What to test

Testing tools can help automate tasks such as product installation, test data creation, GUI interaction, problem detection (consider parsing or polling agents equipped with oracles), defect logging, etc., without necessarily automating tests in an end-to-end fashion.

One must keep satisfying popular requirements when thinking of test automation:

• Platform and OS independence
• Data driven capability (Input Data, Output Data, Metadata)
• Customizable Reporting (DB Access, crystal reports)
• Easy debugging and logging
• Version control friendly – minimal binary files
• Extensible & Customizable (Open APIs to be able to integrate with other tools)
• Common Driver (For example, in the Java development ecosystem, that means Ant or Maven and the popular IDEs). This enables tests to integrate with the developers' workflows.
• Support unattended test runs for integration with build processes and batch runs. Continuous integration servers require this.
• Email Notifications (automated notification on failure or threshold levels). This may be the test runner or tooling[clarification needed] that executes it.
• Support distributed execution environment (distributed test bed)
• Distributed application support (distributed SUT)

A Software Test Plan is a document describing the testing scope and activities. It is the basis for formally testing any software/product in a project.

Test plan: A document describing the scope, approach, resources and schedule of intended test activities. It identifies amongst others test items, the features to be tested, the testing tasks, who will do each task, degree of tester independence, the test environment, the test design techniques and entry and exit criteria to be used, and the rationale for their choice,and any risks requiring contingency planning. It is a record of the test planning process.


One can have the following types of test plans:

Master Test Plan: A single high-level test plan for a project/product that unifies all other test plans.
Testing Level Specific Test Plans:Plans for each level of testing.

•         Unit Test Plan
•         Integration Test Plan
•         System Test Plan
•         Acceptance Test Plan

Testing Type Specific Test Plans: Plans for major types of testing like Performance Test Plan and Security Test Plan.