The process of evolution in the field of testing has been a rather long one, looking back there are several misconceptions about the process of codeless test automation and we are going to bust these myths today.
- It requires a lot of money
Some 20 years ago, there wasn’t enough knowledge and money which is why to cut the amount of money spent, some companies or teams decided that they must only use open source solutions and it was not because they were concerned about the community and wanted to add something to it but it was wholly and solely because open source solutions are free of cost.
Although, this isn’t the case anymore, as modern tools are in the cloud. If someone is not aware of the contrasts between a cloud solution and a library is when they ask if a cloud solution is open-source. Using a cloud solution means that they don’t have to build their own internal tools by stitching together different libraries which in turn makes sure that the company is going to save money.
For example team, A and team B decide that a video conferencing tool is needed as they have to host webinars usually. After exploring and doing the groundwork team A goes ahead and pays $10 monthly and uses zoom. On the other hand team B look for open source options as they want to save money.
Team A has a smooth operating video conferencing tool that they can use well and start hosting webinars efficiently. Whereas, team B has to start building their own video conferencing tool by stitching together various libraries.
After a while team, A must-have already hosted a lot of webinars without having any issues and team B would still be working on their own video conferencing tool.
If you think about it, team B not only spent a lot of money but time and energy as compared to team A and they also did not get any return on their investment yet. Apart from that, team B also lost a huge amount of time not hosting any webinars whereas team A took the better route and got the job done.
- Proprietary lock-in
Popularly known as vendor lock-in, it is the exercise wherein a customer becomes dependent on their vendor for products and services. This stops them from switching to another vendor without a substantial amount of money being spent while doing that but modern legislation like GDPR and HIPAA makes it compulsory for vendors to give flexible data switching options. This is why proprietary lock-in is now just a myth.
- It is a rigid process
Amongst the many misconceptions, this one was the most popular one and test recorders from 20 years ago would vouch for it.
Up until a few years ago, people would reinvent the wheel and ride their own internal test frameworks because of this myth. Maintenance of these internal test frameworks was torturous and to add to it the ROI was absolutely horrible.
The people who still do that, say that their scenarios are very complicated and they need functionalities that have variables, reusable functions, read and write cookies, send API requests, chain together multiple API requests, access the page source and browser logs, etc without being aware that codeless automation tools can also support and perform all of these functionalities.
- Editing is gruelling
This misconception also goes way back to the early 2000s when if someone wanted to edit a recorded test they had to re-record it but things have changed now and the process of editing is way easier. The efficiency of these new ways makes codeless tests better and more stable rather than using the classic selenium web driver tests. If someone argues and says that they actually need to re-record the entire test case again rather than just editing what has to be changed then you might have to tell them that they are living 20 years in the past.
- Collaboration is not easy
Most of these misconceptions are from earlier times and people do not realize that everything has changed since then. Earlier the test recording tools that were available were desktop tools which meant that anything that was created had to be stored on the computer and syncing it with your colleagues was absolutely disastrous. Bless modern cordless automation tools like TestGrid that are cloud solutions which means that anything that is created directly in the cloud can be shared or the access can be granted to another team member by using syncing methods, branches, and versioning.
We hope that this article helps you have a new perspective about codeless automation and if you had any of these above misconceptions, you are clear about them now and will have an open mind while using the same.
