user-friendly interfaces and visual elements.

4. Efficiently Administer Test Setup and Teardown

Multiple issues can crop up during test automation. Therefore, teams must leverage APIs, databases, custom functions, and other test techniques to manage the test setup and minimize teardown. Efficiently administering test setups can positively influence the speed of various tests.

For instance, creating the perfect scenarios needed for tests can give teams clarity on the data, users, or environments required to test the software functionality efficiently. Teams must also spend time removing or cleaning up actions so they can facilitate other tests and don’t adversely affect their quality.

5. Use Caching to Decrease Wait Times

Another plausible way to reduce test automation execution times is by using caching. Caching information can help prevent test cases from calling the same database or API queries during execution. By storing and reusing previously computed or fetched data, results, or resources, teams can improve the efficiency and speed of the testing process.

While dealing with large volumes of test data, caching decreases wait times while waiting for responses from calls and makes the automation project faster. By caching information, teams can avoid repeatedly making the same requests, reducing the load on resources and ensuring consistent data for test cases.

6. Leverage Headless Browser Execution

Leveraging headless browser execution can also aid in speeding up the test automation process. Teams can execute the full version of a browser using a command-line interface without its graphical user interface (GUI).

Since the browser operates in the background, it performs tasks just like a regular browser but without displaying the web page to the user.

By simulating multiple browsers on a single system, teams can enable high-speed testing while consuming fewer resources and improving test execution performance.

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7. Skip Features in the Beta Phase

Testing teams are often eager to test all features using automated testing tools. However, this approach can prolong test execution times. Features that are still in the beta phase aren’t ready for automated or end-to-end testing. Creating automated end-to-end tests during the beta phase can cause tests to break frequently as developers tweak the product.

Therefore, teams must only focus on automating tests that have crossed the beta stage. They must conduct automated end-to-end testing only after the features have been implemented in the production environment.

8. Get Rid of Obsolete Code

With software applications constantly getting updated, the amount of unused or dead code is continually growing. Running test suites on this code is a complete waste of time. Since unused code makes it harder for teams to read and reason about the code base, they must get rid of such code.

When teams are confident about the unused code, they must remove it immediately. Not only is limited code easier to read and maintain, but it is also easier to manage and monitor.

9. Enable Real-time Notifications into Build Status

Teams looking to reduce test automation execution times can also set up real-time alerting, monitoring, and bug-tracking. The alerts generated by such tracking can notify teams when a test or build fails. Such real-time notifications about build status can allow for better testing and debugging efficiency.

These notifications can keep stakeholders informed about the progress and outcomes of testing activities. They can also enable key decision-makers to respond quickly to issues or failures that may arise during testing.

Accelerate Time-to-Market with ACCELQ

Test automation, even though extremely beneficial, is complex and time-consuming. Many QA teams have a tough time keeping up with their test automation tasks, especially as their product grows.

If you want to accelerate QA automation execution times, you need to invest in an automated testing tool that allows you to do more with less. As an AI-powered, cloud-enabled, codeless test automation platform, ACCELQ speeds up the automated testing process.

Automating and integrating test creation and maintenance into your release pipeline allows you to accelerate test automation execution time and enable seamless multichannel automation across the entire tech stack.

In today’s age, time is of the essence! Adopt ACCELQ today to maximize test coverage, reduce test automation execution time, and deliver high-quality software quickly and effectively!

Geosley Andrades

Director, Product Evangelist at ACCELQ

Geosley is a Test Automation Evangelist and Community builder at ACCELQ. Being passionate about continuous learning, Geosley helps ACCELQ with innovative solutions to transform test automation to be simpler, more reliable, and sustainable for the real world.