Table of Contents
Introduction
Test reporting is essential to make sure your application performs as expected. Done properly at the right time, test reporting gives the development team the opportunity to fix the issues at the early stage.
The success of test reporting depends on choosing the right tool. With the existing number of open-source and commercial tools, it becomes a challenge to choose the right one.
In this article, we will tell you about the basics of test reporting and the possible challenges that might occur. We have also researched the existing test automation reporting tools and prepared an overview of the 5 most frequently used ones. Stay tuned!
What is test reporting?
A test report is a document that contains an organized summary of testing goals, activities, and results. It is used for presenting testing results in an organized way. Test report describes the way the testing was held and comparing the objectives with test results. The report helps the stakeholders to define the product quality and to decide if it is ready for release. If it shows a big number of defects, the stakeholders may decide to delay the release.
For the QA team, the test report provides information regarding the quality of their test automation. Have they achieved the testing goals? Were they able to find the issues at the early stage? How many unnecessary operations were there? Did the testing scripts perform well?
Test report structure
What should the test report contain? It depends on the project, testing goals and the tools that were used.
Anyway, the content of the test report should be clear, logical, and simple. But not too simple — this can result in loss of important information. At the same time, if the report is too detailed, it will also be hard to see the full picture.
Now we will tell you about the main points of the test report structure.
Project information
Here you may include some basic information about the product: name, description, version.
Test information
App testing will involve several rounds: unit testing, performance testing, system testing, integration testing etc. Here, you can describe the plan and the goal of each round of testing.
Test summary
In this part, you include general information about your testing activity: the number of test cases executed, fail & pass percentage, and comments. This information should be visualized with the help of diagrams, graphs, and tables.
Defects found
This is the most important information in the test report — here you describe the bugs that were found:
- Total number of bugs
- Status of bugs (open, closed, responding)
- Number of bugs open, resolved, closed
- Breakdown by severity and priority
- Logs, screenshots and screencasts, and other relevant data.
A good report is written according to a standard template accepted in the company — it is easier for the stakeholder to study the reports from many projects. It also shouldn’t remind an essay, but briefly describe the test specification.
Challenges in test automation reporting
Most of the challenges that are likely to evolve during the testing and reporting process are non-technical. Despite the importance of testing, it is often underestimated by the stakeholders and developers. Since the goal of quality assurance is finding bugs, this means additional work for the development team and possible delay of product release.
Tight deadlines
Generally, test reporting is one of the final stages in the software development process. Since the release is near at hand, testing and reporting need to happen quickly. The team has to decide on product quality and fix possible issues within weeks or even days. Otherwise, the release will either be delayed or the product of questionable quality will be delivered.
Noisy testing data
Testing generates a massive amount of data: automation scripts, test results in different devices, browsers, and versions. Sometimes the obtained data is useful, sometimes it is noise. It can be difficult to make sense of it and to define the data which is worth attention.
Junk data originates from vague test cases, environmental issues and other factors that cause false-negative or false-positive results. It takes additional time to validate the test result and to understand the root cause of the issue
Numerous data flows
This challenge is closely connected with the previous one and is particularly relatable for larger organizations. With testing, the team receives the data from numerous sources: several teams, testing types tools, and testing frameworks.
Here, the organization needs a general way to sort and use this data in the right way. Otherwise, the risk of missing an important issue grows.
5 automation tools for test reporting
We have already studied the need of test reporting, the information the test report should contain, and the challenges the QA team comes across. Now let’s come to the overview of reporting tools.
Here are some features you can find in test reporting tools:
- Managing the data in different programming languages
- Integration with different automation frameworks
- Export of a report in different formats (HTML, PDF, XML)
- Graphic visualization of a report (graphs, tables, diagrams_
- Integration with CI\CD (continuous integration \ continuous delivery) process
Allure Framework
Allure is a popular open-source framework for creating testing reports. It is flexible, lightweight, and is compatible with numerous programming languages and test automation tools.
Using Allure for test reporting allows the developers and QA engineers to shorten the defect lifecycle. Test failures are divided into product defects and test defects that saves time for defect analysis. The reports also contain logs, testing steps and information about timing. Allure also supports CI\CD and bug tracking systems that allows to quickly find the necessary information about the particular test or defect.
The tool also provides clear visualization of the report.
ExtentReports / Klov
ExtentReports is an open-source library allowing you to create custom reports for your tests. You can add to your report any information you consider important: screenshots, tags, devices, authors, etc. The framework is compatible with Java and C#. It also integrates with Cucumber, SpecFlow, JUnit and TestNG testing tools.
ExtentReports is also associated with Klov, which allows you to track all your launches in all your projects. It is also possible to analyze test performance over time, compare each category in detail, set exceptions, create topics for discussion and reminders. The framework is open-source but also has a commercial version.
ReportPortal
ReportPortal is an open-source test reporting service that is integrated with CI\CD, project management tools, and testing frameworks like Cucumber, JBehave, SpecFlow or Jasmine.
It provides improved capabilities for speeding up the reporting with the help of integrated analytic features. Test execution results are stored together with your reporting suites and test plans. The test cases are displayed together with relevant data: logs, screenshots, you also can access the previous results in one click.
The tool also gives an opportunity to automatically analyze the root cause of the problem, whether it is a product bug, automation or a system issue. This can be submitted as an issue ticket, the tool also automatically marks test results. The engineers are notified about the issue for further analysis.
JUnit + Jenkins
Jenkins is a CI\CD tool and JUnit is its plugin for generating XML test reports with graphical visualization. It also provides a web interface for viewing reports, accessing the failures, tracking test results. Jenkins understands XML test reports by JUnit and can provide additional useful information about test results, like trends.
TestNG + Report NG
TestNG is a popular unit testing framework that comes with a default reporting feature. Apart from basic summary reports, it also can generate detailed ones. Without a human presence, the tool creates an XML report with information about errors, tests that were run, the status of test scenarios, etc.
ReportNG is an HTML reporting tool built by TestNG testing framework. It can be used instead of a default TestNG reporting tool. For its test reports, it uses a color-coding mechanism, making the report more readable and understandable.
Conclusion
Now you have read the articles and know everything about the importance of test reports and how to write them. You are also aware of existing test reporting tools that are the most popular in the market.
If you have come up with an idea for a new product, feel free to contact our specialists. During the free consultation, we will explore the possible options and offer you the best conditions.