Automated Functional Testing: A Comprehensive Guide

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Comprehensive Guide to Automated Functional Testing

December 10, 2024

Iffat Ara Khanam

Modern cloud-based applications are more complex than ever, demanding rigorous testing. Among the many types of testing, functional testing holds a unique place that enables testing and development teams to detect and fix functional issues in software products before they reach the end user.

But what exactly is functional testing, and why is it so important for modern applications? Let's dive in.

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Knowing the Basics of Functional Testing

Functional testing verifies the features and interfaces of a software product. It is part of the quality assurance testing process that involves mimicking real-world conditions to test the final product with actual users. It assures us that the software product operates properly in all scenarios and meets the needs of the end customers. This covers unit testing, system integration testing, regression testing, and user acceptance testing for each module.

Types of Functional Software Testing

What Is the Role of Automation in Functional Testing?

AI and automation are revolutionizing the testing paradigm. If you are not leveraging automation to test software, you are certainly missing out.

Manual functional testing can be time-consuming and error-prone, requiring large human resources. Automation greatly improves functional testing results. Investing in automation testing tools is the most beneficial thing you can do during your testing journey.

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The role of automation in functional testing is essential and impactful. Here’s how it helps:

Enhances accuracy and speed: By eliminating human errors in test execution, automated tests ensure consistent and reliable results. With automation, you can also run test cases frequently, ensuring stability.

Increases test coverage: It enables you to test additional instances, including edge cases that may be overlooked during manual testing.

Reduces costs over time: Automated functional testing produces speedy results, allowing your staff to focus on more complicated and strategic testing tasks. As a result, automation lowers long-term testing expenses by reducing manual work.

Individuals Involved in Functional Testing

Functional testing typically involves the following professionals:

QA Engineers or Testers: Ensure the software performs as expected by running test cases based on input from stakeholders or users.

Developers: Focus on unit or component-level functional tests, identifying issues early during development.

Business Analysts: Play an important role in functional testing, particularly during user acceptance testing (UAT), to ensure that the program meets business requirements.

Automated Test Engineers: These professionals use automated testing tools/techniques to execute large-scale, repetitive test cases.

Challenges of Using Automated Functional Testing Tools

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While automated functional testing has obvious benefits, it also has some limitations like high initial costs for tool licenses and infrastructure setup, training and maintenance requirements. Furthermore, skilled testers with programming and tool knowledge are required for successful implementation.

Best Practices for Functional Testing

Functional testing process include the following best practices:

Start with small test case set: When starting off with functional testing, it is best to start with a modest number of test cases. This allows your team to become comfortable with the tools and processes. As your team builds confidence and skill, you can gradually increase the number of automated tests.

Prioritize test cases: It is not necessary to automate every test scenario. Prioritize those which are:

Test cases that are repetitive and need to be executed run frequently.

Time-consuming functional tests require plenty of time to run manually.

Tests that focus on key functionalities and critical business operations.

Focusing on high-priority test cases ensures that automation adds the most value. ‍

Reusable and modular test scripts: Design your test scripts to be modular and reusable. This practice includes:

Split down test cases by dividing large test cases into smaller, reusable modules.

Parameterization allows you to execute the same functional tests using different data sets.

Create libraries of common functions that can be used in various test scripts.

Implement CI/CD: Integrate your functional testing software into CI/CD processes. This integration guarantees that tests are promptly executed whenever there are changes to the database, providing continuous feedback and allowing for the speedy detection and resolution of errors.

Choosing the Right Tools for Functional Testing?

Not leveraging the appropriate functional testing tool can result in undetected errors and system failures. It may increase testing time and expenses owing to inefficiencies or limited automation capabilities. Furthermore, insufficient test coverage can jeopardize application quality and security.

These few questions can help enterprises select automation tools that suit their requirements.

Does the tool have a low learning curve for new hires or is it simple for your current QA team to adopt?

Does your functional testing tool give you the freedom to work on several platforms, and adapt to frequent updates and software releases?

Does it use AI to improve testing efficiency at scale, and can tests be reused effectively even when the user interface changes?

Lastly, think about how much customer service you require and how easily the provider can supply it.

Automated Functional Testing Tools and Frameworks

Automated functional testing tools reduce the amount of time needed for testing, increase accuracy, and streamline the testing process. The following are some of the best functional testing tools:

1. Selenium

Selenium is a web application testing framework that supports a wide range of programming languages. Selenium WebDriver is a versatile tool for web testing since it allows tests to run across many platforms and browsers.

Key features:

Cross-browser testing

Support for several programming languages.

Supports integration with tools like TestNG, JUnit, and Maven.

2. Appium

Appium is an open-source tool used to automate iOS, Android, and Windows mobile applications. With support for native, web, and hybrid apps, it offers a complete mobile testing solution.

Key features:

Cross-platform testing

It supports many programming languages including Python, Java and JavaScript.

3. JUnit

JUnit is an open-source testing framework mainly used by Java developers to create and execute repeatable test cases. It verifies individual units of code behave as expected.

Enables cross-platform testing across browsers, which allows users to execute test cases on multiple operating systems.

With more than 1,400 contributors and frequent releases, it also has considerable community support.

4. Opkey

Opkey is a comprehensive no-code test automation solution with a variety of AI-powered features. It is intuitive to use, even for non-technical people, thanks to a simple drag-and-drop interface and simple workflows.

Key features:

Opkey supports a wide range of testing types, including functional, regression, and performance testing, and can be integrated with a variety of popular testing frameworks and tools.

With support for advanced AI-powered testing features such as Impact analysis and Test mining, Opkey helps you to easily identify and prioritize the most critical test scenarios and cases.

With Opkey's AI-powered Self-healing functionality, you can simply construct reusable and maintainable test scripts, saving time and effort throughout the testing phase.

Opkey also provides complete reporting and analytics capabilities, allowing you to gain useful insights into your testing process and make data-driven decisions.

Opkey supports over 150 technologies and works easily with Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. This ensures that observability is maintained throughout the software development lifecycle, allowing teams to identify and resolve issues early.

As businesses strive for faster release cycles, functional testing serves as the foundation for continuous delivery and agile development. It enables teams to confidently deliver updates, knowing that their applications fulfill functional and performance requirements. Embracing automation in functional testing can help you develop dependable, scalable, customer-focused software that adheres to industry standards.

FAQ'S

Manual validation involves QA testers manually performing test cases, which provides flexibility but is prone to human error. Functional testing, on the other hand, particularly when automated, allows for faster execution, greater accuracy, and comprehensive test coverage, making it perfect for large-scale projects. QA professionals can employ both to assure high-quality software testing services, based on project requirements and budget.

Functional testing types:

Unit testing: This is a type of white box testing those particular sections of code (such as functions or methods) are tested separately. Implementing unit testing is the initial step in the system testing process.
Integration testing: Ensures that different modules or components interact properly.
Smoke testing: It is the basic testing to see if the software's primary functionality are working properly following a build.
Regression testing: Regression tests ensure that recent code changes do not break current functionality
Exploratory testing: Testers freely explore the software in order to identify problems.

Understanding the difference between functional and non-functional testing is critical in software testing to verify application functioning and overall performance.
Functional testing is concerned with ensuring that the program operates as expected and completes its intended tasks. It tests features such as input validation, user interface activities, and database interfaces.
Non-functional testing, on the other hand, checks the software's performance, security, usability, and scalability to ensure that it meets quality criteria in addition to functionality.
Functional testing answers "what" the system does, whereas non-functional testing tackles "how" the system functions under different scenarios. Both are required to create a durable and dependable product.
There are five categories of non-functional testing:

Performance testing: Performance testing is a functional test that determines whether a software program or system fulfills specific performance objectives, such as response time or throughput. Organizations, for example, use performance tests to detect operational bottlenecks.
API testing: API testing is a type of black-box testing that assesses the functionality, security, performance, and dependability of an application programming interface (API).
Security testing: This functional testing focuses on software or system security from unauthorized access or assault. For example, organizations do security testing to identify faults in the information system's security mechanism.
Usability testing: Usability testing is a sort of system testing that ensures a software application or system is user-friendly. For example, on an e-commerce website, it can be determined whether consumers can readily find the Buy Now button.
Compatibility testing: Compatibility testing is a sort of system testing that ensures a software program or system works with other software programs or systems. For example, in this step, the tester ensures that the software is compatible with other applications, operating systems, etc.

The functional testing techniques include:

End-user/system tests: Executing functional tests on the system to see if all of the components function together seamlessly.
Equivalence Functional Tests: Equivalence data cases are divisions that are used to organize test data. In this test, data from each partition must respond in the same way. As a result, you only need to verify one condition for all partitions. If the condition does not operate in one partition, it will fail in all of them.
In the example, because the user id field may hold up to ten characters, it should respond similarly whenever more than ten characters are entered.
Boundary Value Tests: These tests are intended to determine how the system responds when data restrictions are applied.
In the example, because the user id requires at least 6 characters, this test will be used to see how the system reacts when less than 6 characters are entered.
Decision-based Functional Tests: When a specific condition is satisfied, these tests are initiated to determine possible system outcomes.
In the example, the following decision-based tests can be used:
If the system detects erroneous credentials, it should notify the user and reload the login page.
If the proper credentials are entered, the system should direct the user to the home page UI.
If the user enters the right credentials but wishes to cancel login, the system should not redirect to the home page UI.
Instead, it should refresh the login page.
Ad Hoc Functional Tests: These tests reveal discrepancies that may not have been detected in any of the other functional tests. Ad-hoc tests are designed to break the system and evaluate its response.
In the example, an ad hoc test might be performed to check the following:
The administrator deletes a user's account while the user is still signed in, and this happens while the user is executing duties. The test would determine whether the program replied gracefully in such a scenario.

Functional and UAT both have different aspects below points explain how:
Functional Testing: Functional testing ensures software performs as intended. Testers, frequently from the development team, compare the application's behavior to the documented requirements. Consider it as checking each feature off a list to ensure it works as planned under different scenarios. This rigorous procedure detects flaws, performance concerns, and deviations from the design, allowing engineers to fine-tune the product before moving further.
UAT: UAT testing goes beyond traditional testing. It is a real-world simulation in which actual users or individuals representing the intended audience test the program. Unlike functional testing, which focuses on isolated functions, UAT assesses the software's overall usability, workflow integration, and suitability for its intended use.

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Iffat Ara Khanam

Technical Content Lead

Iffat is the content lead at Opkey. She has expertise in writing technical content focused around ERP testing, Cloud apps, automation and other IT related topics. She has rich experience in writing content for marketing collateral like whitepapers, case studies, newsletters etc. which helps in funnel creation for sales.