Design, build and implementation of an expert Automation framework for Cyclr’s cloud integration platform.
An exciting digital enterprise based in the South East of the UK, Cyclr lets you build powerful automated processes on top of the apps your business already uses.
To support their innovative product, Cyclr needed to implement a robust and agile testing approach using both automation and manual testing to ensure changes and enhancements made to the platform inspired confidence in their customers. Cyclr are always looking at ways to improve and adopt new approaches and required a test approach that complimented this evolutionary style.
Utilising an Agile/Scrum methodology, Cyclr’s Continuous Integration (CI) development approach with automated builds and deployment was rapid. In order that feedback on acceptance of user stories could be gained as swiftly as possible, it was essential that a test approach be implemented that could integrate seamlessly with the existing CI process. On top of this, the “connectors” built by Cyclr to allow many different applications to work together, required testing of many combinations that would be difficult and incredibly time consuming to test manually.
Our in-house automation specialists started by conducting onsite consultancy sessions with the Cyclr team to gain a full understanding of their product and the challenges they faced. This expert evaluation and feasibility study allowed us to advise on the benefit automation could bring to the organisation and its potential ROI. Following this analysis, a High Level Automation Test Design was generated. This document detailed the approach, structure and scope of the automation, the tools we planned to utilise and an overview of the test cases and test suites that we intended to automate.
As with all our automation projects, we ensured we had full agreement on the high level test plan and proposal before we began to build the framework.
After choosing the right tools and techniques for the job in hand, we implemented a scalable framework built upon Ruby and Watir-Webdriver to facilitate the regression testing of the Cyclr product. The framework was based upon a data driven approach using JSON as the format for defining the scenarios, test data and expected outcomes.
Connectors are the heart of Cyclr’s platform and are constantly being added and updated. The automation framework needed to facilitate the ability to quickly add new connectors and associated methods as these are developed, with minimal coding required.
Working closely with the Cyclr development team, we integrated automated testing into the existing CI process. This was an essential step in running the automated tests at regular (daily) intervals. In addition, we automated the process of reporting failures to the team via their online communication tool for complete and immediate visibility. As a result of this, the Cyclr development team receive a complete view as to the current working status of the key parts of their system under test.
The whole Cyclr team welcome the huge benefits the automation framework has brought to the development process of their product. Zoonou and Cyclr continue to work together today to enhance, update and maintain the framework, to ensure it’s reaching its full potential and providing great value to the team.
Looking at just the connector functionality alone, the time saved by automating testing is vast. Manual regression testing would take an average of 6.5 hours to execute each test, automation with follow-up analysis can do this in on average 1.5 hours.
For more information on Cyclr, please see cyclr.com.
"Implementing the automated test framework delivered by Zoonou has significantly reduced the time required to run our regression testing, and given us the confidence that our core user journeys are solid on each release we make."