Choosing the right test reporting tool for your Automation Testing

Test reporting is very crucial for any automation testing as it outlines the key activities performed during the entire Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC)

-By Saranya, Senior Consultant, CoffeeBeans Consulting

When it comes to automation testing, a detailed test report generated using the right reporting tool can do wonders. Test reporting is very crucial for any product release because it keeps the stakeholders, business analysts, and product owners informed about whether a product, feature, or defect resolution is ready for release and to go live.

It’s the blueprint that shows how the scripts were executed without which it becomes difficult to identify the test steps, execution time, checkpoints like test cases passed, test cases failed, test cases that were skipped or broken and if test cases were failed, skipped or broken what was the actual result, expected result and its failure reason and how to execute the failed test cases.

A test report is the outline of key activities carried out during the entire Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC). It provides information about testing such as scope, tests performed be it a Unit testing, Integration Testing or End-to-End Testing, defects and overall quality assured by providing proper statistics of the test execution. For any test pyramid level, a test report is a helping hand in understanding its information and gauging the reports’ progress.

a. Image of how a Test Report Summary with execution trend looks like. Image taken from Allure Framework git repository.

b. Image of how a Test Report with result statistics looks like. Image taken from Allure Framework git repository.

By the end of this blog, you will be able to understand the aspects and metrics to select the best reporting tool for a QA.

Criteria for choosing the right test reporting tool

There are many factors to consider before deciding on a reporting tool. Some of them are

• Ease of Use: It should be easy to customize with minimal assistance and master. This will help the folks reading the report to analyze and understand faster.
• Compatibility: It should be flexible enough to be compatible with a wide range of various automation testing tools and frameworks.
• Multi-Language It should be flexible enough so that it can be used among various programming languages.
• Report Format: it should be compatible with a wide range of report formats (e.g., HTML, XML, etc.).
• Integration among Test Frameworks: It should be able to integrate seamlessly with frameworks such as TestNG and JUnit.
• CI pipeline configurations: It should be compatible and easily configurable with CI pipelines.
• Visual Representation: The UI should be clean and easy to use as this is the artifact of any test execution.
• Comprehensive report format :It should provide a comprehensive report on the test execution and test result like how the test results have evolved over time with every bug fix and its progress throughout the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC).
• Test Statistics :It should be easily understandable by any person outside the team with clear statistics on test execution.
• Tech Support: It should have sufficient tech support, tutorials to start with and help with troubleshooting.
• Price: The Pricing of the reporting tool is one of the key determining factors as it has a significant effect on the budget of any project. It has to have varying pricing plans to support any budget and be flexible enough to enable any features and its capabilities for that budget.

A test report needs to be very intuitive and simple for anyone to understand. The only artifact of any automation test execution is the test result which determines whether to release a product or not.

Metrics that must be considered when customizing the test reporting tool:

Now that we have seen the deciding factors for an effective test reporting tool, here are some of the metrics that a report should have irrespective of the features that any reporting tool provides

• Title: The test report should have the title of Project/Module executed using automation
• Description: Description gives a gist about any tests in detail. It should have a description for every Test Suite like feature description and Test Case like scenario description.
• ID Tests are uniquely identified by their IDs. It should have the Test Case ID of each Test Case
• Timestamp: Timestamp gives us information about the efficiency of any test execution. It should have a timestamp for each

-Test Steps executed

-Test Cases executed

-Test Suites executed

-Overall execution timestamp

• Statistics : It should have the statistical info on execution trend and total number of each

-Test Steps in a Test Case

-Test Cases in a Test Suite

-Test Suites in the automation package

• CheckPoints: It should have the checkpoint details like Pass/Fail/Skipped/Broken status in percentage for each

-Test Steps

-Test Cases

-Test Suites

• Attachments: Failure attachments like screenshot, error message, expected value, and its actual value.
• Configurations: Configurations details include machine information and the environment in which the test is executed.
• Overall Percentage Overall Pass/Fail percentage is the determining factor for any feature release.
• Report distribution and Notification: Report distribution of test execution and notification of failures if in case any to relevant team members, product owners and stakeholders via email or similar platform.

Some widely used test reporting tools:

With the understanding of metrics that any test report should have, here are some of the widely used reporting tools with flexible features that accommodate the needs of any project.

• TestNG Reporting Tool
• JUnit Reporting Tool
• ReportNG
• Allure
• PyTest HTML
• Extent Reports
• Calliope.pro
• HTML Publisher + Jenkins
• JUnit Plugin + Jenkins
• Maven Surefire Plugin + Jenkins

Conclusion

Test reports should be able to be extracted immediately at the ease of stakeholders, business analysts and product owners’ request. It should be concise, understandable and to the point so that they can quickly grasp the information and progress of testing activity and hence give a final sign off to proceed with the release.

It is always good to stay updated on tools and frameworks that are available in the market with their functionality at their best. The main aspect is that it should support a wide range of programming languages irrespective of its platform. Here, we have seen a detailed look at some of the criteria and metrics to be considered for selecting the best test reporting that suits the need.

It is always good to be the best grass among the bush. It is always good to select the best test reporting tool and customize it with ease that can help the team to efficiently keep track of things which makes the team stand out among others.

We hope this has helped you with the criteria to be considered in search of the right test report for you.