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Theoretically, automation is related to a dream of the person who wants robots to do all human work. In most cases, the work of the tester turns into long boring hours of performing routine, painfully familiar actions. This takes place in the regression testing phase. It involves verifying that previously working software parts continue to work normally even after programmers fixed some issues in the code. We need to execute hundreds of test cases that are verified every several numbers of weeks or even days. Once you enter the name “Los Angeles” in the field “City” 5 times, very soon you will want to howl like a wolf, won’t you? This is where automation comes in. In other words, a specialized software program takes care of all routine work. Automated testing service is a way to faster product publication!

Frankly speaking, the author of this article has never seen a man who does not admire when first seeing “automation in action”. The reactions can be very different, but only one was clearly remembered by the person. Once one of sales professionals walked past a certain office and saw the running script. His words can be translated as follows: “Is this machine possessed?” Such funny things happen in computer companies. Anyway, a well-staged automation process saves a lot of time and money. In general, it is a computer paradise, isn’t it? Not really. There is always a “but” in this imperfect world. Its dimensions vary depending on the situation, but it is always there, unfortunately. In the case of test automation, this “but” is that the automation of the work costs time and money (on the license and the salary) and, of course, is highly dependent on the skill of engineering staff. Test automation companies help to gain efficiency and mitigate the risk across all enterprise applications. The economic feasibility of automation can be determined by the following formula (its digital expression could not be found anywhere, and it is not unclear that it formally exists, therefore, the author gives his own interpretation):

A = N Tt Pt / L + Ta Pa

where A – return on investment in automation; N – the number of executions of this test set during the development cycle; Tt – the time required to perform a set of tests manually, h; Pt – the tester’s salary per hour; L – cost of license (s) on software for testing; Ta – time spent on development and maintenance of automation, h; Pa – salary of test automation engineer per hour.

As can be seen from the formula, A> 1 means that the automation in this project is economically viable. It should be also noted that this formula considers only the economic benefit for the testing department. In the calculations for the entire development department this formula should be rewritten as follows:

A = N Tt Pt + P ii (Tt – Tii) / L + Ta Pa

where Pii – programmer salary per hour; Tii – time spent on an automated test set, in hours.

This modification is due to the fact that the faster the testing will be conducted, the quicker the defects will be found and the faster the programmers will begin to correct them, thus saving additional time and money.

So, as you understand, automation testing company enables to accelerate every project, allowing you to forget about expensive technology glitches and project delays.