Typical automated tests perform repetitive tasks quickly and accurately to lighten the burden of manual testing. These tests mimic typical interactions with the system, checking for pre-determined outcomes. However, with some creativity and a sound strategy, you can...

To keep up with ever-changing systems, most test automation developers spend countless hours updating, reworking, debugging, and validating test scripts. In an agile environment, keeping up is even more difficult. Bindu Laxminarayan explores powerful design patterns and coding practices she uses to maintain, extend, and reuse the test automation scripts. These design patterns will aid you in developing a robust automation framework and cut down the time you spend on routine maintenance tasks. Bindu describes and illustrates specific design patterns: Template Design Pattern, Test Object Pattern, Component Object Pattern, and Page Object Pattern. Take back code samples to help you understand the patterns in detail. By putting these patterns into practice, you'll improve test case development and make script debugging more efficient.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages, which have become a mainstay in many businesses, increase in complexity with each release. Most testers are turning to automation to ease the burdens of testing these packages. Although end-to-end automation better tests the ERP systems by emulating real-world use and business process flows, creating a proper end-to-end automation framework can be a daunting, complex task. Join test automation experts David Dang and Dave Satterlee for an in-depth look at automation for ERP as they share a case study of SAP at a major manufacturing company. David and Dave discuss the benefits and objectives of end-to-end ERP test automation as well as the challenges and solutions of ideal automation frameworks, test data strategy, and integration issues.

Is this presentation yet another "approach: to test automation? No, it isn't. Instead, Mark Fewster shares his and others’ experiences with test automation so you can capitalize on good ideas and avoid useless ones. In their new book, Experiences of Test Automation, Mark Fewster and Dorothy Graham describe twenty-eight case histories of test automation across a rich variety of application domains, environments, and organizations. Mark highlights the common themes that span both management and technical issues-the influence managers have over test automation success and failure, the importance of keeping management informed and involved, and the need to match the investment level with the desired automation objectives. He highlights technical issues such as attending to testware architecture early, encouraging reuse to reduce maintenance costs, and scripting quality.