The term cross-platform automation is used in a different part of the IT industry. Resource from communities and open-source projects point out the definition of the term can relate to running a program or system over different programming environments, operating systems, and even on physical hardware devices.
Each operating service and device have its own programming interface for applications. Manipulating these in various ways can help IT companies run effectively in many environments.
To know more let’s start with the definition of cross-platform.
Here we are covering the followings:
- What is Cross-Platform?
- What is Cross-Platform Automation?
- Why Cross-Platform Automation is Important?
- Steps to do Cross-Platform Automation
- Benefits of Cross-Platform Automation
- Best Practices for Cross-Platform Automation
- Conclusion
What is Cross-Platform? 🤔
A cross-platform is also known as multi-platform or platform-independent is a product or service that can work across multiple types of platforms or operating environments, which include both hardware and software systems. It may be the systems that involve separate builds for platforms, as well as other broader systems that are designed to work the same way across multiple platforms.
What is Cross-Platform Automation? 💡
Cross-platform automation helps you to ensures the quality of the product under different operating system types, versions, and confirms seamless functions of the application. These contingencies make cross-platform automation the most important task in the IT industry.
Even Microsoft products can dramatically change end-product behaviour and other operating systems also have several versions that should be checked for end-product support. Once the series of tests for a project is in place, these can be reused to test the software each time any changes or tweaks are made to the main code.
This is the best alternative to having to repeatedly check on everything manually. There are fewer chances for error and it allows you to get feedback on the current functional state of an application in a matter of minutes.
Why Cross-Platform Automation is Important? 🤩
Cross-platform automation is performed to find the behaviour of your website and application on various platforms. It helps you to identify errors that may vary with platforms or configurations such as consistency, user interface, usability, and performance errors.
For example, the user interface of your website may appear correctly in Chrome but the layout might be distributed in the Mozilla Firefox. Likewise, an android application might run correctly on Nougat but on KitKat. These types of issues can be identified by using cross-platform automation.
Cross-platform automation is very important when it comes to the IT industry. When a product or service is developed for multiple platforms, the choice of platforms is endless. If we talk about web applications there are always some new versions available in browsers, while for desktop applications the combination of operating system and configuration is huge.
Here are some main reasons:
- It is difficult to test for multi-lingual websites manually
- Automation doesn’t require human intervention. You can run automated test unattended even on nights
- Automation increases test execution speed
- Automation increases test coverage
- It can’t too boring and also error-free prone
- It doesn’t consume time and cost
Steps to do Cross-Platform Automation 🤓
Cross-platform automation can be tricky to perform if you don’t play it carefully. Then if the cross-platform requirements not communicated to the developer and testers clearly, it may lead to product unsuccessfulness and might be good for only one platform or configuration.
The following are the points that may help you to plan for cross-platform automation:
- Learn about Your Audience 😊
The purpose of automation is to think like an end-user and create the use cases which a normal user might follow to perform their actions. If you know who will be the dedicated users of your application and what type of devices and platforms, they use the most.
Get some statistics records to bring everything under control. This will help you decide what platforms or devices should be focused on for cross-platform automation.
- Select Platforms to Support 🙂
If you are sure about your customer type, the next step is to decide which platform to support or how will the solution be implemented taking into view of your customers. If your customers that the end-users will be from western countries, then the dedicated platform can be an iOS platform.
- Limit your Test 🙅
The downside of automation is to know new use cases, every time you run an application. Usually, it is not feasible to test all possible scenarios, even it would not be an efficient approach. A logical approach can limit your test cases on some factual basis.
Spending your valuable time at the right place is the main key to success. By identifying the platform and application that you are going to test which covers maximum risk, which means you can target a maximum audience. Create a multi-dimensional matrix with a serious idea can be useful in determining things that are high priority and those which can wait.
- Invest in Emulator Software 🤑
The best option to perform cross-platform automation on various environments is to use emulators and virtualization. But purchasing multiple devices and gadgets is costly.
You can create your own virtual machines with different platforms and configuration combinations to test applications. Also, you can use emulators to see the behaviour of your devices and applications with different screen sizes.
Benefits of Cross-Platform Automation 🧐
Here is the list of cross-platform automation benefits:
- It is faster than manual work
- More test coverage for application
- Reliable and consistency
- It saves time and cost
- Improves accuracy and increase efficiency
- Doesn’t need human intervention while execution
- Re-usable test cases
- It works frequently and thoroughly
- The huge cycle of execution can be achieved through automation
Best Practices for Cross-Platform Automation 🤩
To get maximum ROI of automation, you need to be determined about your scope of automation in detail before the start of the project. This will set the expectation from automation in the right place. Firstly, select the right tool that must be selected based on its popularity but it’s must fit the automation requirements.
Choose appropriate framework and scripting standards while writing the scripts for automation. Create uniform scripts, comments, and indentation of the application code with adequate exception handling, which will handle the system failure or unexpected behaviour of the application.
Also, user-defined messages should be coded or standardized for error logging for developers and testers to understand clearly. The success of automation can’t be determined by comparing the manual effort but also by capturing the metrics which will make the automation the best.
- The time required for automation
- Percent of defects found
- Minimal time for the release
- Customer satisfaction index
- Improve productivity
Conclusion 😇
Cross-platform automation is not just about saving cost and time, it is also about finding the best process that can improve your business. As you find the platform that makes your business more efficient, you can also become more strategic about your business goals to take your planning to the next level.
Don’t forget to share your thoughts with us at LeadMine, if you have any.
