The widespread use of application testing is a rapidly growing phenomenon among organizations seeking digital transformation that have implemented RPA to optimize their processes. In the study published by IDC in June 2021,”PaasView and the Developer 2021“, software developers cited the lack of automation as the main obstacle to achieving optimal productivity.

The outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 has also prompted many organizations to prioritize the role of automation in the digitalization of work. So how exactly do RPA and application testing interact? And what impact can they have on optimizing your organization's processes?

In this article, we first look back at the major software development trends that are shaping the RPA and testing landscapes. Then, we discuss these two topics in greater depth.

Major trends in software development and their impact on organizations

Software development priorities are constantly evolving as business needs and strategies change. The IDC survey published in January on application development highlighted its prerequisites and its main impacts on the structure of organizations:

• An essential speed of development : The pressure exerted by time constraints during software development has increased significantly: 91% of businesses released software functionalities within a month or less, a substantial increase of 26% over the previous year.

• Strategic alignment : nearly half of the companies studied say they have “industrialized and integrated software capabilities with a certain alignment with the business”. Now, process changes need to be designed to fully align with the company's overall strategies.

• Systematic use of test and development : 72.5% of businesses increased their “adoption of advanced software testing and development strategies,” including using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automated testing rather than manual testing.

• New priorities : processes, security, and automated testing are emerging as the priorities in software development

What are the impacts of RPA on application testing?

The trends mentioned are clear: RPA and testing play a major role in allowing organizations to meet their deadlines and fully support their business strategies.

Here's how RPA can strengthen your organization :

• Improving the efficiency of business processes
• Reduce time spent on manual tasks
• Increase the productivity of your teams
• Automate time-consuming manual testing activities
• Streamline the processes for creating test data, creating reports on the status and development of test plans.

What synergies emerge from the application of RPA to application testing?

According to the study conducted by IDC, “the application of design thinking and the exploitation of RPA and automation also have the potential to make testing accessible - to humanize test approaches and to involve corporate subject matter experts as well as citizen developers to contextualize quality.”

By using automated application testing, software testers can test on a larger scale and more effectively. For example, they can use RPA to combine reports for failed test cases or to generate test data. Additionally, testers have the ability to combine testing and RPA to automate both traditional applications and existing software.

Finally, testing and RPA are particularly effective for review the assets required for application user interfaces (UI). Indeed, the joint use of testing and RPA allows teams to reduce system maintenance costs and get results more quickly.

In short, automated application testing can help Addressing the challenges of RPA : its complexity, its fragility and its governance and documentation requirements. Conversely, RPA can be based on the long experience of testers and test data. In fact, they provide a basis for creating organized libraries to ensure the maintenance and efficiency of applications throughout their life cycle. They thus contribute to the creation of a more structured framework to improve the quality of RPA. Users test not only automations, but also the applications that these automations make possible.

About StoryShaper:

StoryShaper is an innovative start-up that supports its customers in defining their digital strategy and the development of automation solutions tailor-made.

Sources: StoryShaper, UiPath, IDC