The short answer is yes. For software to work properly, all units should integrate and perform as they’re expected to. To ensure this is the case, you will need to perform continuous integration testing.
Getting features to work together is like introducing your partner to your family – you never know if they’re going to get along at first. Will grandma do her ‘false teeth trick’ the minute you walk in the door? Will dad tell that stupid joke and burn the dinner again? The only way you’re going to find out is by bringing them together and running an ‘integration test’. It’s the same with software applications. But is continuous integration testing really necessary for quality software? The answer is yes, and here’s why.
Why Continuous Integration Testing is Necessary
To ensure third-party applications and internal modules work seamlessly together within your software, you’ve got to combine them, test the combination, and evaluate the results.
One common example of an integration is the payment gateway for an eCommerce site. The integration between the application under test (AUT) and the payment process at every point where these features exchange data must be carefully tested across all possible scenarios. The test cases for this would include (but are not limited to):
- Normal checkout with success
- Normal checkout and user cancelled
- Normal checkout and cart browser closed/connection cut
- Normal checkout and transaction declined (card expired, unsupported payment type, etc.)
Other examples include accessing and using third-party APIs, web services, plugins, and anything else your developers did not create themselves.
NOTE: Integration testing can sometimes be confused with end-to-end testing, so you can check out this OnPath blog post where we compare the two and clear that up.
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Benefits of Continuous Integration Testing
The overall benefit is that integration testing improves the reliability of your software. That’s because it’s a type of functional testing. Here are a few more continuous integration testing benefits:
- It effectively executes important user-based scenarios.
- It might uncover adhoc tests you hadn’t thought of earlier.
- It ensures that internal modules and components communicate properly.
- It performs regression testing on important connection points.
When you weigh up the benefits, you realize that continuous integration checks allow your end-user to have a frictionless user journey.
Continuous Integration Testing Best Practices
Integration testing isn’t always a walk in the park, but it’s worth investing time and effort in careful planning and test development. We’ve put together some best practices for performing automated integration testing to guide your efforts:
- Integration testing should take place after your developers have performed unit tests, and ideally after you’ve performed granular functional tests.
- Maintain good QA practices by separating these test plans, so that integration tests can be run at the right time during the dev/QA cycle, and reported properly.
- Remember – you’re not testing for business logic here; that is done during detailed functional testing. Focus on the bigger picture and the connection points between various systems.
- If you have access to the backend files and data, check the logs and run some SQL queries to confirm data is as expected.
- Log any defects with good detail, capturing test sequence, data used, state of the system, and anything else useful for developers.
- Test for the end-user experience—make the most of the time spent!
- If you’re still unsure of where to begin, you may want to organize a professional testing service to help implement CI pipeline testing.
Long Story Short
“Testers don’t like to break things; they like to dispel the illusion that things work.” — Kaner, Bach, Pettichord
Quality assurance testing is done to ensure the end-user experience is seamless. When your software application combines different modules and third-party apps that need to work together for the application to function as expected, continuous integration testing is necessary. And yes, is continuous integration testing really necessary for quality software? Absolutely.
Want to learn more about different types of software testing? Check out the OnPath blog. And, if you’d like to talk to a specialist to see how we can help, reach out to us.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is continuous integration testing?
Continuous integration testing is the practice of testing all software modules together to ensure seamless functionality before deployment.
What are the main benefits of continuous integration testing?
Benefits include reliable user experiences, regression testing at key integration points, and early detection of potential conflicts.
How is CI different from automated integration testing?
CI testing is part of an automated pipeline that validates all integrated components continuously, while automated integration testing may focus on scheduled tests of specific modules.
When should continuous integration checks be performed?
Ideally after unit testing and functional testing, but before full system release to catch integration issues early.
Is continuous integration testing necessary for third-party API integrations?
Yes. Testing ensures your software communicates correctly with external systems, avoiding runtime errors.
Can continuous integration testing improve end-user satisfaction?
Absolutely. It ensures all modules and features work together, providing a smooth and frictionless user experience.
