Improving the quality of modern software is increasingly challenging due to the growing complexity of applications that include advanced components such as machine-learning algorithms, rich and interactive user interfaces, APIs, microservices, and multiple databases. These applications are expected to function seamlessly across diverse platforms and environments. Additionally, Agile and DevOps practices, adopted by many teams, necessitate rapid release cycles.
Achieving higher quality is nearly impossible without automated testing tools, and Microsoft offers several products that can streamline and enhance the testing process. Read this article to learn more about them.
Visual Studio Test Professional
Visual Studio Test Professional is one of Microsoft’s test management solutions that supports automation. It is designed to optimize tasks such as:
- Creating test plans and test suites;
- Organizing and managing test cases;
- Executing tests manually;
- Automating test execution;
- Providing continuous feedback through integration with Azure DevOps.
By adopting Visual Studio Test Professional, development teams can significantly increase test coverage, ensure consistent test automation, and benefit from continuous feedback, all of which contribute to better software quality.
Visual Studio with Selenium
Despite its similar name, Visual Studio is a separate product by Microsoft that serves as a robust integrated development environment (IDE). Visual Studio supports comprehensive product development throughout its lifecycle, offering rich language support including HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, C, C++, and others, along with design tools and code editing and debugging functionality.
While Visual Studio itself is not a test automation solution, it can be integrated with Selenium, one of the most popular test automation products available. In turn, Selenium is not developed by Microsoft, but it can be effectively used with Microsoft’s products.
Selenium is favored for its open-source nature, which means it is freely distributed. Another key reason for its popularity is its versatility: skilled developers can use Selenium to automate various applications, not only for test execution but also for tasks such as report generation. Furthermore, Selenium supports diverse types of testing, including functional and basic performance testing.
By using Visual Studio with Selenium, developers can harness automated regression testing, which is increasingly challenging to manage manually in today’s software landscape, ensuring cross-platform compatibility of tested applications.
Azure Test Plans
Azure Test Plans, available within Microsoft’s Azure service suite, is an exploratory test toolkit that supports automated testing through integration with Azure Pipelines. By incorporating this toolkit into Azure Pipelines, users can perform testing within continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) workflows. This integration allows users to automate test cases within build and release pipelines and utilize automated progress reports.
Azure Test Plans also supports manual testing, specifically user acceptance testing focused on evaluating software alignment with customer requirements.
It is worth noting that Azure Test Plans was introduced by Microsoft as a replacement for Microsoft Test Manager (MTM), originally launched alongside Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 and Visual Studio 2010. MTM was focused on manual tests, assisting testers in creating, organizing, and executing tests efficiently. The last available version of MTM was shipped with Visual Studio 2017 and has since been deprecated.
RSAT
Regression Suite Automated Testing (RSAT) is another Microsoft automated testing tool. This product has been specifically designed for automating regression testing within the financial and supply chain management components of Microsoft Dynamics 365 enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) suite.
RSAT converts recordings of tasks created in Microsoft Dynamics 365 into automated tests used in regression testing suites. It can be integrated with Azure DevOps to leverage CI/CD workflows for software quality optimization. RSAT also supports integration with Excel for test updates and maintenance and facilitates batch test execution, which improves test coverage.
While RSAT offers useful features, it has certain limitations that are addressed by alternative Microsoft Dynamics 365 testing tools, such as Executive Automats (https://www.executiveautomats.com/). Executive Automats features a no-code user interface, supports test automation across other modules within the software suite, and includes functionality for performance testing. However, RSAT stands out for its free distribution.
App Center Test
App Center Test, formerly known as Xamarin Test Cloud, is another test automation tool developed by Microsoft. This service is specifically designed to efficiently automate the testing process of native and hybrid mobile applications on both Android and iOS devices. App Center Test excels in automated UI testing, emphasizing validation of app functionality on real devices.
Conclusions
Microsoft is actively developing versatile testing solutions that support automation to assist developers and testers in enhancing software quality. Some tools provided by Microsoft, such as App Center Test and Azure Test Plans, offer flexibility and can be adapted to test various types of software products. Others, like RSAT, are tailored for testing specific applications.
Moreover, integrating these tools into a CI/CD pipeline supported by Azure DevOps can significantly streamline the testing process, ensuring continuous quality improvement and faster release cycles.
Note that you can use third-party tools to test software developed by Microsoft. For example, Selenium, the open-source tool discussed earlier, as well as Executive Automats, can be used as an alternative to RSAT for testing Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Leave a Reply