The Ultimate Guide to Test Automation Reports

Let’s begin by understanding what is a Test Automation Report. Automation reports are artifacts that contain detailed information on the test execution. Automation reports do more than simply indicate test success and failure, they also help identify the root cause of issues. The test report provides clear and detailed insight into test execution in an organized report structure. Test automation reports are easily accessible to all stakeholders, which ensures continuous visibility and collaboration within the team.

Common reporting metrics include:

• Test coverage

• Overall test execution time

• Individual test execution time

• Pass/ fail/ skip/ broken status

• Reason for failed or skipped test

• Environment details

• Screenshot on failure

• Custom logs

• Trend over time

Need for test automation report?

Reporting is an important component in building a robust automation framework. It’s essential to understand why report plays a key role in a test automation framework. When automated test suites are executed, the test results are the only way to analyze the health, stability, and effectiveness of the tests.

Test automation report provides detailed information on test failures, errors, and execution status. Moreover, this report can be easily shared with stakeholders helping them stay informed about product status, ensuring transparency and collaboration throughout the development lifecycle.

Importance of Report with real-world example:

Assume you are working in the banking sector and your team is preparing to launch a new fund transfer feature for an online banking application. Prior to release, the automation suite covers functional scenarios like login, account summary, fund transfer, and logout. The automation test report reveals the fund transfer test failed for transactions over $20,000. The screenshots and logs in the report show server-side validation errors for large transactions. The stack trace points to a recently updated limit check in the backend code. The issue was quickly assigned, fixed, and reverified since the bug was detected before the production. Without this report, the bug might have gone unnoticed which leads to significant customer dissatisfaction and potential financial risks.

Test Reporting Tools:

The test report provides insights into the test execution results by showcasing various reporting metrics. Each test reporting tool specializes in different reporting aspects, such as test summaries, detailed test case results, code or functionality coverage by tests, trend analysis over time, In-depth analysis of failed test cases, and tracking execution history. These factors allow the team to choose the suitable reporting tool based on the business requirement. Below is the list of test reporting tools offering various insights,

Categories	Reporting Tool
Code Coverage	Allure, Extent, TestNG, JUnit, and Mochawesome Report
Detailed Test Case	Allure, Extent, ChainTest, TestRail, Cucumber, JUnit, and Mochawesome Report
Trend Analysis	Allure, Extent, ChainTest, TestRail, TestNG, and Mochawesome Report
Failure Analysis	Allure, Extent, ChainTest, Cucumber, TestNG, and Mochawesome Report
Execution History	ChainTest, TestRail, and JUnit Report
Test Summaries	TestRail Report

Types of Reporting Tool

Let's look into different types of test reporting tools available in software testing,

Allure:

Allure is an open-source framework that is designed to create clear, comprehensive and user friendly test execution reports. Allure report is ideal for team looking for quick and interactive interface.

Extent:

ExtentReport is a java based reporting library used for generating visually rich and interactive test execution report. The Extent library allows to create customizable report by adding logs, events, screenshots, device information, tags, author, and much more information that enhances the report.

ChainTest:

ChainTest is an open source framework that offers extensive reporting capablities that stays up with testing environment. ChainTest Report is developed as a successor of Extent reports. The ChainTest Report helps compare past test runs and display trends over time to track the performance.

TestNG:

TestNG is a testing framework that supports Java and provides inbuilt reporting capabilities. It generates HTML and XML reports after each test run, summarizing the test execution result.

JUnit:

JUnit is a unit testing framework that provides a build in reporting feature that generates lightweight XML report, which can also be converted to HTML reports. Junit report includes summary of the test execution making it easy to interact with CI/CD tools.

Cucumber:

Cucumber reports are generated as part of the Cucumber BDD framework providing detailed scenario-level results, ensuring easy debugging. Cucumber reports can be integrated seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines and is easy to analyze the test execution.

Mochawesome:

Mochawesome is an open-source Javascript test reporting tool specifically designed to support the Mocha framework. It provides detailed test reports with an interactive interface that can be seamlessly integrated with CI/CD tools. Mochawesome offers easy-to-read HTML and JSON reports.

TestRail:

TestRail is a commercial test case management tool that offers various customizable reports and metrics, making it easy to share with team members or stakeholders.

I hope this blog helps you dive deep into the test automation reporting tools. Based on your project requirement, you can choose the right reporting tool that aligns with the project's needs considering factors such as accessibility, usability, and integration capabilities.

‘If learning is an act of exploration, then technology equips the explorer for the journey of a lifetime.’

Keep learning!!!📖