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-675055fec11c0 wp-block-group">
<h3 id="1-people">1. People</h3>
</div>



<div class="wp-container-675055fec26b7 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-675055fec2b78 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-675055fec305f 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

Optimize Your Testing Efforts for Continuous Delivery

Data Driven vs Keyword Driven Frameworks for Test Automation

Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM): What it is & Why?

The Differences Between Priority and Severity in Testing

How To Decide The Entry and Exit Criteria For Regression Testing

How Application of Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Business

Types of Testing – What are Different Software Testing Types?

Mobile UI Testing – How to Perform with Testsigma?

Must Have Skills For an Automation Tester

15 Must Have Skills For a Top Automation Tester

Iteration Regression Testing And Full Regression Testing in Agile

Pickerwheel is the UI element, specific to mobile devices that allows a user to pick a single value from multiple values displayed as a scrollable list. This UI element is available on both Android and iOS. Here, in this article, we will be discussing how to automate Picker Wheel specifically for iOS. 



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#How_to_Automate_Picker_Wheel_UI_Element_Using_Appium">1 How to Automate Picker Wheel UI Element Using Appium?</a></li><li><a href="#How_to_Automate_Picker_Wheel_UI_Element_Using_Testsigma">2 How to Automate Picker Wheel UI Element Using Testsigma?</a></li><li><a href="#Conclusion">3 Conclusion</a></li><li><a href="#Frequently_Asked_Questions">4 Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul><li><a href="#How_to_select_random_values_from_the_iOS_picker_wheel_using_Selenium">4.1 How to select random values from the iOS picker wheel using Selenium?</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="how-to-automate-picker-wheel-ui-element-using-appium">How to Automate Picker Wheel UI Element Using Appium?</h2>



Automation of an iOS-specific pickerWheel UI element via Appium using the XCUITest driver is quite simple. Let’s look at 2 approaches to do so below:



Approach 1:&nbsp;



The simplest way to automate Picker Wheel is via the “driver.sendKeys()” method. PickerWheel contains values in the form of strings. The same string that needs to be selected can be passed as a value via sendKeys and the needed result can be achieved.



Here, the pickerWheel element is accessed via method “XCUIElementTypePickerWheel” as in the sample code below:



driver.findElement(By.xpath(&#8220;//XCUIElementTypePickerWheel[@value=&#8217;Today&#8217;]&#8221;)).sendKeys(&#8220;Wed 25 Dec&#8221;);



Here:



Element located by pickerWheel is “//XCUIElementTypePickerWheel[@value=&#8217;Today&#8217;]”.



Value picked by pickerWheel is “Wed 25 Dec”.



Refer image below to get more clarity about PickerWheel via Appium Inspector:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/J_HrgZCkZeut_5Y85cwlWqh4LDE-BoYqqNe7-0AmnVBJfc4M_1QqAOU3B_xx7kgfhdK50XiOf5su0ETpkQOlyg3oNqoppJonJG_VK7c-jzhFM-67kMdZBFwODS__5zWy8mdwl7p2" alt="PickerWheel via Appium Inspector" /></figure>



Approach 2:&nbsp;



In the second approach, javascript’s mobile method selectPickerWheelValue can be used:



{



HashMap&lt;String, Object&gt; params = new HashMap&lt;&gt;();



params.put(&#8220;order&#8221;, &#8220;next&#8221;);



params.put(&#8220;offset&#8221;, 0.15);



params.put(&#8220;element&#8221;, ((RemoteWebElement) pickerWheelElement).getId());



driver.executeScript(&#8220;mobile: selectPickerWheelValue&#8221;, params);



}



And it accesses the pickerWheel values in forward or backward direction, as needed, using the above parameters.&nbsp; &nbsp;



<ul class="list_style_disc"><li>Order: The value of order determines where to pick the next value &#8211; for forward direction “next” value should be passed and for backward “previous” should be passed.</li> <li>Offset: The height of the wheel at which click should be done.</li> <li>Element: PickerWheel element.</li></ul> 



Let’s discuss how the pickerWheel interaction can be automated in an iOS native application using simple natural language in <a href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Let’s discuss how the pickerWheel interaction can be automated in an iOS native application using simple natural language in Testsigma: (opens in a new tab)">Testsigma</a>:



&nbsp;&nbsp;“ Pick option by text test data in the UI identifier picker view”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/MfMACuooCy5IgXb0SdL7D2OZIFhyG7ThZukVMSF8UZ2OhZTlFUZWk6SuQFmgiigWV0qgeI696xlMc-7h6BSWPm0NdBZxb2Rxj01z0p_72SjYfpYuJyxO2I7QuQdCLjAvOzGvfQmL" alt="Automate Picker Wheel using Testsigma" /></figure>



Here,&nbsp;



test data: The pickerWheel value that should be selected regardless of direction. ui identifier:  locator of the PickerWheel Element.



<div class="cta-banner-v2">
<div class="title-with-description ">
Automate your tests for Web, Mobile, Desktop and APIs on Cloud with Testsigma. No setup required.
</div>
<a href="https://testsigma.com/signup" target="_blank" class="cta-btn-v1" rel="noopener">Try for free</a>
</div>



<h2 id="how-to-automate-picker-wheel-ui-element-using-testsigma">How to Automate Picker Wheel UI Element Using Testsigma?</h2>



It is quite easy to automate picker wheel UI element (for Android and iOS) using Testsigma. The tool uses NLPs, and you must pick out the correct NLP corresponding to the picker wheel UI element detection.



Step 1. Create a project (Android or iOS) and a test case to automate picker wheel UI element testing. Read more on how to <a href="https://testsigma.com/docs/projects/overview/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">create a project in Testsigma</a>.



Step 2. Navigate to the website or the application with the number picker element. 



Step 3. Select the text (number you want to pick) and the element (id, xpath, name) to locate the object.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" width="1918" height="830" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/blog-assets-production.testsigma.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/01163913/picker-wheel-value.png" alt="Testsigma - Test automation platform" class="wp-image-47022" srcset="https://s3.amazonaws.com/blog-assets-production.testsigma.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/01163913/picker-wheel-value.png 1918w, https://s3.amazonaws.com/blog-assets-production.testsigma.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/01163913/picker-wheel-value-768x332.png 768w, https://s3.amazonaws.com/blog-assets-production.testsigma.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/01163913/picker-wheel-value-1536x665.png 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1918px) 100vw, 1918px" /></figure>



Step 4. You can either record the test steps using Testsigma’s record-and-playback option or write the test cases yourself. Both the options generate tests in plain English.



Step 5. The results of running the tests are available in images with a detailed breakdown of each test step.



If you compare the two methods used here, one using Appium and the other using Testsigma, both perform the same task differently. Appium is code-based, while Testsigma takes the no-code approach and gets the work done in a few minutes.



<a href="https://testsigma.com/compare-test-automation-tools" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Compare different testing tools</a> and see how Testsigma differs from them.





Mobile Testing Tools
https://testsigma.com/mobile-testing-tools


Android App Automation 
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="nRnnqpUzi7"><a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/android-app-automation/">Android App Automation | What it is &amp; How to Perform?</a></blockquote><iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" style="position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);" title="&#8220;Android App Automation | What it is &amp; How to Perform?&#8221; &#8212; Testsigma Blog" src="https://testsigma.com/blog/android-app-automation/embed/#?secret=0N08YzcWGG#?secret=nRnnqpUzi7" data-secret="nRnnqpUzi7" width="500" height="282" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>


deeplink testing
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="Mc5sjipzni"><a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/deep-link-testing/">How to do Deep Link Testing on Android &amp; iOS devices?</a></blockquote><iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" style="position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);" title="&#8220;How to do Deep Link Testing on Android &amp; iOS devices?&#8221; &#8212; Testsigma Blog" src="https://testsigma.com/blog/deep-link-testing/embed/#?secret=V5eLd0yJzG#?secret=Mc5sjipzni" data-secret="Mc5sjipzni" width="500" height="282" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>





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



A picker wheel is a dynamic UI element with multiple values that allow users to pick one at a time. They are used on websites and mobile apps, which makes testing them quite significant.



However, validating the function and UI of a picker wheel is more challenging than checking any other UI element. Picker wheels are dynamic and require an advanced testing tool that can identify dynamic elements and capture them in the test.



While other tools require you to manually determine the element path, Testsigma’s AI-powered feature automatically captures the element and adds it to the test case. For this, you can also use the record-and-playback method enabled in Testsigma.



The idea is to accurately create test cases for an element that is quite challenging to recognize when it comes to <a href="https://testsigma.com/automated-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">automation testing</a>. Testsigma reduces the time spent manually scouring the page to identify the picker wheel element.



Read here &#8211; <a href="https://testsigma.com/testsigma-vs-appium" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Testsigma vs Appium</a>



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



<h3 id="how-to-select-random-values-from-the-ios-picker-wheel-using-selenium">How to select random values from the iOS picker wheel using Selenium?</h3>



To <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37120103/how-to-select-random-value-from-ios-picker-wheel-using-selenium" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">select random values from the iOS picker wheel using Seleniu</a>m, you have to use the random module and generate a random index within the range of the picker options. Locate the picker wheel element, get its options, and select the option corresponding to the random index. Use the send_keys method to send the selected value to the picker wheel.