How Using Codeless Test Automation Can Accelerate Software Delivery in Retail

As Retail organizations work toward accelerating software delivery and improving time to market, continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) come to the fore. Because of the pressure to achieve continuous delivery, organizations have had to integrate continuous testing into the software delivery life cycle.

Test automation is essential for continuous testing. Once a tool of optimization in support of manual testing, test automation has now become the primary driver in QA. At the same time, software applications have grown in complexity. While test automation has become essential, today, due to the complexity of the application landscape, you need a full-blown software developer to succeed in test automation. This is a significant impediment to continuous testing objectives, which require test automation to be accessible to the business teams and manual testers.  

As test automation is now becoming a key factor in the success of software delivery, it is essential to get a handle on this. Below are some insights and approaches that can help you evaluate various tools and processes in codeless automation.

Codeless Test Automation Tools

Organizations started adapting tools and approaches to simplify test automation and empower team members who lacked sophisticated programming skills. Several tools have entered the market recently, all with the promise of solving the coding skill conundrum. There’s a lot of buzz about no-code or low-code concepts, and companies such as Salesforce promote plug-and-play offerings. However, when it comes to test automation, there is an issue with how “codeless” is being interpreted. The majority of these tools are trivializing the real-world complexity of testing.

Codeless Should Be About Simplifying Complexity

“Codeless” tools were originally meant to help you avoid the hours of programming that are usually necessary to get the most out of testing logic. While their objective was to address programming complexity, most tools in the market adapted a no-code approach by avoiding the code, but not really addressing the logical complexity in testing. A common misconception is that codeless test automation tools should completely avoid code. This is actually a disservice, as very soon users will start hitting roadblocks. Testing requirements are typically as vast as application development. It is hard to believe that all testing requirements could be addressed with some canned, pre-packaged solution. Some level of logic development flexibility is required, but in a way so that the user does not get bogged down by the syntactical complexities.

Adopt A Meaningful Approach To Codeless Automation

Many codeless tools and approaches in use today have some drawbacks, including lack of modularity and reusability, difficulty testing modern appliances and a sluggish interface. Also, some still require significant programming abilities. It’s best to adopt an approach with scalability and sustainability in mind. To do that, take a holistic view of codeless automation. An ideal solution should truly serve the testing goals. It should eliminate programming complexity and enhance the productivity of the test engineers, while at the same time being fluid enough to handle the real-world complexity of testing.

Keep the following 5 tips in mind when you are embarking on adapting codeless or scriptless approaches in your organization.

1. Ability To Build Comprehensive Logic: Make sure the approach or tool you select allows you to build complex logic and achieve interactions with complex webpages. Common programming constructs such as conditional blocks, loops, arrays etc., should be easy to handle.

2. Handling The Dynamic Nature Of Application UI: The ability to configure the identification criterion for a complex UI element is very important. A good solution would visualize this.

3. Maintain The Business Process Focus: Test representations should reflect business process flow and directly connect with how your end -user exercises the system.

4. Extendibility: There are always occasions where out-of-the-box support is not enough. It should be easy to extend the functionality while maintaining the same level of native simplicity.

5. Accessibility: The codeless automation system should be accessible, with the information flow managed transparently. It should be simple enough for extended teams to use, as well as contribute.

In the continuous delivery environment, adapting codeless automation is a step in the right direction. But it is important to take a long-term view while evaluating different approaches.