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An End-to-End BrowserStack Tutorial for Beginners

An End-to-End BrowserStack Tutorial for Beginners

Are you someone who wants to run their test cases on multiple browsers or machines? Then this BrowserStack Tutorial is a must-read for you as without it, you could be spending a lot of time, money, and effort to set up the multiple browsers or machines needed to perform the offline tests using real devices. As a premier Automation Testing Company in the market, we have opted for a cloud testing platform like BrowserStack that provides real cloud devices that consist of different platforms, browsers, and devices. BrowserStack is a cloud-based web and mobile testing platform using which is predominantly used by testers to perform Cross-browser testing of various web and native mobile applications across different platforms, different browsers, and different devices. 

So it has been established that using the cloud is the optimal choice. But why BrowserStack in particular when there are other cloud testing platforms are available could be a question looming in your mind. You will find the answer to that question in detail in this BrowserStack Tutorial. We have mentioned all the wonders you could do using BrowserStack and explained how to do it as well.

Why BrowserStack?

BrowserStack can be used to avoid the complexity of switching between the operating systems, browsers, and its different versions. When it comes to mobile application testing, we can avoid the hassle of having to buy all the mobile devices that are available today to perform the testing. BrowserStack is very flexible and scalable, making it possible to test anywhere and anytime. We can use BrowserStack as a remote lab, and we can even use it as Real Desktop Browsers or Mobile Browsers. There is no setup required for using Browser Stack. We can use it directly on any independent machine by using the Browser Stack URL and its login credentials. Yes, it is that simple.

There are 4 main features of BrowserStack that we will be exploring in this blog and they are namely, Live, Automate, App Live, and App Automate. Let’s get the ball rolling by exploring the ‘Live’ feature.

BrowserStack Tutorial for Live/Manual Testing Feature

The Live option will help you perform manual testing in a list of real cloud device platforms like Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows, and Mac. Once you select any platform, it will show a list of browsers like Chrome, Mozilla, IE, UC Browser, and Safari with different versions. Once you have selected the browser of your choice, it will create a session and open a browser. You can simply enter the URL of the site and kick start your manual testing the same way you would do on a real device.

BrowserStack Tutorial for Live or Manual Testing

Key Features in Live:

1. Switch Browser:

If you want to check the compatibility of the testing site in another browser, it is not necessary to close the current browser to switch to the other one. You can simply choose the ‘Switch Browser’ option, and it will display the device platform and browser list from which you can select the device and browser.

Switch Browser Feature

BrowserStack Tutorial for Switching the Browser

2. Resolution:

If you need to test your site in different screen resolutions, then you can make use of the ‘Resolution’ option. Once the ‘Resolution’ option is selected, a list of the available resolutions will appear, and you can select the required resolution to carry on with your testing as per your needs.

BrowserStack Tutorial for Changing Resolution

3. Reporting a Bug using BrowserStack:

The primary objective of testing across so many platforms and devices is to identify and report the bugs that are present so that the end-user doesn’t face any difficulty. Once you have found a bug, you can report it by clicking on the Report a Bug option. After you click on this option, you will see an option box to highlight the issue on the page. You can highlight the issue by using different options like rectangle, circle, pencil, etc.

In addition to that, you can even select the mode to report a bug. There are so many tools like Jira, Trello, GitHub, and Slack through which you could report the bugs. You can even share it by email or download the issue page if needed.

BrowserStack Tutorial to Report a Bug

4. Local Testing:

BrowserStack enables users to run tests on their internal development environments, on their localhost, or even behind a corporate firewall. This feature is called ‘Local Testing’.
Local Testing establishes a secure connection between the user’s machine and the BrowserStack cloud. Once Local Testing is set up, all the URLs will work straight out of the box, including the HTTPS URLs and also the ones behind a proxy or firewall.

BrowserStack local testing can be enabled for both ‘Live’ and ‘Automate’.

5. Local Testing Live

Download the BrowserStack local application from the local testing option and install it on your machine. Start the application, and you’ll see the BrowserStack local icon in the system tray area.

BrowserStack local icon

This enables Local Testing. Start a Live session and look for a green indicator on the Local Testing icon in the toolbar dock. You can launch the Live dashboard right from the app by just clicking on the BrowserStack Local app and navigating to Launch > Live.

Launching BrowserStack local

To resolve all requests to local URLs via your machine, click on the Local Testing icon and check the ‘Resolve all URLs through my network’ option.

Resolve all URLs option

6. Local Testing Automate

We wanted to leave no stone unturned in this BrowserStack Tutorial and so we have listed the numerous Frameworks and languages that are supported in BrowserStack in the image below.

 Languages and Frameworks supported in BrowserStack

We can enable and disable local testing automatically using the code snippet in our test scripts. In this example, we have used Java language, and so it displays the Java BrowserStack local dependency. We need to add this dependency in pom.xml

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.browserstack</groupId>
    <artifactId>browserstack-local-java</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.3</version>
</dependency>

This code snippet starts and stops BrowserStack local while running our test scripts.

import com.browserstack.local.Local;

# creates an instance of Local
Local bsLocal = new Local();

# replace <browserstack-accesskey> with your key. You can also set an environment variable - "BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY".
HashMap<String, String> bsLocalArgs = new HashMap<String, String>();
bsLocalArgs.put("key", "<browserstack-accesskey>");

# starts the Local instance with the required arguments
bsLocal.start(bsLocalArgs);

# check if BrowserStack local instance is running
System.out.println(bsLocal.isRunning());

#stop the Local instance
bsLocal.stop();

Steps involved in enabling BrowserStack local automate via command line:

1. Download the appropriate binary for your system:

  • OS X (10.7 and above)
  • Linux 32-bit
  • Linux 64-bit
  • Windows (XP and above)

2. Unzip the binary to a folder/directory on your machine.

3. Open your command-line interface and navigate to the folder containing the Local binary.

4. Run the binary using the following command:

BrowserStackLocal.exe --key sdfsdfsdfsgfggffsgdfg

After establishing the Local Testing connection, set the browserstack.local capability to true by adding the following snippet to your script:

caps.setCapability("browserstack.local", "true");

BrowserStack Tutorial for using the Automate Feature:

With the help of the ‘Automate’ feature we can use BrowserStack’s real cloud devices to automate our test scripts. The same languages and frameworks that were supported in Local Testing Automate will also be supported for Automate. So we can choose any language and framework from the list that we saw earlier. In this BrowserStack Tutorial, we will be using java to explain the BrowserStack Automate feature.

a) Selecting the OS and device/browser combination

You can easily select the OS and Device/Browser combination you’d like to test on, using the drop-down menus as shown below.

BrowserStack Tutorial to select the OS

BrowserStack Tutorial to select the device

For the above-selected combination, the BrowserStack sample code will be automatically generated. Now we can set up the sample code in the framework to run our test scripts in BrowserStack. Write the variables for the user name and access key. Pass the user name and password in BrowserStack URL. Set the desired capabilities to see the logs. We are setting the desired capabilities to tell the web driver, to choose the mentioned operating system, browser, and browser version. Create the object for the web driver and get the URL to open the website.

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.Platform;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.JavascriptExecutor;
import java.net.URL;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
public class JavaSample {
  public static final String AUTOMATE_USERNAME = "<USERNAME>";
  public static final String AUTOMATE_ACCESS_KEY = "<ACCESSKEY>";
  public static final String URL = "https://" + AUTOMATE_USERNAME + ":" + AUTOMATE_ACCESS_KEY + "@hub-cloud.browserstack.com/wd/hub";
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();
    caps.setCapability("browserName", "iPhone");
    caps.setCapability("device", "iPhone 11");
    caps.setCapability("realMobile", "true");
    caps.setCapability("os_version", "14.0");
    caps.setCapability("name", "BStack-[Java] Sample Test"); // test name
    caps.setCapability("build", "BStack Build Number 1"); // CI/CD job or build name
    WebDriver driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL(URL), caps);
    driver.get("https://www.google.com");
    WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.name("q"));
    element.sendKeys("BrowserStack");
    element.submit();
    // Setting the status of test as 'passed' or 'failed' based on the condition; if title of the web page contains 'BrowserStack'
    WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 5);
    try {
    	wait.until(ExpectedConditions.titleContains("BrowserStack"));
    	markTestStatus("passed","Yaay title contains 'BrowserStack'!",driver);
    }
    catch(Exception e) {
    	markTestStatus("failed","Naay title does not contain 'BrowserStack'!",driver);
    }
    System.out.println(driver.getTitle());
    driver.quit();
  }
  // This method accepts the status, reason and WebDriver instance and marks the test on BrowserStack
  public static void markTestStatus(String status, String reason, WebDriver driver) {
	JavascriptExecutor jse = (JavascriptExecutor)driver;
	jse.executeScript("browserstack_executor: {\"action\": \"setSessionStatus\", \"arguments\": {\"status\": \""+status+"\", \"reason\": \""+reason+"\"}}");
  }
} 
b) Execution process:
  • Once the script starts its execution, it will trigger the BrowserStack to run the script.
  • Every script execution will be maintained as a session with a unique session ID.
  • Under ‘All projects’, the scripts that are running and the ones that have been executed will be displayed.
  • Once the Script has started execution, all the logs will start getting recorded.
  • We can see a live video about what’s happening during the execution in BrowserStack.
  • Once the execution has been completed successfully, the Status will be changed from ‘Running’ to ‘Completed’. It will be denoted using a Green color dot.
  • If the execution has failed because of any error, then the Status will be ‘Errors’.
  • If the session had timed out, then the Status will be mentioned as “Timeout”, and the status will be denoted using a Yellow color dot.

Observe the automate tab. We can see the test name on the left side of the tab, where BrowserStack enables us to debug the code with the help of Text Logs, Visual Logs, and Video of the session

  • Text Logs: They provide all the Information with the details of actions and timing.
  • Visual Logs: They provide the details with screenshots.

BrowserStack Tutorial to use Text log

  • Video: It records all the actions done through the automated script. It helps to identify the exact root cause of any error during execution.

It also has the option to play or download the video, using which we can watch the video in the dashboard or download it and use it to debug the error.

BrowserStack Tutorial to use Visual log

c) Run Tests in Parallel

On BrowserStack, we can run multiple Selenium WebDriver tests at the same time across various browser, device, and OS combinations. This is called Parallel Testing. Parallel Testing gives us the same benefits as running a multi-threaded application. We wanted to make sure that our BrowserStack Tutorial does more than just introduce you to the tool. We wanted everyone reading this blog to make use of BrowserStack’s full potential.

With Parallel Testing, we can run the same test on different browser/device combinations i.e. cross-browser testing, or run different tests on the same or different browser/device combinations as explained above. Parallel Testing will help us drastically reduce the run time of our test suite, resulting in faster build times and faster releases.

We can start testing in parallel using any of the popular test frameworks, and some of the popular frameworks are mentioned below:

  • TestNG
  • Gauge
  • JBehave
  • JUnit
  • Selenide
  • Serenity

Here, we are going to use the TestNG framework to explain Parallel Testing in detail.

To run the tests on multiple browsers in parallel with TestNG on BrowserStack Automate, follow the below steps:

1. Clone the testng-browserstack repo on GitHub (if not already done):

2. git clone https://github.com/browserstack/testng-browserstack.git

3. cd testng-browserstack

4. Install the dependencies using the following command:

5. mvn compile

6. Update parallel.conf.json files within the testng-browserstack/src/test/resources/conf directory with your BrowserStack credentials as shown below:
parallel.conf.json

 {
   "server": "hub-cloud.browserstack.com",
   "user": "USERNAME",
   "key": "ACCESSKEY",
   "capabilities": {
     "build": "testng-browserstack",
     "name": "Bstack-[TestNG] Parallel Test",
     "browserstack.debug": true
   },
   "environments": {
     "chrome": {
       "browser": "chrome"
     },
     "firefox": {
       "browser": "firefox"
     },
     "safari": {
       "os": "OS X",
       "browser": "safari"
     },
     "ie": {
       "browser": "internet explorer"
     }
   }
 }

7. You can now run your tests in parallel on BrowserStack using the following command

 mvn test -P parallel
d) How to Run tests in parallel without a framework

We have also demonstrated how to run tests in parallel without a framework using a sample script that shows a multi-threaded Java program in this BrowserStack Tutorial. Before we head on to the script, let’s take a look at its salient points.

  • The same script is run across 3 different browser/device combinations viz. iPhone 12 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S20, and Safari on Big Sur.
  • The capabilities are being populated in a HashTable, and that is being passed on to the test function.
  • The test function has been written as a separate method, and it takes care of the starting of the test for each of the browsers after iterating on the HashTable that is passed on to it.
  • Multi-threading has been implemented by defining multiple classes, all of which implement the Runnable Java class.
  • The main class contains the main() method, and all the 3 threads are invoked from the main class
 import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.Hashtable;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.JavascriptExecutor;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
class TestClass1 implements Runnable {
	public void run() {
		Hashtable<String, String> capsHashtable = new Hashtable<String, String>();
		capsHashtable.put("device", "iPhone 12 Pro");
		capsHashtable.put("real_mobile", "true");
		capsHashtable.put("os_version", "14");
    capsHashtable.put("build", "BStack-[Java] Sample Build");
		capsHashtable.put("name", "Thread 1");
		mainTestClass r1 = new mainTestClass();
		r1.executeTest(capsHashtable);
  }
}
class TestClass2 implements Runnable {
  public void run() {
		Hashtable<String, String> capsHashtable = new Hashtable<String, String>();
		capsHashtable.put("device", "Samsung Galaxy S20");
		capsHashtable.put("real_mobile", "true");
		capsHashtable.put("os_version", "11.0");
		capsHashtable.put("build", "BStack-[Java] Sample Build");
		capsHashtable.put("name", "Thread 2");
		mainTestClass r1 = new mainTestClass();
    r1.executeTest(capsHashtable);
  }
}
class TestClass3 implements Runnable {
	public void run() {
		Hashtable<String, String> capsHashtable = new Hashtable<String, String>();
		capsHashtable.put("browser", "safari");
		capsHashtable.put("browser_version", "14");
		capsHashtable.put("os", "OS X");
		capsHashtable.put("os_version", "Big Sur");
		capsHashtable.put("build", "BStack-[Java] Sample Build");
		capsHashtable.put("name", "Thread 3");
		mainTestClass r1 = new mainTestClass();
    r1.executeTest(capsHashtable);
  }
}
public class mainTestClass {
  public static final String USERNAME = "USERNAME";
  public static final String AUTOMATE_KEY = "ACCESSKEY";
  public static final String URL = "https://" + USERNAME + ":" + AUTOMATE_KEY + "@hub-cloud.browserstack.com/wd/hub";
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
	  Thread object1 = new Thread(new TestClass1());
    object1.start();
    Thread object2 = new Thread(new TestClass2());
    object2.start();
    Thread object3 = new Thread(new TestClass3());
    object3.start();
  }
	public void executeTest(Hashtable<String, String> capsHashtable) {
		String key;
	  DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();
		// Iterate over the hashtable and set the capabilities
		Set<String> keys = capsHashtable.keySet();
    Iterator<String> itr = keys.iterator();
    while (itr.hasNext()) {
       key = itr.next();
       caps.setCapability(key, capsHashtable.get(key));
    }
    WebDriver driver;
		try {
			driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL(URL), caps);
	    JavascriptExecutor jse = (JavascriptExecutor)driver;
	    // Searching for 'BrowserStack' on google.com
	    driver.get("https://www.google.com");
	    WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.name("q"));
	    element.sendKeys("BrowserStack");
	    element.submit();
			// Setting the status of test as 'passed' or 'failed' based on the condition; if title of the web page contains 'BrowserStack'
			WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 5);
	    try {
	    	wait.until(ExpectedConditions.titleContains("BrowserStack"));
	    	jse.executeScript("browserstack_executor: {\"action\": \"setSessionStatus\", \"arguments\": {\"status\": \"passed\", \"reason\": \"Title matched!\"}}");
	    }
	    catch(Exception e) {
	    	jse.executeScript("browserstack_executor: {\"action\": \"setSessionStatus\", \"arguments\": {\"status\":\"failed\", \"reason\": \"Title not matched\"}}");
	    }
	    System.out.println(driver.getTitle());
	    driver.quit();
		} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

BrowserStack Tutorial for using the APP LIVE Feature

So the last feature that we will be seeing in this BrowserStack Tutorial is the App Live function that helps us to do native app testing in a list of real cloud devices. To use the native app in the BrowserStack devices, we can use the Upload or URL option.

a) Uploading/Testing the App

Click on the upload app button, and a system dialog window will open.

Go to the app folder, choose the App which you want to test, and the app will be loaded successfully. We will be able to see the app under the uploaded apps section.

This is not the only way to get this done, and you can upload the app in other ways as well. For example, you can click on ‘View all sources’ and select any type of source through which you are going to upload the app.

BrowserStack Tutorial to upload the app

After Uploading the App, select any device from the list of real Android or iOS devices. The device of your choice will be selected, and the app will be installed in it. Now you are all set to perform testing like how you would do using a real device.

Testing preview

b) Key Functions of App Live

1) Switch Device Function

Just like how you can shift from one browser to another, you can migrate from one device to another to perform your testing as well. Click on the ‘Switch device’ option, if you wish to switch the device at any given time. Once you are done with testing in a particular device, click on the Stop session option and it will navigate you to the dashboard page. Click on settings to choose the session time out and monitor size.
We can report the bug by clicking on the Report a bug option, just like how we discussed in the above Live Testing Section. Now let’s take a look at the web tool kit menu, which has some more options to operate the device feasibly and test the application.

Click on the ‘Rotate Device’ option to rotate the device horizontally or vertically. You can click on the ‘Install App’ option to install the new application. If you want to just close the app and not the device, then click on the ‘Kill app’ option. Click on ‘Change language’ to change the language for testing. If you are looking to check the complete device information, click on the ‘Device info’ icon.

2) Deleting the App

Click on the delete icon, and you will see the checkbox at each app. Select the checkbox, and click on the delete link and it is also important to keep in mind that it will delete the uploaded app automatically after the completion of 60 days from the date of upload.

BrowserStack Tutorial for using APP AUTOMATE Feature

BrowserStack App Automate enables you to test native and hybrid mobile applications using a testing framework.

Supported Frameworks

Here, we are going to use Appium to explain about App Automate. It’s easy to run your Appium tests written in Java on real Android and iOS devices on BrowserStack. This guide will help you get started with your first test.

1. Setup
  • You will need a BrowserStack username and access key
2. Upload your app

Upload your Android app (.apk or .aab file) or iOS app (.ipa file) to BrowserStack servers using our REST API. Here is an example cURL request to upload the app :

curl -u "USERNAME:ACESSKEY" \
-X POST "https://api-cloud.browserstack.com/app-automate/upload" \
-F file=@/path/to/app/file/Application-debug.apk

A sample response for the above request is shown below:

{
    "app_url":"bs://j3c874f21852ba57957a3fdc33f47514288c4ba4"
}
3. Setup and run your test
  • Specify the application under test using the app capability. Use the app_url value returned at the time of app upload (Step 2) to set this capability.
  • Specify the real Android or iOS device you want to test on, using the device capability.
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.List;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;

import io.appium.java_client.MobileBy;
import io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidDriver;
import io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidElement;

import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;

public class BrowserStackAndroid {

  public static String userName = "USERNAME";
  public static String accessKey = "ACCESSKEY";

  public static void main(String args[]) throws MalformedURLException, InterruptedException {
    DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();

    caps.setCapability("device", "Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus");
    caps.setCapability("os_version", "7.0");
    caps.setCapability("project", "My First Project");
    caps.setCapability("build", "My First Build");
    caps.setCapability("name", "Bstack-[Java] Sample Test");
    caps.setCapability("app", "<app_url>");

    AndroidDriver<AndroidElement> driver = new AndroidDriver<AndroidElement>(new URL("https://"+userName+":"+accessKey+"@hub-cloud.browserstack.com/wd/hub"), caps);

    AndroidElement searchElement = (AndroidElement) new WebDriverWait(driver, 30).until(
        ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(MobileBy.AccessibilityId("Search Wikipedia")));
    searchElement.click();
    AndroidElement insertTextElement = (AndroidElement) new WebDriverWait(driver, 30).until(
        ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(MobileBy.id("org.wikipedia.alpha:id/search_src_text")));
    insertTextElement.sendKeys("BrowserStack");
    Thread.sleep(5000);

    List<AndroidElement> allProductsName = driver.findElementsByClassName("android.widget.TextView");
    assert(allProductsName.size() > 0);

    // The driver.quit statement is required, otherwise the test continues to execute, leading to a timeout.
    driver.quit();
  }
}

4. Viewing test results

You can access the results of your test sessions on the App Automate dashboard as well as using our REST API. You can drill down into the details of a specific test session to view its execution details and debugging information such as video recording, network logs, and device logs.

Conclusion

We hope this BrowserStack Tutorial has been a good read for you, and that it was worth your time. Stating that BrowserStack is a highly resourceful tool is an understatement, as it has been instrumental in helping us provide the best Automation Testing Services. BrowserStack is one tool you should add to your arsenal as the benefits it brings to the table are of high value. Though there are alternatives available for this very same purpose, as a leading QA company, we at Codoid have always used BrowserStack for all our projects and that is why we have written this BrowserStack Tutorial as well. They are the pioneers in their domain, making them the best choice if you don’t want to take a chance with your testing just like us.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What is the BrowserStack tool?

    BrowserStack is a cloud-based testing tool where developers and testers can test their websites and mobile applications across browsers, operating systems, and real-time mobile devices.

  • Is BrowserStack a testing tool?

    Yes, BrowserStack is a testing platform that enables easy testing of mobile applications and websites across Browsers and devices.

  • Is BrowserStack free to use?

    Though it is not free to use, BrowserStack does have a free trial account that includes 30 minutes of live testing, 100 minutes of automated testing, 100 screenshots plus responsive, 30 minutes of app live testing, and 100 minutes of app automated testing.

  • Why is BrowserStack used?

    It is challenging to test an application in real-time across a variety of browsers and mobile combinations, operating systems, and version ranges. By using BrowserStack, you may eliminate the hassle of switching between operating systems, browsers, and versions. It also allows users to test the latest version of mobile/tablet devices without purchasing it.

  • Who uses BrowserStack?

    Both developers and testers use BrowserStack to do cross-browser testing for website applications and various mobile applications.

Here Are Three Reasons to Start Building Your Digital Wallet

Here Are Three Reasons to Start Building Your Digital Wallet

Everything is going digital nowadays. If your business has not hopped onto the trend, you might lose the market’s interest or make their purchase inconvenient. If you want to make your business more convenient and explore ways to advance your business, a digital wallet would is a good starting point.

What You Should Know About Digital Wallets

A digital wallet or e-wallet stores the user’s payment information (their credit card information, passwords, other types of cards, coupons, or tickets). Some of the popular ones you probably have come across are Google Pay, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Android Pay, Paypal One Touch, Visa Checkout, and more. 

These apps were developed so that users do not have to bring out their physical cards whenever they make an online or in-store purchase. Thanks to digital wallets, their payment information is safely stored. These apps secure the data by providing encryption, requesting passwords, or requiring fingerprint scans before people can purchase. 

This technology makes purchasing a one-tap or one-click process. Aside from quick payment, it also stores loyalty details and online vouchers, placing financial information in one system. 

Why You Should Consider It

If you are a retailer planning to build your digital wallet, you have made the right decision. Here are the advantages you could get from this option:

1. You Provide a More Secure Payment Platform for Your Customers

You may be thinking that having an e-wallet can give your customers a riskier experience. Digital wallets follow strict security protocols—one of which is biometric authentication. 

Another one is by tokenization. The technology turns any sensitive information into data into a random string of characters that make it hard for hackers to decipher. When they make a payment, this series of characters get transported to the bank’s system. Even if their stored data is breached, it would be impossible for the hackers to find out people’s personal information with the key that unlocks the encryption. 

2. Your Customers Enjoy Smaller Transaction Fees

When your customer pays directly to your digital wallet, it eliminates the additional expense and banking fees. Since they would pay you directly, the added step of banking transactions is eliminated in the process, saving them money and time.

At the same time, this technology also helps your business save on expenses. You no longer have to print out physical receipts, invoices, and other store expenses. 

3. They Get an Enhanced Customer Experience

Digital wallets can speed up the online and in-store checkout process, which is always an added convenience. There is no need to line up or repeatedly enter payment information because you can already complete the transaction in one tap. 

Moreover, most digital wallets are designed to allow retailers to provide special offers or discounts to their customers. All these are added benefits for the customer.  

Conclusion

Launching a digital wallet for your business is not just a way to provide your customers with added convenience. It is also for the business’ low operating cost, payment security, and potentially increased sales. Digital wallets are specially designed to benefit all parties involved. If you would like your business to experience the enumerated advantages, consider setting this up for your business. 

Once you have the software, make sure that it works in the best way possible. Let top software testing companies challenge it before you launch. Codoid is one of the top QA companies in the world. We provide automation testing, mobile app testing, performance testing, and data analytics testing to ensure that software would deliver. Contact us to learn more about how we can help.

How to Adopt Continuous Testing to Reap Its Benefits

How to Adopt Continuous Testing to Reap Its Benefits

At present, every techie has Agile, Continuous Delivery, and DevOps in their vocabulary. Everyone wants to be Agile, releasing software quickly, creating products that are innovative just like Silicon Valley startups and giants. A lot of points regarding the transformation are widely understood, and to a certain extent, have been adopted successfully. There is an area, however, where there are still adoption challenges as well as considerable confusion. 

More specifically, it involves the testing process. As the release cycle of software shrinks from years to months, down to just weeks and days, or even quicker: how can the testing practices best be reshaped in order to ensure the released software—still in production—does not frustrate users? How do we make sure it does not break and cause disappointment?

This challenge is not uncommon, especially since most DevOps shops find that the most frustrating software production bottleneck is testing.

Understanding Continuous Testing

The answer lies in Continuous Testing, which is essentially the process of automated software testing as a service, a key part of software delivery that gives instant feedback on any risks from a software release candidate. While that sounds incredibly straightforward, there’s more nuance to it than that—the very magnitude, nature, and essence of transformation Continuous Testing gives. 

Continuous Testing is basically about shifting testing from an event that is time-boxed amidst a process that is linear to having it embedded as an ongoing, fundamental part of all activities throughout the software delivery cycle.

End Goal

“In-sprint testing” should be the goal in agile environments of Continuous Testing. Whether or not your sprint is 2 weeks or 4 weeks, completing all types of testing within that sprint should be the goal. This is so that each sprint is able to end with ready-to-ship, fully tested software. The best continuous delivery practices show that it is incredibly impossible to do continuous delivery without continuous testing. If the sprint seems too short for comprehensive testing to be allowed, it is likely being looked into inaccurately.

The Process 

The most important one is to define the tests even before a single line of code is written. Not having clarity in terms of requirements and interpretations that turn out to be wrong will lead to delays and reworking. It is also key to optimize coverage and tests, since some organizations end up defaulting to simultaneous testing. Unfortunately, all this accomplishes is prolonging test cycles and wasted resources.

For “in-sprint” testing to be developed, shift testing left in order for the tests to run earlier within the cycle of development. It’s also important for the test environment to be complete, since this is critical for continuous testing. Lower wait times and eliminate blocks through providing a test environment that is complete on demand, making sure that there are dev-friendly tools (as code, CI/CD integrations, supported open source). Don’t forget ephemeral environments, test data on demand, and virtual services! 

Most importantly, make sure you have the right test data.

Conclusion

It is important to have cross-team collaboration and actionable analytics as well as feedback loops when it comes to continuous testing. While manual testing services have competencies, automation streamlines everything in a way that helps your organization much more efficiently. When in doubt, look to quality assurance professionals for assistance.

In search of automation testing companies you can rely on? Contact Codoid today! We are an industry leader in quality assurance with a brilliant team of engineers ready to help you.

What can a tester do with the Chrome DevTools Console panel?

What can a tester do with the Chrome DevTools Console panel?

Chrome DevTools has several panels – Elements, Console, Sources, Network, Performance, Memory, Application, Security, and Audits. Today you are going to learn DevTools’ Console panel from a testing perspective.

What can you see in the Console panel? You can access error messages which are thrown by the parser. Sometimes the web application under test may not show errors on the UI. However, you may see JavaScript error messages in the console panel.

The errors are not show-stoppers or creating issues. Why should I bother? If the pages are error-free, there are some benefits you can reap.

  • When a website is error-free, it will improve SEO.
  • The errors may not create any issues now. However, when you add new snippets in the JavaScript files, it may produce unexpected issues. It is better to have an error-free Console panel for all the pages so that the developers can add new scripts confidently.

As a software tester, you must report JavaScript parser errors, which you see in the Chrome DevTools Console panel. When you notice an error, you will have to check from which JS file it is originated.

You can get the source file information at the right-side of the Console panel.

Chrome DevTools Console

There are three types of messages Chrome DevTools shows – Informational, Warning, and Error. Informational Message is displayed without any background color. Warning message in Yellow and Error in Red background color.

If you want to view only Error messages, you can select ‘Errors’ in the ‘Default Levels’ drop-down.

Console’s Command Prompt

Console panel has its Command prompt. It is a node command prompt. If you want to run any JavaScript snippets on a webpage, you can use this command prompt. Where can I find the command prompt? You can find the command line cursor below the log messages.

Chrome DevTools Command Prompt

Selecting Elements

Everyone is aware that we can search elements in the Elements panel using XPath/CSS Selector. However, you can select an element in the DevTools Console panel as well. If you know about the ‘document.querySelector’ method, then it is straight-forward.

‘document.querySelector’ method accepts a CSS selector as an argument, and it selects only one element. If you want to select multiple elements, use the ‘document.querySelectorAll’ method in Console’s command prompt.

Using the ‘document.querySelector’ method, it returns one element, and you can focus on that element without any distraction. Whereas in Elements panel, it just highlights the selected element.

Selenium Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP)

Now Selenium 4 has support to listen Console log messages. Manually, you can open the console panel and monitor the logs. However, in automation testing, there was no way to listen the logs.

DevTools devTools = driver.getDevTools();
devTools.createSessionIfThereIsNotOne();
devTools.clearListeners();

devTools.send(Log.enable());
 
devTools.addListener(Log.entryAdded(), logEntry -> {
System.out.println(logEntry.getText().contains("404"));
        });
 
driver.get("https://codoid.com/fafafafsasf");

In Selenium 4, using Chrome DevTools Protocol, you can listen the logs. Refer to the below code. Note: Selenium 4 is not released yet. We have used Selenium 4 alpha version to accomplish the snippet.

In Conclusion

As a QA Company, we use the Chrome Console panel to access logs messages and report the errors to our clients’ developers. In the subsequent blog articles, we will be publishing on Chrome DevTools’ other panels.

Continuous Testing in the Retail Industry

Continuous Testing in the Retail Industry

With the rapid changes in technology, the digitization across the business sectors had a tremendous impact on the retail industry. The retail sectors have been the most affected by the rapid digitization moves and changes among the business sectors. At the front end, the continuous Retail Testing Services includes stable and user-friendly customer experience. On the other hand, if we talk about the back end, then the Retail Testing Services has a transaction data load.

For the entire retail industry, the center of the business is primarily the customer experience. If the customer has a bad experience with the mobile app or storefront, it would significantly impact the customers’ experience. It will indeed affect the bottom line of the business as well.

The retail industry is continuously facing significant challenges due to the digitization process in today’s date. All businesses in the retail sector face many challenges. The challenges are met at both the application and the business level. Therefore, continuous testing in the retail industry is a must in order to fix all those challenges, thus ensuring the success of the retail industries.

What Is Continuous Testing?

Continuous testing is a process that involves the testing of the software at every stage of the software development cycle. The main and primary goal of continuous testing is to evaluate software quality at every step of the ongoing delivery process by testing often and testing early. Incorporating continuous testing in the retail industry is a great way to ensure that all the products are released to the market at the quality customer expect.

In other words, we can say that continuous testing is a software testing type in which the product is often and early evaluated throughout the entire ongoing delivery process. The process of constant testing enables constant feedback for the developers to fix all the bugs before being released to production. This process will increase the time to market for the retail industries but will also improve the quality that the customers expect.

Why Involve Continuous Testing In the Retail Industry

The testing of the omnichannel retailing model has increased the business via online technologies. It is essential for retailers to remain relevant in the present industry. The testing of the omnichannel and versatile retail sector is critical in order to deliver a consistent, reliable, and incorporated customer encounter.

Therefore, to create digital confidence among all the retail industry customers, it becomes essential to start with Retail Testing Services. If you want to know why to involve Continuous testing in the retail sector, then below mentioned are the reasons that will support its involvement:

Customer Experience Needs To Be Guaranteed: With the digital channels’ advancement, the customers find it really easy to access the products. Therefore, a retail industry needs to offer positive customer experience both on mobile application and in store. The customers’ main aim is to be able to shop anytime, anywhere without facing any issues. So, problems like slow apps, downtime, bugs, etc., will leave the customers with a bad experience.

Thus with continuous testing, it becomes very easy to check the software regressions, performance issues, and bugs. The outcome of catching bugs early will reduce the chances that these bugs will make it into production. Therefore, the process of continuous testing promises to offer an excellent customer experience with fewer bugs and enhanced performance.

Early Bug Detection Ensures Resource And Time Saving: The most important benefit offered by the process of continuous testing is that it helps in saving resources and time of the retail industry. The traditional approach of testing was very time consuming and confusing. The bugs can be detected by running the tests earlier under continuous testing before bundling up the new features. The early detection of bugs thus allows the developer to make necessary changes before time. Therefore the bugs can be corrected with less effort without wasting time on the other teams involves.

Thus, continuous testing helps the retail industry save their valuable resources and time by early bug detection.

Traditional Or Human Testing Is Not Sufficient: The human testing of the retailing industry software is not enough, and hence there arises the need for continuous testing. The changes in the software can have various unanticipated and unexpected side effects. Therefore, the testing must be utterly comprehensive in order to bring protection.

With each new release, it becomes essential to implement continuous testing throughout the entire pipeline. This will ultimately allow the retail industry to guarantee an excellent user experience prior to each of its releases. Therefore, with continuous testing, the test runs’ quality can be improved, thus improving the customer experience. It will altogether eliminate the need for traditional or human testing, which was very time consuming and creates many errors during the testing process.

Retail Industry Software Needs To Progress Constantly: As we all know, the advancement of technologies really calls for the need to develop and evolve the software continuously. One of the significant differences between the traditional product and the software is that it is always changing. With the variety of software products now, they are obligated to continuous evolvement after its release.

With continuous testing, you can make various changes and improvements even after the release, whether it involves redesigning the user interface or an improvement in the machine learning or artificial intelligence algorithms, all this with the primary motive of providing a flawless and unblemished customer experience.

Why Retail Industry Should Not Miss Out On Continuous Testing

With the digitization of services adding values to the retail industry, it is equally important to involve the process of software testing as well. The concept of continuous testing originated from the need to introduce the process of testing the software right from the beginning of the software development cycle and keep the software updated for frequent releases.

The retail industry should not miss out on continuous testing because of the following reasons:

  • Continuous testing helps to reduce application bound risk
  • Continuous testing enables the faster release
  • Continuous testing helps in improving the test coverage
  • Continuous testing helps in bringing consistency
  • Continuous testing cuts the downtime taken for Code Review
  • Continuous testing enables more transparency

The Bottom Line

As you have come to the article’s bottom line, have you realized how necessary continuous testing is? Be it a Retail industry or any other business industry, the process of constant testing plays a vital role at every step in the software development lifecycle. From bug detection to excellent customer experience continuous, testing holds major importance in the Retail Sector.

Mandatory Skills Required to Become a Machine Learning or AI Engineer

Mandatory Skills Required to Become a Machine Learning or AI Engineer

Becoming a successful machine learning/artificial intelligence engineer, there are certain numbers of skills required to stir a prosperous career in the field of ML/AI. Having adept about the subject of matter, understanding essential requirements and the fundamentals necessary to build a successful career in the field of artificial intelligence or machine learning.

Machine learning is an innovative technology that employs logical algorithm and statistical models to carry out specific tasks, such tasks are being completely achieved through system self-learning of complex and important trends from a given dataset and drawing an inference for useful insights and conclusion. Whereas, artificial intelligence is a wider aspect of machine learning that employs human cleverness to machines in other to be able to autonomously process, learn, think and lastly make intelligent adjustments or corrections. Artificial intelligence was built to work autonomously without engaging the computer programmer for explicit coding of each part of the AI system.

Skills Required By Machine Learning Engineers

A quality and qualified engineer looking for an amazing career in the field of ML/AI needs to possess an in-depth knowledge of data science and statistical implementations; also, some fundamental know-how on software engineering and data handling. Some of the important skills required by aspiring ML/AI engineer includes:

Basic computer programming knowledge

A fundamental knowledge about software building and implementation ranging from linear programming, computer structural design, data architecture, to algorithm optimization as all needed as a ML/AI engineer. This engineer will also engage in simulating machines to carry out activities same way human beings does. An engineer without this basic programming knowledge will find it difficult.

Data handling and validation

Data handling skills is very important in ML/AI building and implementation. These skills is highly required by the intending engineers to perfectly identify different trends and patterns available of gathered datasets. Without this skills, proper data handling and validations can’t carry out.

Statistics and Probability

Data science was based on statistical modelling, a very crucial part of ML. An intending ML/AI engineer must be skilled in carrying out probability theories like Markov models, Bayesian principles, amongst others. Also, such an engineer must be capable of performing univariate and multivariate statistical analysis that forms the fundamental of ML models.

Software design

Long-term product of building a ML/AI system is incorporation into software either on PC or Smart phones. An engineer of ML/AI requires to have these skills for final representation and deployment of the developed model into software, this will provide a user-friendly interface for proper application.

Signal processing skills

Knowledge of signal processing is required to extract features and solve complex problems. This is a crucial aspect of ML that includes feature mining that will enable algorithms like Shearlets, Bandlets, and Wavelets perform theoretical analysis in solving multifaceted scenarios.

Architectures of Neural Network

Tasks that are beyond human capabilities are execute by Neural Networks. This network has demonstrated to be one of the most accurate ways of deciphering problems like Object recognition and classification, speech recognition, natural language processing, and many more.

Good understanding of Algebra and Calculus

Having an in-depth knowledge of Calculus, Matrices, Vector, Algebra, and others are very vital in understanding and representing some ML/AL concepts.

Physics

This is one of those basic knowledges required by ML engineer. It aids in the representation of complex situation and inferring of the situation.

Domain Knowledge

Knowledge of the field of subject matter, a machine learning engineer must be vast in of problem identification and solving to be able to design a nearly perfect model for useful insights and interpretation.

Fast Prototyping

The available for building and implementing an ML system is expected to be reduced to the barest minimum. This can only be achieved an engineer that knows how to select right model in carrying out certain excellently. It also includes weighing up different methods to achieve a faster model for implementation.