In this digital era, app developers are trying hard better their software with every passing day to meet the requirements of their growing customers. This is why they are constantly modifying and updating their software every month. But they must be very careful while testing, developing, or modifying those tools and applications as a tiny error in the process can hamper overall application.
Building an API regression suite will ensure you can make all the changes and modifications without disrupting the existing functionalities. The main purpose of this functionality is to identify bugs that might accidentally appear in a new build and eradicate previous bugs. Here, we will tell you the importance and the steps to develop a highly effective API regression suite.
Importance of the Effective API Regression Suite
The regression suite effectively better the quality of the application code at the release point. If it is not continuous, then the regression testing will appear before the release date.
With the help of the regression testing suite, a new code can be easily integrated into the previous code base without any complication. When the application returns to its working form, the API regression suite is verified, and the newly released code will be marked as safe to distribute to the customers.
The ongoing changes can produce errors and break the previous code. But the API regression suite will verify everything so the customers won’t get the faulty release code. This major mistake can lead the organization to lose revenues and create a poor customer experience.
This big mistake can be harmful to an organization as they can lose their loyal customers by releasing faulty applications. Remember, once you lose your customer’s trust, it is really hard to get it back. Hence, investing in or building an API regression suite is crucial to ensure top-quality release code builds.
What Are the Steps to Create An Effective API Regression Suite?
Multiple ways are there to produce an efficient API regression suite. You have to consider a few things to enhance efficiency and effectiveness on a very limited execution timeline. You can use groups to produce the API regression suite to incorporate all the tests that will easily cover the entire functionality of the application. However, you can do the group regression tests depending on the integrations, features, logical areas, functions, etc.
In this software development process, you can run a group for every release in a rotation. For instance, if you have four sets in the group regression testing cycle, you can only run one set in every release. However, alternatively, you can also go for continuous testing, where the testing will remain to continue regardless of the timeframe of the release.
On the other hand, the QA testing team first works to identify bugs and test new features before running the regression testing manually. You can run the automated regression tests according to your convenience. In this case, you do not need to follow the regression testing cycle to execute it. Now, let’s dive into the steps to know how to build an API regression suite effortlessly.
- Give Importance to Your Regression Tests
Generally, an application contains a set of important functions and some less important functions. The step of building an API regression suite is to observe and identify tests that will be important for the application. Hence, it would be best if you gave high priority to the fundamental and most important functions and less priority to the other not-so-important functions.
- Build Smoke Tests
When you implement the top-priority and vital test into the API regression suite, you can do it in the name of ‘build smoke test’ to test it on an everyday basis or after every build. You must finish the smoke test before all the other testing to avoid random shutdowns.
With the help of ACA or Applause Codeless Automation, every tester can easily automate the smoke test. This test enables the testers to run the test automation scripts so that it can boost the release velocity. So, when the tester implements it straightforwardly, it automatically helps to make the failure analysis simple and less complex.
- Manual Effort Is Necessary
The next step is to build a suite of tests for the common functionalities of your application. It is important since basic functionalities are mostly dependent and come up with very complex interactions. Therefore, it gets complicated for the automated testing tool to run the testing efficiently.
So, with the help of the manual regression tests, the QA team added exploratory tests to cover every test case that the automation tools could not cover. Also, other manual regressions help to cover other system workflows that are not ideal for automation.
- Test The Integration
You have to build an API regression suite that can do the tests effectively of your every back-end messaging engine, data feeds, and Application Programming Interface connection. The end-user will only see something while validating the integrated process that your application needs. Developing the regression test suite for these functionalities can often be hectic for the developer. But in the end, you will be happy and satisfied to see the results.
- Checking the Application Performance Mandatory
Whenever any change happens in the system, the performance and user experience also change. Often, the application starts to perform slowly after adding some new features. The slow performance can hugely affect the efficiency of the application. Naturally, the end-users will lose interest if your application works slowly and needs to be more responsive. So, performance testing is much needed while building the regression suite.
Conclusion
A developer can effectively build the regression suite either manually or automatically. But mainly, it requires both to provide efficient performance. You will be able to notice the beauty regression test suite when you will get the opportunity to run it whenever it is needed.
You must use the API regression suite in the most organized and flexible way to meet your business requirements. So, introduce the API regression suite to your development team to accelerate your business growth.