Insights

Once you start using automation and understand the power it can deliver, you’re going to want to implement it across all your projects! However, managing multiple projects, especially when it comes to automation testing, can be difficult.

Each project's requirements, test scenarios, and team dynamics will differ. In this blog, I will look at effective strategies for managing multiple projects using automation frameworks, with a focus on Cypress. I.e. You can streamline your testing process, improve efficiency, and ensure consistent test quality across all your projects by implementing the right approach.

Adopt a Modular and Scalable Approach

When managing multiple projects, your automation framework must be modular and scalable. This involves breaking down your test suite into smaller, reusable modules that can be easily maintained and shared across projects. Cypress's component-driven architecture and support for custom commands make it ideal for developing modular test suites. By designing your framework with reusability in mind, you can reduce duplication of effort and improve test maintenance efficiency.

Utilise Test Configuration and Data Management

It is critical to efficiently handle test configuration and data management when managing multiple projects. Cypress provides several methods for managing configuration and data, including environment variables, configuration files, and fixtures. Using these features, you can centralise your test configurations, customise them for each project, and effectively manage test data.

This also allows for simple maintenance of scripts that are tested across multiple test environments - all that is required is a change to the global config file. We found this incredibly powerful when a new test environment was recently created for our client. We had automation from one test environment and was easily able to point it to the new one with one change and run the automation against it completely removing the tiresome requirement of manual checks that must happen with new environments. 

Implement Test Parallelization

As the number of projects increases, executing tests sequentially can become time-consuming. Test parallelization is a valuable technique that can significantly reduce test execution time and improve overall efficiency. Cypress cloud supports parallel test execution out of the box, but as most clients prefer a free alternative, we were able to create a few simple typescript scripts that became a base part of our frameworks that would sensibly split up the tests by roughly calculating test execution time first based on the number of “it” cases then spreading the work across as many runners as was configured.

This has been an incredibly powerful improvement to our automation and took one of our projects from over 1 hour run time to under 10 minutes! If you’re interested in finding out more about this, I will create a how-to focused specifically on how we implemented this so you can try in your own frameworks!

Establish Clear Test Naming and Organization Conventions

When working with multiple projects, maintaining clear and consistent test naming and organisation conventions is essential. Establishing a standardised naming convention and folder structure helps streamline test development, maintenance, and collaboration. It enables team members to locate and understand tests quickly, regardless of the project they are working on.

Utilize CI/CD Pipelines for Continuous Integration

Adopting Continuous Integration (CI) practices is crucial when managing multiple projects. CI/CD pipelines enable automated build and test execution for each project, ensuring that changes are validated promptly. Cypress seamlessly integrates with popular CI/CD platforms like Jenkins, GitLab CI, and GitHub Actions. By setting up CI/CD pipelines, you can automate the execution of tests, capture test results, and gain confidence in the quality of each project as changes are made. In my next post in this series, I take a deep dive into how to embed your framework into your pipelines efficiently so keep an eye out for that!

Implement Reporting and Monitoring

To effectively manage multiple projects, having comprehensive reporting and monitoring mechanisms is vital. Cypress offers various plugins and tools for generating detailed test reports, including screenshots and videos of test runs. By utilising these reporting capabilities, you can track test results, identify failures, and monitor test coverage across projects. This allows for quick identification and resolution of issues, ensuring the quality of your projects is maintained. At Capacitas, we have tried and tested a lot of various reporting tools and our favourites have been mochawesome as a free option and Browserstack or cypress dashboard for a licenced alternative.

Managing multiple projects with automation frameworks like Cypress can be a challenging task. However, by adopting a modular approach, leveraging configuration management, implementing parallel execution, establishing clear naming conventions, utilizing CI/CD pipelines, and implementing reporting and monitoring mechanisms, as detailed in this post you can effectively manage multiple projects while maintaining test quality and efficiency.

Cypress's flexibility and powerful features make it an excellent choice for handling automation testing across diverse projects.