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Decreasing false positives in automated testing

QASource presented on reducing false positives in automated testing. Some key points: 1. False positives occur when tests are incorrectly marked as failed when they should have passed. Common causes include reliance on UI elements, synchronization issues, and unstable test code. 2. False positives can impact automation by wasting time investigating failures, decreasing productivity, and obscuring real bugs. 3. Strategies to reduce false positives include using stable locators, short independent tests, dynamic synchronization, teardown logic, and re-execution of failed tests. 4. Eliminating false positives leads to more certainty in test results and reduced costs of automation.

Engineering◦
Related topics:
Automated Testing•Test Automation Tools• Cross-Platform Testing• Cross-Browser Testing•Continuous Integration•
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Reducing False Positives & Presents
QASource Confidential QASource & automation  100,000+ automated test cases  100+ Selenium engineers  500+ years collective automation experience  100+ automation frameworks
QASource Confidential Question #1 How many years of experience do you have with Selenium? < 2 years 2-4 years 5+ years What is the size of your automation suite? < 100 test cases 100-250 test cases 250-500 test cases 500+ test cases What is the most important reason why you invest in automation? Save Money Save Time/ Release Faster More QA Coverage Question #2 Question #3 Attendees poll
QASource Confidential Anand Ramakrishnan QA Director, QASource • 15+ years of automation experience • Directing a team of 150 engineers • M.S. in Computer Applications • M.S. in Cyber Law & Security
QASource Confidential Key learnings & takeaways What are false positives and why do they occur Common causes and the challenges How to implement key strategies to reduce them Case studies and real world examples FREE step by step guide to creating CSS locators
QASource Confidential What are false positives? Tests that are marked as failed, when in reality they should have passed or should functionally work.
QASource Confidential Why do false positives occur? Automation Approach Implemented Framework Written Test
QASource Confidential Relying on UI Relying on sequence of execution Manual intervention Slow performance Reference data change Shared environment Change in UI element properties Potential causes for false positives
QASource Confidential Impacts on automation Ignoring failures Wasting time investigating failures Decrease in productivity Frustration for engineering team Risk of missing potential bug Increasing cost of automation Uncertainty of application health
QASource Confidential Attendees poll What is the rate of false positives in your automation? 5% or less 5% to 15% 15% to 20% 20% or more
QASource Confidential  Complex workflow application  Rich interactive UI  2500+ automated test cases  Page object pattern approach  Multiple OS, browsers and environments Case study
QASource Confidential  Frequent UI Changes  Synchronization issues  Memory leak issue Challenges  Elements identified using Xpath  Hardcoded waits  No tear down ROOT CAUSE CHALLENGES
QASource Confidential Keys to reducing false positives Deploy application on optimal configurations
QASource Confidential Keys to reducing false positives Controlled environment for automation
QASource Confidential Keys to reducing false positives Keeping tests short
QASource Confidential Keys to reducing false positives Keeping tests independent TEST SCRIPT 1 TEST SCRIPT 2 TEST SCRIPT 3 TEST SCRIPT 4 Create User Create Group Add User to Group Search User
QASource Confidential Using right locators for objects identification Keys to reducing false positives IDs Name CSS locators
QASource Confidential Bad Practice Object identification strategy Good Practice
QASource Confidential Keys to reducing false positives Tear-down approach
QASource Confidential Bad Practice Tear down approach
QASource Confidential Good Practice Tear down approach
QASource Confidential Keys to reducing false positives Dynamic object synchronization
QASource Confidential Bad Practice Object synchronization
QASource Confidential Good Practice Object synchronization
QASource Confidential Keys to reducing false positives Re-execution capability RE-EXECUTION LOGIC FLAG TEST SUITE TEST CASE 1 TEST CASE 2 ————— ————— ————— TEST CASE N Pass Failed RE-EXECUTION OF FAILED TESTS Test case name Status Re- executed TEST CASE 1 PASS NO TEST CASE 2 PASS YES TEST CASE 3 FAIL YES _____ _____ _____ TEST CASE N PASS YES EXECUTION EXECUTION REPORT
QASource Confidential Conclusion Using right locators for objects identification Dynamic object synchronization Re-execution capability Tear-down approach Keeping tests short Keeping tests independent Controlled environment for automation Deploy application on optimal configuration
QASource Confidential Benefits of eliminating false positives Certainty of application health Increase in productivity Save time not investigating false positives Will not miss potential bugs Decrease cost of automation
QASource Confidential Get your FREE Step by Step Guide to Create CSS Locators qasource.com/css-locatorsknowledgecenter@qasource.com
QASource Confidential Q&A
QASource Confidential