Selenium Framework is a collection of automation testing tools that can run and rerun tests with various kinds of interactions on a target browser, all without any sort of manual inputs.
Why is it helpful?
With Selenium Framework, there is no need for repetitive manual testing, which takes a lot of time and work. Being quick and reliable, it helps businesses save on costs as well.
Where is it popular?
Computer Software companies primarily use it, second only to Information technology and services. Staffing and Recruiting industries, Hospitals and Healthcare, Financial Services, etc., also extensively use the Selenium automation testing framework.
Types of Selenium Framework (and when to use them)
Data-driven
This type of Selenium Framework depends on various sets of data imported into the testing tool as Excel sheets. The data is kept separately because if the input data given to the framework is huge, it’s tough to change these values on the script every time the test is conducted. Also, by keeping the data separate, you can run the same test multiple times with different inputs.
Keyword-driven
In order to avoid repetition of some parts of the code, methods or operations are not written in the script but written separately in an external file. These methods are then called using keywords. You must use a keyword-driven framework when several functionalities need to be tested. Thus, you can use the keywords to call methods for each specific operation.
Hybrid-driven
This is a combination of keyword-driven and data-driven selenium frameworks. The inputs list and the methods are stored in two different files and are called using the same code. When both input data and the number of functionalities are high, we should go for a hybrid-driven framework.
How to use selenium Framework
- Pick your programming language.
Java is usually the safest choice when it comes to starting any project. However, if you aren’t good at coding, you can also use the BDD or the behavior-driven development method to write selenium tests.
- Pick your unit test framework.
This is something we will build the framework on. You should look for one that works well with respect to the testing of integrated classes. It should enable your tests to be flexible and powerful with features like easy grouping, annotations, parameterizing, and sequencing.
- Design the architecture of your framework.
Your architecture must be maintainable as well as sustainable and scalable. Therefore, it should have two decoupled components called SeleniumCore and Selenium Test.
- Building of SeleniumCore component
This component manages browser instances and elements interactions. SeleniumCore can help you create and destroy objects of the WebDriver.
- Building of SeleniumTest components
This component consists of the test scenarios that make use of the classes that SeleniumCore provides.
- Choose your reporting mechanism.
When you scale up the volume tests automated and run them frequently, understanding the results of these tests becomes cumbersome. Therefore, it is crucial to find a proper reporting mechanism to draw conclusions from your tests with ease. The number of passed or failed test cases, the pass rate, reasons why the test cases failed, and the execution time of the test cases must be among the details provided.
- Implementation of CI/CD
Encourage automation teams to collaborate and share their source codes. Also, store the test utilities and the source code of the tests in a version control system.
- Integration with other tools
Tools like AutoIt, TestRail, and Jira will help you work with desktop interfaces or upload test results automatically.