Remote work has been steadily gaining popularity for some years now. According to an article published by <a href="https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/remote-work-statistics/#gref" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">smallbizgenius</a>, in 2019, the number of people who work from home has increased by 140% since 2005.



Now, most of the population is working from home. For most of the companies that had not adapted work from home before, this time has been an eye-opener. Many companies including the big ones like Twitter, Barclays, Mondelez are allowing employees to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/01/major-companies-talking-about-permanent-work-from-home-positions.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">continue work from home</a> indefinitely. as there is a wide range of tools that support organizational productivity, allowing employees to work remotely. From employee onboarding software to training tools, everything is geared to make workforce manageable.



Here, I am sharing a some remote working tips that I have learnt in my five years of remote working experience that could help you make your work effective personally and professionally.







<ul class="list_style_disc"><li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Follow a routine: When we go to the office, the routine comes naturally to us. While in the comforts of home, it can become a tough task. Having a routine in place will not only keep you in a better mood but your teammates will also know the right time to contact you.</li></ul>



You may have to put in conscious efforts to keep up a routine till the time it becomes a habit for you. Read here to know how to make new habits stick. A general rule of thumb to make a habit stick is to repeat it for 21 days without fail.



For me, personally, having a fixed sleep time and wake up time helped to schedule other tasks better.</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Work when you are the most productive: If you have been working for some time, you would know what hours of the day are most productive for you.Some people feel most productive in the silence of the night while some feel most productive in the early morning hours. Any time when you are able to get your work done without distractions is the best time. Try to get the most important tasks of the day done during these hours.</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Take breaks: Working continuously for a long duration is actually known to reduce productivity. So, instead of trying to do all the tasks in one go, try to break your work time into chunks of smaller duration.For eg., you can work for an hour on one task then take a break for 10 minutes, check your Instagram DMs or listen to music, and then work on another. Or you can pick some other duration depending on your tasks and personal suitability.</li>



Taking regular breaks lets your brain and body relax and also gives you the opportunity to spend some time with family at home or friends on a call.



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Every day, have a plan of what tasks you will accomplish. Before you go to sleep, jot down the tasks for the next day, so when you wake up the next day, you know where to start. This way, you will be able to be productive as soon as you start your day. Also, you can use the RescueTime time management tool or check out some RescueTime alternatives to plan your work ahead and keep track of your working time.</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 30px">Do other tasks when you are not at your productive best: Checking emails is one task you can do at this time. You can schedule reading them at the end of your workday or just before you take a break or do some household chores.</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Take up only what you can manage: This point is especially for those who try to juggle many things at once. We are humans and even if we work 24 hours a day, the number of things we could accomplish is limited.



The best solution is to keep a list of tasks you need to do with priority assigned to all of them. Do the most important tasks first, including the tasks you need to take care of at home.</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Don’t hesitate to delegate: There will be some tasks that you must do but there will be some that you can easily delegate to others. Delegating tasks also helps you focus on the important tasks. Using <a href="https://www.insightful.io/remote-workers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">remote work tracking</a> tools like <a href="https://www.goworkwize.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Workwize</a> can make it easier to manage delegated work and stay on top of progress.</li>







<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Have a place where you can work without disturbance: After routine and task management, the workplace plays the most important part of your work life. When you are in your workplace, you know you are supposed to work and, there are fewer chances of you getting distracted. Thus it becomes important that you plan on investing in setting up a workplace at home.To begin with, you can set up a mini DIY work station.Checkout <a href="https://www.bobvila.com/slideshow/get-to-work-13-diy-workbenches-craft-counters-and-potting-tables-47343#diy-bookcase-bench" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">some unique DIY workbenches ideas here as well</a>.</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Minimize distractions: For me, the biggest distractions are social media websites and apps. I open the phone to check one notification and then get stuck going through all the updates. This could also mean that while I was sitting in my workplace, I was not being productive and I end up spending a longer duration for the same task.



To keep myself away from any distraction and to be my productive best when it matters, I try to keep my phone away from me whenever I am working. Eventually, I stopped feeling the urge to check the phone now and then.



For some people, this distraction could be Netflix. A solution could be to plan for your work to be completed at a fixed time every day. At that time, you can switch on your Netflix and go binging without any guilt of not giving your 100% to your work. Know what distracts you from your work and keep away from it during work hours.</li>



Communicate: Being remote, communication is what suffers the most. So, you will have to be proactive to chase away any delays due to a shortage of communication. The best way is to communicate with the risk of over communication. One solution to enhance communication when working remotely is using RingCentral, a communication platform that provides messaging, video conferencing, and phone systems, among other features. When you are working remotely, people cannot see you working. They also won’t know if you are available or not. Communicate this beforehand.



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Communicate: Being remote, communication is what suffers the most. So, you will have to be proactive to chase away any delays due to a shortage of communication. The best way is to communicate with the risk of over communication.</li>



When you are working remotely, people cannot see you working. They also won’t know if you are available or not. Communicate this beforehand.



If you have a doubt, ask. If you find some valuable information, share. If you feel like talking, ping someone. This way, you will also be able to bring your water cooler conversations to your home.</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Never guess or leave anyone guessing: If there is someone who needs to know the status of your task, don’t wait for them to ask. Ping them and let them know the status. If you are dependent on someone’s tasks, don’t assume their status. Just ask them.



This is also a perfect time to start using a collaboration tool like Slack, Asana, Trello etc to avoid any gaps in communication</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Have patience: With remote work, also comes work time flexibility. People work according to their own schedules. What could be a suitable time for you to work might be someone else’s time to feed their kids.



So, If you ask someone a question, give them time to return back to you. Meanwhile, you can work on some other tasks.</li>







<li style="padding-bottom: 30px">Stay visible: If there are group conversation, participate in them. And, always communicate your work status to your manager.</li>







<li style="padding-bottom: 20px">Talk to people: Even though you are working remote, you are part of a team. Being part of the team, you should know your team members and your team members should know you. So, whenever a situation comes where you can talk about yourself or ask about someone, act on it swiftly.Strengthen your remote team communication to ensure productivity.You should also ping your team members individually sometimes to just build up on those friendships that you might be otherwise missing by not going to the office.</li>



<li style="padding-bottom: 50px">Take care of yourself: To end the article on the most important note, all the remote working tips above would work for you only if you take care of yourself too. So, take out time for your hobbies, spend time with your family and friends. Have an ergonomic chair for a good posture. And do something to be happy every day.</li></ul>



If you are a tester, we also compiled some tips for <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/make-testing-remote-friendly/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="making testing remote-friendly (opens in a new tab)">making testing remote-friendly</a>.

15 Remote Working Tips From Experience

Here&#8217;s a quick QnA session with the one and only witty and sharp, Ajay Balamurugadas.



Ajay is an esteemed speaker, conducts multiple training sessions, learning activities, and testing initiatives. He is always ready to help and suggest thoughtful ideas(no doubt why people call him the &#8220;idea guy&#8221;!) 



Ajay leads delivery at Qapitol QA, a QA services&#8217; company that topped the<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" GTR Leaderboard (opens in a new tab)" href="https://gtr.agiletestingalliance.org/leaderboard/" target="_blank"> GTR Leaderboard</a>.



Here&#8217;s what we discussed.



Do you have a different strategy for your automation and your testing? Or one strategy to rule them all?



Automation and testing should not be compared. It is like comparing physics and science, baking, and cooking. Automation is part of testing. You need to check if certain things are as expected and a tool can do that faster. That is where automation will help.



There are certainly other areas and aspects of testing where it helps if you have a tester test, explore the application. You choose automation (tools) or humans based on what would help you achieve your mission, save time and cost (in that order most of the time).



How can manual testers and automation engineers complement each other when testing?



We need to first get rid of the terms &#8211; manual and automation engineers/testers. Maybe, let us call everyone testers &#8211; some specializing in functional testing and some good with automation tools.



We should understand the goals of testing &#8211; discover information related to the quality of the product. I recommend everyone read <a href="https://twitter.com/QualityFrog/status/1225540826916368388" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">this thread</a> by Ben Simo where he highlights how automation can help in testing.



What do you think is important for any team that is already working on automation or planning to start?



All the automation that is done should help everyone in the project. Imagine you have built the best scripts but no one is using it, what is the use? So, use automation not to replace testing as some claim, but to enhance the powers of testers



People say they can only know the maintenance cost once they have put the tool to use for some time, what scenarios should we keep in mind to get to know these sooner?



Discuss internally, use the trial version on the real project, ask people who have already used the tool. Do not think short term. See how you would use the tool for your projects in future.Analyze the costs throughout the cycle.



What factors can help a team decide if they are mature enough to adopt automation?



If you answer No to any of the following four questions, I would say &#8211; wait, maybe you are not ready yet.



<ol style="padding-bottom: 30px"><li>Are you and the product, development teams in sync about the release cycles and the changes?</li><li>Does everyone understand the current pain points and feel that automation can help remove the pain points?</li><li>Do you have the buy-in from the management?</li><li>Do the teams have the freedom to choose the tool for automation?</li></ol>



Are there scenarios when automation is not a solution? Can you give us an example?



Any team where automation is done just to prove that people are working on automation, trying to automate everything, automating the incorrect things are all examples where automation is more harmful.



One scenario where I think automation should be used to execute scenarios but used to help in other activities is when the product is undergoing a lot of changes, frequently.



Please do not automate if all the teams are not in sync about the value of automation else you will waste a lot of time and money.



To reduce learning costs, what would you say is better &#8211; a tool that has a good support team or a tool that has a good forum presence?



The ultimate goal should be achieved. The team should be able to learn the tool quickly. It could be through the support team sometimes and sometimes by a good forum presence. My personal preference is the forum presence for open source. Support is not always available and I would learn quicker from someone who has gone through the struggles similar to mine. 



In cases of commercial tools, you can be confident of a better support system that will guide you from onboarding to first tests to solving any problems and helping achieve your goals. With commercial tools, I prefer the support teams. 



It is a new challenge today. When everyone is remote and maintaining quality, how to stay demonstrably productive at this time?



Staying demonstrably productive is a wrong goal to chase. Be productive. That is enough.



At the start of the day, communicate to your team about the tasks you are targeting for the day. If any change in priority is needed, the team will let you know.



At the end of the day, highlight what was achieved and what is the plan for the rest. Do communicate a lot and agree upon catch up times.



Do you have any tips for effective testing at these testing times?



Anytime, everytime, work on your skills and do justice to the CTC you take home.Do not lie to self.



Now we are in 2020, how far have we come in terms of testing? Also, do you think AI is the future of testing?



Patterns repeat. Those days, people were chasing Selenium. Now they are chasing AI. The chase continues. Very few have dedicated their lives to learning testing in depth. AI is the future? Ha, ha. We will test applications based on AI but AI might not be the future so soon. It will take time. The chase will continue for the next big thing. We are forgetting that we are dealing with people at the end of the day and very few can predict what people want.&nbsp; 



At the same time, this is the time where we have so much data and computing power to analyze and predict with reasonable confidence compared to the past. People are already building applications that are heavily powered by AI and testing them brings out interesting challenges for the software testing community.



Let us enjoy the journey!







Check out Ajay&#8217;s latest book at&nbsp;<a aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://leanpub.com/50mistakes" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">www.leanpub.com/50mistakes</a>&nbsp;that discusses 50 software testing mistakes of his career and find out more testing resources from him at <a href="http://enjoytesting.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Enjoy Testing</a>.



Ajay is very approachable and always willing to give advice. Hit him up on <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/ajay184f">Twitter </a>and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajaybalamurugadas/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">LinkedIn</a>.



Thank you Ajay for sharing your thoughts with us 🙂

QnA with Ajay Balamurugadas

Time suddenly took a U-turn and did when we least expected it. While just some time ago, millions of people were travelling across the globe, now we are forced to stay at home for our good.



If expert opinion and news analysis are to be believed, remote work is expected to become the new norm at least in the near future.&nbsp;



We need to equip ourselves to better adapt to the situation in the best way possible.



In this article, we have compiled some tips for remote QA testing teams to keep testing effectively.



1. Communicate



With teams working from physically different situations, the aspect of remote working that has the most impact is communication.



Schedule a short meeting daily to plan the work and practice sharing work status with your team. Make sure every team member is involved in it. A good practice is to share a summary of the discussion in case someone misses to join.



It is important that a remote QA testing team provides timely feedback. For testing specific tasks, always communicate the completion status on time when possible. A better way to do it is to update your teams on the progress of your work using a test management tool. Team members can access and check the status of the tasks anytime, anywhere. This will be particularly helpful if their tasks are dependent on yours.



2. Make your testing reports clear and concise



Some part of a tester’s daily activity will always involve reporting. Whenever a bug is found they will be logging bug reports. When executing test cases, they share execution reports. The execution reports will also be of different types &#8211; for eg. functional testing reports, performance testing reports, regression testing reports, release certification reports.



To make the reports useful while working remotely, they must highlight the issues and convey the test behavior. This prevents any to and fro between people to understand what the reports mean. This also helps teams to stay productive while working remote.



3. Automate workflow where possible



Depending on the type of project you are testing, and the role you are in, you would have a lot of workflows already automated or many might be pending.To improve the quality of remote testing work, try to automate the processes that would help other team members perform better.For example, having an automated CI/CD workflow where after every check-in, a regression test suite is executed automatically will save testers and the developers a lot of time.



4. Reduce potential blockers and individual dependencies, where possible



With remote work, all team members cannot be available at the same time. Keeping this in mind, individual dependencies should be removed as much as possible. For eg, if there are test automation scripts or test cases &#8211; they should be hosted at a location that is shared with all. The hosted locations and folder structures should be easy to understand and communicated to all beforehand.



5. Enable selective access to the testing machines on need-basis



There are organizations where testers need access to different machines and servers for testing. These machines could be hosted on the cloud or hosted in the organization’s headquarters within a private network. To keep the security intact, enable access to these testing machines and environments with the people that need to access it. Make sure to not share any potentially sensitive files/data on these machines.



6. Use secured tools



Now when people have no other way than to work remotely, people are also using various tools for making remote work easy. They could be <a href="https://trueconf.com/features/collaboration/instant-messaging.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">messaging apps</a>, meeting apps, task management tools, or collaboration tools.



 Though it&#8217;s good to use such <a href="https://callhippo.com/blog/business/productivity-tools" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tools for better productivity</a> and reduced communication barriers, ensure that your tools are always secure. You need to keep yourself and your internet self safe and secure.



If you have not already, you should think of investing in a test management tool that allows you to host and manage your manual &amp; automated test cases, test execution reports, and analysis.



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<a href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Testsigma </a>is a unified test automation platform that allows you to:



1. Automate test cases on the cloud.



Testsigma allows you to automate test cases in simple English via NLP. These test cases are created and hosted on the cloud and can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, anytime.



2. Execute test cases on a cloud-hosted test lab that has 1000+ screen sizes to test on.



Testsigma has an in-built test lab with all the latest devices and browsers that you might need to test on. It can also easily integrate with BrowserStack and Sauce Labs.



3. Get comprehensive execution reports and access them anywhere anytime.



The execution reports are created keeping the most important stuff highlighted and the needed references attached which prove to be useful for testers as well as managers.



4. Easily integrate with other CI/CD tools you might be using.



If you have an already set up continuous integration/DevOps workflow, Testsigma can integrate seamlessly with it.



5. Debug your failed test cases on the cloud.



Testsigma attaches screenshots, video recording of test execution and logs to execution reports. It also supports pause and play of test cases for better debugging experience.



Testsigma offers On-Demand Automation Expert Services &nbsp;to address complex situations and growing requirements. The dedicated expert will work with you remotely and in the time zone you are comfortable with.



We are in tough times. Some of us could seem better than others but the fear of the unknown is worrying us all. So, let&#8217;s understand each other and have empathy for each other too, every moment of the day. If someone is not available, let&#8217;s understand and ask them when they will be available instead. In place of calling for a meeting without any notice, ask for time when they are comfortable and then schedule a meeting. If people don’t turn up, it&#8217;s ok.Make everyone feel inclusive and comfortable. Respect and appreciation might be something that might be needed more frequently in these times.



Know More: <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/tips-to-overcome-remote-testing-challenges/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tips for Remote Testing</a>

Make Testing Remote Friendly with Testsigma

Make Testing Remote-Friendly

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” &#8211;&nbsp; a famous quote by Hellen Keller is very much valid even in current times, especially in the context of teamwork.



The relationship between any two people is considered good when communication between them is healthy. And on the same lines, a team is able to work ‘together’ better when their communication is strong.



The testers in a software development team will be understood better if they are able to convey the software testing information and insights properly. In this article, we will discuss how to improve communication in a team from the perspective of testers.&nbsp;



Below are 7 ways that testers can communicate software testing insights better: 



1. Establishing Channels For Cross-Functional Communication Communication in a small team is usually not a challenge because one-on-one interaction is easy and simple. But as the size of an organization grows, the communication channels become complex in nature. Sometimes team members lack the know-how of sharing their knowledge with the right people and the communication gap widens.



This may lead to multiple people working on the same thing at the same time, which could also lead to a loss in productivity and ultimately revenue.&nbsp;



The solution is to establish proper channels for collaboration. A short meeting daily to plan the work and the practice of sharing work status with everyone proves helpful in avoiding such situations.&nbsp; 



One communication tool that all the team members use to communicate with each other is also useful. Slack and JIRA are some tools that companies use and have proved to be valuable.



2. Well-defined Reports



	Information related tasks and daily status is one aspect of communication. Another aspect is reports. Testers do many big tasks that can only be understood if they are followed up with well-defined reports. Test execution reports for example.



Testers execute a high number of test cases, for multiple features and for multiple releases. Sending reports, to concerned people, for each of these according to the timeline and goal of testing will make the testing process transparent for the team. Other team members can also pitch in their suggestions to improve the processes.



Typically, The test execution reports should include the objective of testing, testing scope, test results metrics, types of testing performed, test environment &amp; tools, and conclusion.



3. Bug Reporting <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/a-testers-guide-to-deal-with-missed-bugs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bugs are something that testers deal</a> with almost daily. Whenever a bug is encountered, it should be reported for timely action.&nbsp; The purpose of the report is to convey to the developers and the management the bug in short in the title. The test steps are to provide the reproduction steps if needed.&nbsp;



Bug reports should be constructed keeping in mind that the Developer or the Manager does not need to consult the tester to understand the bug or to furnish any other details again. 



An ideal bug report will include details of when it appeared and why.



For intermittent occurrences, the pattern of which it occurs, the different product versions, environment name, etc. It is a good practice to record a possible fix for the error if known, include screenshots, videos, and error logs where possible.



4. Removing Communication Barriers



If organizations really want the information to flow freely, it has to be easy, not just for the members who are working on a computer, but for those as well who are working remotely. By using third-party integrations such as Slack and Jira, all the members of different teams can share information from all corners of your organization and all across the world in an instant. The inclusion of <a href="https://www.appypie.com/integrate/apps/slack/integrations" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Slack integration</a> further enhances communication and collaboration capabilities, enabling efficient and effective information exchange.



5. Strengthen Important Messages



When a team grows beyond twenty members, the collaboration between the members decreases significantly, especially in teams that are in different departments, locations, and roles. This says that strengthening the goal of working together can improve team communication and collaboration to a great extent. It is important for the enterprise software teams having people in different departments, roles and regions to reinforce important messages with multiple teams. This could mean that the team managers highlight the important messages for the team or such messages are sent with an important tag.



6. Training of Developers and Testers



Developers and testers should learn from each other. Developers should help testers understand the code base and the testers should help the developers understand the test suite and the logic behind the test techniques used or followed. The training will help both the developers and testers to easily collaborate and share important software testing information and insights related to the testing as well as development more often.



Teams which are using Agile and DevOps workflows should use CI (Continuous Integration) tools such as Jenkins.&nbsp;



7. Effective Integration with CI/CD



&nbsp;The CI/CD pipeline should be implemented in such a way that if a test fails, the report should be sent only to the concerned developers to avoid the bombardment of emails to those member’s inboxes who are not concerned with it. Otherwise, receiving many emails related to CI/CD status multiple times a day might compel people to ignore the mails. Check out some <a href="https://hunter.io/blog/cold-email-software/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cold email outreach tools</a> which will reduce your security and privacy concerns when it comes to emails. You could also check an <a href="https://snov.io/email-verifier" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">email address checker</a> to verify addresses before sending the emails. 



<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank">Testsigma</a> is an automated testing tool that is built after considering all above-mentioned strategies for improving communication between team members. Let’s see how:



<ul class="list_style_disc"><li>Testsigma generates custom reports with text logs, video recordings, screenshots that can be shared with different members of the team working at different levels according to the information they need. </li><li>Testsigma has a “Report Bug” feature which helps the testers in drilling down the test results to get more information for the root cause of the failure and file a bug into several integrated bug platforms such as JIRA. </li><li>Testsigma allows its users to share test results via email, manually or automatically. </li><li>&nbsp;Testsigma hosts all <a href="https://testsigma.com/reports" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="test execution reports (opens in a new tab)">test execution reports</a> on the cloud. It helps the users to view and analyse the test results for each test environment from anywhere, anytime so you can better identify what areas need focus and determine the reach of your test coverage.</li></ul>



<ul class="list_style_disc"><li>It ensures that the application runs on every OS, device and browser combination that is supported.</li> </ul>



<ul class="list_style_disc"><li>Testsigma also allows its users to share the software testing insights through the communication tool Slack. Slack is an amazing communication tool which is becoming highly popular among companies of all sizes. Screenshot of an issue, text and insights in other forms can be easily shared via Slack. </li><li>Testsigma has a test lab replete with the latest devices and browsers to support cross-browser and cross-device testing. Not only this, schedulers can be used to schedule test plan runs. </li><li>Testsigma is built to address the automated cross-browser testing requirements and allows for easy sharing and integration of actionable feedback instantly with the team. This ensures an uninterrupted user experience across all the browsers.</li> </ul>



Current IT industry is becoming more and more complex with teams being geographically dispersed, organizations moving to the cloud and teams opting for emerging methodologies such as Agile and DevOps. This ecosystem makes it more difficult to communicate and evaluate the software testing insights from the testing activities. 



With powerful reporting and analytics tools, Testsigma helps organize and share data easily and effectively. It allows the testers, stakeholders, and decision-makers to remain updated regarding the progress and results at any given moment.



All in all, Testsigma has put in dedicated efforts to make any result easily shareable with all necessary integrations.



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Top Ways to Communicate Software Testing Insights Better

Top 7 Ways to Communicate Software Testing Insights Better

Making a decision to start <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">test automation</a> is easy, but choosing the right test automation tool is not. There are teams that are spending a lot on hiring new manual testing resources but find it hard to invest in automation. The reasons could be many. One major cause that we are about to eliminate for you is understanding the criteria for selection of testing tools.<gwmw style="display:none;">



Sometimes, teams spend significant time exploring tools and get find overwhelming information out there that they give up on the idea of automation altogether. Other times, choose a generic tool, start with automation, but then never get past the first few test cases.



In this article, we have put together some points that will help such teams navigate their search for the right <a href="https://testsigma.com">test automation tool</a>:<gwmw style="display:none;">



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#Top_10_Criteria_for_Selection_of_Testing_Tools">1 Top 10 Criteria for Selection of Testing Tools</a><ul><li><a href="#1_Project_Requirements">1.1 1. Project Requirements: </a></li><li><a href="#2_Team_Skills_Learning_Curve">1.2 2. Team Skills / Learning Curve: </a></li><li><a href="#3_Budget">1.3 3. Budget: </a></li><li><a href="#4_Ease_of_Test_Case_Creation_and_Maintenance">1.4 4. Ease of Test Case Creation and Maintenance: </a></li><li><a href="#5_Reusability">1.5 5. Reusability: </a></li><li><a href="#6_Data-driven_Testing">1.6 6. Data-driven Testing: </a></li><li><a href="#7_Reporting">1.7 7. Reporting: </a></li><li><a href="#8_Support_for_Collaboration">1.8 8. Support for Collaboration: </a></li><li><a href="#9_Support_for_Tools_for_Integration">1.9 9. Support for Tools for Integration: </a></li><li><a href="#10_Training_and_242157_Support">1.10 10. Training and 24&#215;7 Support: </a></li></ul></li><li><a href="#Conclusion">2 Conclusion</a></li><li><a href="#Frequently_Asked_Questions">3 Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul><li><a href="#How_to_Choose_Automation_Tool">3.1 How to Choose Automation Tool?</a></li><li><a href="#Which_Tool_is_Mostly_Used_for_Automation_Testing">3.2 Which Tool is Mostly Used for Automation Testing?</a></li><li><a href="#What_are_the_Criteria_for_Selecting_a_Test_Automation_Tool_for_Your_Project">3.3 What are the Criteria for Selecting a Test Automation Tool for Your Project?</a></li><li><a href="#Is_Selenium_the_Best_Testing_Tool">3.4 Is Selenium the Best Testing Tool?</a></li><li><a href="#When_should_We_Choose_Automation_Testing">3.5 When should We Choose Automation Testing?</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="top-10-criteria-for-selection-of-testing-tools">Top 10 Criteria for Selection of Testing Tools</h2>



<h3 id="1-project-requirements">1. Project Requirements: </h3>



There is no point in looking for a solution when you don’t know the problem.



So, before you start exploring the various tools and technologies available in the market for test automation, you need to list down your project requirements and the problems you are looking to solve.



The list, in general, should answer the below questions:



<ul class="list_style_disc"><li>Type of application that needs to be tested: It could be web, mobile, API or a desktop application.</li><li>Platforms that need to be tested: If yours is a desktop application, list down the operating systems that should be tested. If yours is a <a href="https://testsigma.com/mobile-testing-tools" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">mobile application</a>, then list down the supported mobile operating systems. If yours is a web application, then list down the supported browsers.</li><li>Language your application is built in: This can help if you are planning to use a programming language for automation.&nbsp;</li><li>Need for <a href="https://testsigma.com/cross-browser-testing">cross-browser testing</a>/cross-device testing: If yours is a web application or a mobile application then you will, most probably, need this.</li></ul>



In addition, you could also add requirements that you deem important.&nbsp;



<h3 id="2-team-skills-learning-curve">2. Team Skills / Learning Curve: </h3>



When selecting a tool for automation there could be 2 types of tools:



<ul><li>A codeless test automation tool</li><li>An automation tool that requires coding</li></ul>



If yours is a team that already has people that are skilled in some programming language then you can think of using an automation tool in that programming language. Or, if you plan to hire skilled people for automation then you don’t need to consider this point.



 But, if you are planning to have an automation tool that will not need you to look for people with the required skillset, going for <a href="https://testsigma.com/codeless-automation-testing-tools" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">codeless automation tool</a>s will be a good idea. These tools allow the <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-testing">automation of test cases </a>without the need for knowing a programming language. <gwmw style="display:none;">



Check this guide to know about <a aria-label="Codeless Testing (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com/codeless-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Codeless Testing</a> in detail.<gwmw style="display:none;">



<h3 id="3-budget">3. Budget: </h3>



This is a very important criteria for selection of testing tool. You might easily say that you will want a free tool because you don’t want to spend on automation if you can avoid it.



 But, you also need to consider that the amount of time being spent on automation, the number of people working on the tool and the machines being used for automation also constitute the amount you spend on automation. So, consider below points before deciding on the budget:



<ul><li>Cost of human resources being used for automation: If there is a tool that does not need you to hire new resources, especially for automation, consider it a saving.</li><li>Time spent on learning the tool: If there is a tool that has a low learning curve, that is an indirect saving in the cost you might have spent in terms of the time the resources spend on learning the tool. Or hiring resources that are skilled in that particular tool.</li><li>Time being spent on automation: If there is a tool that makes it easy to create and maintain test cases, thereby saving time, consider it a saving in cost.</li><li>Cost of infrastructure: Talking about cloud and hosting, you can go for an ideal <a href="https://www.cloudways.com/en/php-hosting.php" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">PHP hosting</a> that gives an amazing managed hosting experience.</li></ul>



<h3 id="4-ease-of-test-case-creation-and-maintenance">4. Ease of Test Case Creation and Maintenance: </h3>



Not every tool is made to handle all kinds of scenarios. So, to make sure that your chosen tool meets your needs, try automating a few test cases of your application to know if the tool suits your needs. That could be done with the trial version of a tool if your search has narrowed down to premium tools.



Also, to avoid spending more time in test case maintenance as compared to test case creation, make sure to choose a tool that fits your budget including the maintenance costs. There are tools that have the ability to <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/self-healing-tests-maintenance-testsigma/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">self-heal the test </a>cases in case of minor changes in the application.



 Such tools help to reduce the cost of test case maintenance. Also, it helps if the tool supports pause and resume of test case execution for a better debugging experience.



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<h3 id="5-reusability">5. Reusability: </h3>



To avoid writing the same code multiple times in multiple test cases and to avoid duplication of efforts, look for tools that allow the reuse of already created test steps in different test cases and projects.



<h3 id="6-data-driven-testing">6. <a href="https://testsigma.com/data-driven-testing">Data-driven Testing</a>: <gwmw style="display:none;"></h3>



If yours is an application that needs testing for a variety of data at multiple interfaces, it is important to choose a tool that supports data-driven testing.



<h3 id="7-reporting">7. <a href="https://testsigma.com/reports" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Reporting</a>: <gwmw style="display:none;"></h3>



Test case creation and test case execution would be useless if the reports were not useful so do go through all the features in the reporting supported by a tool. 



Few of them would be:



<ul><li>Screenshots for failed steps</li><li>Video for test execution</li><li>Stack trace for the error</li><li>A clear indication of <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/why-do-selenium-tests-fail-top-reasons-testsigma/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">failed test </a>cases/steps</li><li>Time taken for execution of test steps and test cases is reported</li></ul>



<h3 id="8-support-for-collaboration">8. Support for Collaboration: </h3>



If you are doing automation of a project for a client, the client will want to review the quality of automated test cases.



 It will also be beneficial if other non-technical members of the team are able to automate/review the test cases. So, in such scenarios, look for tools that make collaboration with the management and clients easy.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<h3 id="9-support-for-tools-for-integration">9. Support for Tools for Integration: </h3>



If there are some process improvement or <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/ci-cd-tools/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CI/CD tools</a> that you already use or plan on using, make sure that you chose a tool that integrates with them.<gwmw style="display:none;">



<h3 id="10-training-and-24x7-support">10. Training and 24&#215;7 Support: </h3>



Consider a scenario &#8211; you started using a tool for automation, and after automating about 10 test cases successfully, you got stuck on the 11th test case; you don’t know how to resolve the problem. You have looked at all possible forums but you don’t have a solution in sight. If you want to save the time, use a tool that has 24&#215;7 support to resolve any problems you encounter.



<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>



Sometimes, teams decide to create their own test automation frameworks because they cannot find a right test automation tool that fit their testing requirements.



At the moment, there really are multiple types of test automation frameworks and tools available in the market that support automation on a varied variety of applications and are still being improved.



So, do go through the above points and spend some time looking at available test automation tools before thinking of implementing a framework on your own.



At the end, I would like you tell you about test automation tool testsigma. it is a <a aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cloud-based tes</a><a href="https://testsigma.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">t automation tool</a> that lets you automate test cases just in simple English &#8211; no coding required. In addition, you can automate your test cases for web as well as mobile apps at the same place. Do check it out if it meets your needs. 



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<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



<h3 id="how-to-choose-automation-tool">How to Choose Automation Tool?</h3>



To choose the right test automation tool, you have to ensure it’s capable, powerful, flexible, and up to the mark for your project requirements. By saying capable, powerful, and flexible, your selected tool should be capable enough to manage all the test cases and test data smoothly. It should also be flexible enough to integrate with other third-party tools to extend and customize the functionality and make testing even easier.



<h3 id="which-tool-is-mostly-used-for-automation-testing">Which Tool is Mostly Used for Automation Testing?</h3>



There is an abundance of testing tools available in the market that can be divided into two categories. The first one is the no code low code test automation tool which requires little or no knowledge of programming to perform any type of test automation.



<h3 id="what-are-the-criteria-for-selecting-a-test-automation-tool-for-your-project">What are the Criteria for Selecting a Test Automation Tool for Your Project?</h3>



criteria for selection of testing tool are the following:



<ul><li>Capable- It should be able to manage the project test cases and test data efficiently.</li><li>Flexibility- It should be able to integrate with other third-party tools to extend the functionality tool.</li><li>Cost-effective- It should come into your project budget.</li><li>Learning curve- Learning to use the tool should not be challenging for your other team members.</li></ul>



<h3 id="is-selenium-the-best-testing-tool">Is Selenium the Best Testing Tool?</h3>



&nbsp;.If you are from a developer background, then Selenium is a free and open-source tool project that provides various tools, resources, and libraries to make test automation easy for everyone.



<h3 id="when-should-we-choose-automation-testing">When should We Choose Automation Testing?</h3>



When you required speed and accuracy at the same time, you should go for automation testing instead of manual testing, automation testing enables your team to do more in less time by providing the features like test cases to manage the project all test cases, test data management to manage the project test data, test labs to run the test case in the combinations of operating systems and browsers, etc.



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factors for selecting a test automation tools

What are the factors for selecting a test automation framework?

The world is witnessing challenging times(COVID-19), and we sincerely hope that you, your loved ones, and your colleagues are taking precautionary measures and are staying safe. It is also encouraging to see the world’s resilience as it comes together to fight this rising threat.



We wanted to assure you that in the light of the current circumstances, we are taking all possible steps to ensure the safety of our employees as well as maintain uninterrupted services for our customers.



At <a href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">Testsigma</a>, we’ve taken the following measures to ensure the safety and well-being of our two greatest priorities &#8211; our employees and our customers:



<ol start="1" class="list-number pl-5"><li>The entire team is working from home without any disruption since last few weeks, and we foresee this continuing until the situation improves.</li><li>All non-essential travel has been put on hold and a special task force has been set up to monitor and address any operational issues.</li><li> Systems have been tested, Testsigma platform will run without interruptions and you will continue to get the same quality of 24&#215;7 support from Testsigma. Our support team will continue to be available 24X7. You can reach us at <a href="mailto:support@testsigma.com">support@testsigma.com</a> or via chat for instant responses.</li><li>During this time, our support teams are available and can be reached through email, website, online sessions, and chat. Our product support team has activated their Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to abide by Service Level Agreements that meet the ongoing customer needs.&nbsp;</li><li>We have built redundancy into our engineering and customer support teams, so even though thankfully, none of our employees have fallen sick due to the virus, we’re confident that our processes and redundancies will ensure business as usual from our side to you.</li><li>If you&#8217;re facing bandwidth constraints due to COVID-19, our automation experts are happy to jump in and help you with anything (training, automating your tests, setting up your test automation plans) that you may need. We&#8217;re happy to do it free of cost because we know you may not have planned a budget for this unexpected event.</li></ol>



If you&#8217;re looking for our advice on how to ensure continuous Testing during COVID-19, here&#8217;s my thought on <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Optimize your Testing efforts for continuous delivery during COVID-19 pandemic (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com/blog/optimize-your-testing-efforts-for-continuous-delivery/" target="_blank">optimizing your testing efforts for continuous delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic</a> outlining ideas to get you to proactively think about ways you can optimize your delivery times with limited resources. 



We are in this together. We will continue to monitor the global situation and offer continued support to our employees, customers, and partners as needed. 



In this hour of crisis, I hope that this assurance helps you worry a little less and focus more on the people you care about most.



As always, we thank you for your business, and we are committed to doing everything we can to ensure that your business can continue to operate with minimal disruption. Most importantly, we hope that you and your family are safe and remain healthy. 



-KR Naidu Founder &amp; CEO | Testsigma

Note from Testsigma CEO

In these tough times(COVID-19), the well-being of customers and employees is the most important for every organization.



During this unexpected crisis, there are teams working from home while there are few workplaces that have a reduced workforce. It is a given that the thoughts, efficiency, and availability of your team will not be the same as you may expect otherwise.



In these conditions, it is vital that the robustness of your software is not compromised.&nbsp;



Considering the disturbance that everyone in the world is going through, there will be a few tasks that you may not be able to do as planned, while there will be some important tasks still that will have to be done.



For optimum results, optimization of your team’s efforts will be key.



The development teams will have to focus on the optimization of delivery cycles to achieve business continuity on the basis of the availability and efficiency of the workforce.



A well-implemented continuous delivery process will be the solution here.



Below are some points which are important for all the teams including Dev &amp; QA for optimum and continued operations:



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#People_Process_Business">1 People, Process, Business</a></li><li><a href="#1_People">2 1. People</a></li><li><a href="#2_Process">3 2. Process</a></li><li><a href="#3_Business">4 3. Business</a></li><li><a href="#Below_are_some_points_which_I_feel_are_important_for_Dev_QA">5 Below are some points which I feel are important for Dev &amp; QA :</a></li></ul></div>
<h3>People, Process, Business</h3> 



<div class="wp-container-68cbe0be1394f wp-block-group">
<h3 id="1-people">1. People</h3>
</div>



<div class="wp-container-68cbe0be13b74 wp-block-group pl-15">
Focus on your team. Understand their strengths and patterns of working. When we are challenged by many odds, it would be hard to expect 100% from everyone. Some of them might not be used to working remotely. Give them time and better to over-communicate to fill the gap. 



There are some innovative ways to connect your teams remotely like online games, virtual tea-breaks and sharing photos and playlists. Do not hesitate to make use of them. Communication becomes a key challenge in these times. Schedule regular catch-ups with your team and don’t just focus on work-related talk.&nbsp;



This is the time to identify your champions who can deliver in any circumstances. If you are a small team or a start-up these are the people who can take your company to the next level. Encourage your champions and assign them the key areas to focus on. Give your teams the usual freedom and accountability to achieve the goals for the week.
</div>



<h3 id="2-process">2. Process</h3>



<div class="wp-container-68cbe0be13db6 wp-block-group pl-15">
There might be a definite change in the productivity of your teams. Due to this almost every company has to change its priorities. Make sure you educate everyone about the change of priorities and make them align with the new plan. It might need some process changes as well. Your updates might need to be more frequent. 



There should be clear in and out times and appropriate status updates in the communication platforms. It will help everyone know when to expect others and when someone would be offline. 
</div>



<h3 id="3-business">3. Business</h3>



<div class="wp-container-68cbe0be14005 wp-block-group pl-15">
Don&#8217;t prioritize everything. The situation is very much uncertain. Just focus on what is required for business continuity, and wait for the things to get better. &nbsp;Start preparing for the emergency fund in case it might be needed in the near future. Stay focused on your current customers and work on your leads to get your next customers. Reduce unnecessary expenses and aggressively optimize the current process.&nbsp;



Many companies are going to see a steep fall in terms of numbers, very soon all these companies will stand a chance to grow much faster than the fall that we are going to see now. What is important is how you prepare yourself and the teams for that growth. Plan for the worst and get ready for the best!
</div>



<h3 class="pt-15" id="below-are-some-points-which-i-feel-are-important-for-dev-qa">Below are some points which I feel are important for Dev &amp; QA :</h3>



1. Customer issues and requirements should become your mainstream development: It should be the case even otherwise if you don&#8217;t follow this already it&#8217;s time you change your strategy. Bring your core team here. Make sure you <a href="https://hiverhq.com/customer-support-guide" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">support all your customers</a> without fail. Don&#8217;t let this branch run by a secondary team.



2. Not the right time for big releases: If you have already planned a big release, it is good to hold until you get clarity. Simple things like stable network connectivity are also a problem to push your updates, there are many more odds that you need to think of.



3. Frequent minor updates are always better: If you are a SaaS business, it is recommended to release frequently with minor changes, so that the impact would be very few when things go wrong. During this time where communication, availability, and accessibility is difficult, it’s not the right time for major updates.&nbsp; 



4. Make sure your regression suites are lean and relevant: Your turn around time needs to be better than before. Create suites with affected test cases so that you can get things done quickly with fewer resources. If you have large test suites and take a long time for execution, parallel execution is one option. But, if you want to save more time, filter the high priority test cases and create another test suite that can be executed when time is running low.



5. Are your pipelines(DevOps) not automated yet? If not, it’s time to think about it: If you are a DevOps hub and all your pipelines are automated, you stand a better chance to release updates more often and continuously. If you don&#8217;t have your DevOps set up yet, it&#8217;s time for you and your team to understand the need and get started with it. Not just for now, It is going to add huge value to your company in the long term.



6. If you follow DevOps/Continuous Delivery practices, are your pipelines 100% automated? If that is the case you are all set to deliver continuously with fewer resources even at the difficult times, like what we are seeing now. If not, identify the gaps and try to automate your pipelines 100%. Perhaps you may not have approvals to try commercial tools. In that case, there are lots of free tools. You could also start with free versions of commercial tools and see how it works for you. Also, make sure that these tools scale to the next level when you as a team and the company go to the next level.



7. Don&#8217;t have test automation yet then this is the right time to start. Pick free tools to begin with: If you have worked on test automation, it would have been easy for you to continue your regular delivery cycles confidently.&nbsp; If not, in these times when resources are limited, it is all the more important to ensure quality because, in case of a failure, it may be a difficult task to fix with limited resources.



8. Start automating your regression suites: If you don&#8217;t have test automation yet, start implementing now. If your delivery cycles are not as usual or planned, your team might have time to start this activity.&nbsp;



9. Involve others in test automation if your tools support: If your SMEs &amp; QAs have free time during this time, it’s better to involve them in test automation. So that your delivery cycles would be faster later when things get back to normal. During this time, change of work also will help them focus more and they will give their best. If you are just starting with test automation, choose a test automation tool that allows other stakeholders including developers, managers, and clients to start test case creation with a low learning curve such that your automation tasks are completed even if the testing team is low in number.



10. Integrate your automated tests with your continuous integration pipeline: For end-to-end automation and continuous delivery, it is essential to integrate your testing with the CI/CD pipeline and having a tool that integrates with needed tools readily is the need of the hour.



11. Time to check your automation efficiency: If you have not measured your test automation ROI yet, take a look at it. Check how much it can save for you, with the investment that you have already made. When the team sizes are shrinking, can your test automation complement their errors? If not, understand why and where are the gaps and take necessary action if they are small. Again, don&#8217;t look at the changing processes during this time.



12. Take steps to reduce the number of feedback cycles and time for each of them: Since a lot of remote communication is involved now, try avoiding back and forth for your feedback. Also, try to reduce the number of feedback cycles, because there will be a significant communication delay for each cycle during this time.



We know that we can pull through, we just have to be careful, optimistic and focus on being efficient every step of the way.



If you need any help, we will always be available via the usual channels. Praying for the health and well-being of all! 



K R Naidu, CEO, Testsigma