Regression testing is the most effective way to ensure that new code changes or any bug fixes are not affecting the existing functionality of your software product. It is one of the most important parts of modern agile methodologies used for maintaining a smooth software development process.
Different types of regression testing help you make sure that adding new features or making quality enhancements are not introducing new bugs to the existing features. To maintain the user interface and user experience of your application at their best level, you have to make frequent changes to your codebase.
Without proper knowledge of how to handle the dependencies, and how to retest the existing features at proper points, one can hardly achieve progressive regression testing in the true sense. Hence, we are providing a complete guide on how you can efficiently make it through regression test scenarios.
Regression testing ensures that there is no side-effect of the new changes and that the existing software modules and their functionalities are working properly. It's time to check out the complete regression testing process in detail and how you can proceed with it to improve your test coverage. The step-by-step regression testing strategy is mentioned below.
The process starts when any change like any addition, modification, or optimization is detected in the source code. It's the point when you have to start building the regression test plans.
You must not plan the regression test cases in any random order or it will eventually become more time-consuming and inefficient. Carefully analyze the changes in the codebase and the product requirements to achieve the best level of test case prioritization. Below is an overview of some most crucial test cases for your regression suite.
Automating the tests make you capable of creating reusable test cases and saves a lot of time. So, by analyzing the results of exploratory tests in detail, identify the test scripts that you can run again to save time and resources.
2. Attentively Determine Entry Point & Entry Criteria
Regression test cases need a suitable environment to be present by the proper setup of test data and relevant parameters. Also, for every test execution, it must be made sure that the test starts at the correct point that will eventually bring the best results. Hence, make sure that your testing team stays attentive to the entry point and entry criteria of the tests.
3. Carefully Determine The Exit Point
Similar to a suitable entry point, each test must have a best-suited exit point too so that the test suite achieves the highest efficiency. Get your testing team put more focus on determining the best exit point for your regression tests.
4. Schedule The Test Cases For Systematic Execution
Now, you are done with taking care of everything needed for efficient test execution. It's time to identify all the test components and set the schedule for the best-suited time for them to get executed.
So, proceed with executing the new test cases & re-running old ones, and ensure that every function of the product is working absolutely fine. We must also suggest that for the best experience, use automated regression testing tools to get rid of the worries about running the tests manually which will also become insanely time-consuming.
5. Let The Test Cases Get Executed
In this phase, you do not have much to do. The scheduled test cases will get executed systematically. Just look out if there is any obstruction or issues in the automated regression suite.
6. Create A Detailed Test Execution Report and Analyze It Thoroughly
It is extremely crucial to keep a track of the results after the test execution is complete. So, create a detailed test execution report and carefully include all the available details of every passed or failed test case. Then analyze the report with proper attention and figure out the most effective ways towards the overall improvement of your product.
There are mainly four regression testing techniques that cover all possible regression tests. Let's take a look at them so that you can select the best-suited technique for you.
As the name suggests, this method involves regression testing for all existing test suites. That's why it is also called by the name “Test All”. However, though this complete regression technique ensures that every software module is tested and every bug is detected, testing everything causes it to take an insane amount of time and resources.
That's why it is a wise choice to keep the use of this technique limited to some major situations like when the application is being migrated to a new platform or being written in a different language (e.g. Java, Python, etc.) or the operating systems are getting massive updates. In such cases, this method is somewhat of an absolute regression testing solution.
2. Regression Test Selection
This is an intelligent technique where instead of the entire application, you select the potential parts that can possibly be affected by the new changes. It makes you select some specific test cases from the test suite to execute and find out whether any change is occurring in those parts as well as the entire software application.
When you do not need to run regression tests on every part of the application, it eventually saves you a lot of time, effort, and resources. The selected test cases are further categorized into two types i.e. reusable test cases and obsolete test cases. It helps you in the rest of the regression suite as you know that the reusable test cases can be further used and the obsolete ones have no future occurrence.
3. Test Case Prioritization
This technique can be treated as an advanced regression testing method because it needs proper analysis of the test cases to understand the respective functionalities' impact on the business, how critical they are, how frequently they are used by the end users, and how frequently the test cases fail, etc. Based on such criteria, you can set the priorities for the test cases to determine the order of their execution.
Prioritizing the test cases according to their importance significantly reduces the regression test suite and the overall efficiency also gets remarkably improved. We must mention that the test cases that deal with the new functionalities and the ones that have the most involvement with customer satisfaction are the ones with the highest priority.
4. Hybrid Regression Testing
This is considered the most efficient regression testing technique that you can use. The hybrid approach makes you use a perfect combination of the Regression Test Selection and Test Case Prioritization methods.
Such an efficient combination of two highly useful techniques allows you to strategically decide which method you want to use first instead of somehow being forced to select all the test cases at once.
This hybrid approach not only saves time by providing you with complete control of your test cases but also lets you achieve much higher efficiency by letting you set the priority order throughout the regression suite.
Hence, it might be considered the most preferred one among all the regression testing techniques but we will always suggest you make every decision based on your specific requirements and prioritize staying away from the unnecessary hassle by automating all your tests.
Till now, you got the idea about how you can proceed with regression testing and it has also become evident to you that without proper tools, it is almost impossible to keep the CI/CD pipeline steady with manual testing. That's why you must check out the most effective regression testing tools mentioned below to decide the best-suited one for you.
Preflight is indeed the simplest yet most effective automated testing tool that you can find in the market. It is a simple browser extension that lets you create all your tests within seconds while you do not have to deal with even a single line of coding.
On top of that, you get the flexibility to re-run those tests whenever you want and carefully analyze the auto-recorded versions of the tests to get a clearer picture of your product's performance and quality. We must provide you with a descriptive view of the following amazing features -
Features
2. Avo Assure
It is another no-code test automation tool that is a perfect choice for those who do not like to deal with complex technologies. With this awesome tool, regression testing is just a matter of a few clicks.
Using it keeps you away from the worries of cross-platform support for testing across the web, desktop, mobile, ERPs, mainframes, associated emulators, and many more.
This tool is your gateway towards a highly stable CI/CD pipeline through end-to-end regression testing without any coding at all. Now, let's take a closer look at its features.
Features
3. Selenium
When the discussion is about test automation, there is hardly any possibility that Selenium is not talked about.
It is one of the most popular and effective test automation frameworks available out there. Selenium maintains itself as one of the top names of browser-based cross-platform automated regression testing tools.
Let's check out some of its top features.
Features
4. Katalon Studio
Katalon Studio is a highly renowned name as an end-to-end automation solution for functional and regression testing. It has made our selection for the best regression testing tools for providing its users with the following features.
Features
5. Watir
Watir is the conventionally abbreviated form of “Web Application Testing In Ruby” and as the name suggests, it is an awesome open-source testing library in Ruby programming language. Though its scope is limited to the applications written in a single programming language, it has some amazing features that you can check out below.
Features
From all the discussion above, you can clearly understand that regression testing is a type of software testing that has a massive role in maintaining the best performance as well as the reputation of your business.
You have also seen how manual regression testing can turn out to be a nightmare in terms of overall efficiency in the entire development process. No matter if your product is a web app or a mobile app or any other tech product, you have to run various forms of regression testing like unit regression testing, partial regression testing, etc.
Remember, to run a successful tech business, regression testing is not the only thing to be taken care of. You have to put significant time, effort, and resources into crucial forms of testing such as functional testing, smoke testing, API testing, etc.
And with a proper strategy, you can successfully achieve good efficiency in them.