Complete step by step Guide for Smoke Testing.

Smoke Testing is the most cost-effective method for identifying and fixing defects in software. It acts as a confirmation whether the quality assurance team can proceed with further testing. Smoke tests are a minimum set of tests run on each build. It is a preliminary level of testing that ensures all basic components of an application are functioning properly.

It consists of a minimal set of tests run on each build to test software functionalities. Smoke testing is also known as “Build Verification Testing” or “Confidence Testing.”

In simple words, we are verifying whether the important features are working and there are no showstoppers in the build that is under testing. If the Test fails, build is declared as unstable and it is NOT tested anymore until the smoke test of the build passes.

Step by Step approach for Smoke Testing

Step 1. Testing Preparation

Once the build is successfully completed, and before you begin testing it, you should perform certain setup tasks. Set the preferred atmosphere for the test such as copying files, setting up a server, installing the license, storing files at different locations, and others.

Step 2. Gather Test Files

Make sure that all the necessary files that are required to run the test are with you to perform the smoke test, different smoke testing software has different command lines to get those files that need to be tested to the local drive.

Step 3. Scriptwriting

Make sure that you use a single script to run the tests as it is more flexible. The build script should be kept static at this time. Once the script is executed make sure that the report has been saved so that if the build fails, it can be instantly reported to the developers as and when they arise.

Step 4. Ensuring clean environment

Make sure that all the necessary steps have been taken to ensure that the test is run on a clean environment. Clean-up is necessary after performing the smoke test. So, you may be required to delete files, stop the server, and do certain other things. This step can also be performed just before the setup step. This provides a clean environment for tests to start.

Benefits of Smoke Testing

• It helps in finding the issues that got introduced by the integration of components.
• Verifying the correct layout and accuracy of all visual elements.
• Improve the effectiveness of the QA team.
• It enables uncovering obvious errors which saves time and effort of test team and can be carried out in small time.
• Very limited number of test cases is required to do the smoke testing.