Why Should You Shift to Functional Automation Testing?

Do you get bored with manually testing your code for bugs again and again? Proper functioning of the code is the foremost thing that matters.  If your code does not act as per the requirement specification, it is no longer of any use.

Functional testing assures that your code functions as per the requirements. But alas! Even a small change or an alteration in your code can alter its working. Hence it is advisable to retest your code every time a change is made to the code.
But running same test cases again and again can be daunting. And there enters automation testing. Automating your functional testing can relieve you of a lot of burdens and can save you a lot of time.
What is Functional Automation Testing? 
Before moving on to functional automation testing, let us first know a little about Functional Testing.
As discussed earlier functional testing confirms that every function of your code works in accordance with the requirement specification. Functional testing requires you to send appropriate inputs and to verify the actual output with the expected output.
But being the foremost quality assurance process, you may be required to repeat functional testing. And hence to ease out your work it is advisable to automate your functional testing process.
Functional Automation testing is a process that assists you in easy and faster execution of your functional test cases. Manual testing requires you to execute the test case step by step, which can be time-consuming as it is done by hand.
And to outcast, this peril, automating functional test case comes as a savior saving on both time and efforts. It helps in executing functional test cases automatically with no human intervention.
Before moving forward let’s look into some drawbacks of manual functional testing.
Drawbacks of Manual Testing
Here are some weaknesses of manual testing that promote testers to adopt automated testing:

• Manual functional testing is very time-consuming.
• Functional testing like regression testing becomes very repetitive and losses testers’ interest.
• It requires many resources.
• It might miss out on a few scopes of functional testing.

Why Functional Automation Testing?
Considering the current scenario where we develop software at a fast speed and alterations and enhancements are done at an equally fast speed, we need a methodology where we can test our code with an equally high speed. And that is where a need arises for functional automation testing.

Know More: 7 Best Practices You can Consider for Functional Testing

Companies are now moving toward Agile and DevOps, increasing the importance of automation than ever before. The frequent integrations and enhancements in the code require test cases to run quickly and accurately. And automation functional testing assures the best accuracy and quick run avoiding all human errors.
The main reason for a switch to functional automation testing is to save on both time and money. It assists the quick feedback to the developers for any bugs and errors.
Apart from time and money savings, Functional automated testing also benefits in:

• More precise benchmarking.
• Fewer faults because of human error.
• Gives wider test coverage.
• Assists reusability.
• Helps in faster release of the software.
• Assists in faster feedbacks to the developers about the bugs in the code.

So are there any downsides to creating automated tests?
What’s the real story?
Functional test automation as software development
Functional automation tests or any other automation tests are a piece of software code that relies on one or other programing language. This makes it a complete software development activity where you develop a code to test another piece of code.

Developing functional testing code is equally complicated like other software development projects and presenting similar issues like them.
So take care to follow software development best practices to develop a successful functional automation test case.
Should you automate all your test cases?
Automating all the test cases does not seem to be a good idea. Rather, not everything is even automatable. To look out for what test cases you should ideally automate, consider the following things:

• Deterministic test cases
• Automate test cases that do not require manual communication
• Test cases that deals with fiscal-related areas of the software
• Test cases that deals with risk areas of the software
• Test that requires running on different data sets.
• Test cases those are difficult for manual testing.
• Test cases those are required to run on various browsers, systems, etc.
• Test cases that is time-consuming.
• Stress/load test cases
• Unit test cases

You can consider automating the more time-consuming and repetitive test cases. Though, the criterion may vary depending on various other conditions.
But what about Functional automation testing ROI? Let’s have a look into it.
Functional Automation Testing ROI 
Finally, it is ROI that majorly governs any business decisions. Whether to automate your test cases or not; is also largely dependent on ROI. The determination of ROI for automation testing is tricky. Here is a small formula that can help you find a rough estimate of the automation cost.

Know More: Difference Between Functional and Non Functional Testing

Automation Cost = automation tool cost + cost of the labor to automate test cases + maintenance cost
If your automation test cost turns out to be lower than the manual testing cost, you should look out for automating test cases.  Moreover, testing cost increases with every run in manual testing, whereas the ROI adds up with every run in automation testing
But there are some other factors apart from ROI that can affect your decision to whether or not to automate test cases.
What Not to Automate
Functional automation testing, no doubt save time and efforts. But automating all the test cases is not a good idea. There are certain types of test cases you should not consider automating.

• Test cases that are to be performed only once.
• Ad Hoc based test cases.
• Test cases that do not have a predictive result.
• Usability test cases.

Be wise in your selection of test cases to automate. Functional test case automation can be highly beneficial for you if done wisely.
Conclusion:
Functional testing is one of the most important phases of STLC. But sometimes functional testing can be very time-consuming and frantic task.

Automating function test cases is one most apt solution to overcome this snag. Functional automation testing can save you both time and money.
So be clever and consider functional automation testing for your upcoming projects.