Test planning involves deciding which tests to automate. If you choose to automate a test, you can generate a test script and run the test using WinRunner, QuickTest Professional, LoadRunner, or Visual API-XP.

The following issues should be considered when deciding whether to automate a test.

Tests that will run with each new version of your application are good candidates for automation. These include sanity tests that check basic functionality across an entire application. Each time there is a new version of the application, you run these tests to check the stability of the new version, before proceeding to more in-depth testing.

—each time with a different set of input data—

It is also recommended that you automate tests that are run many times (stress tests) and tests that check a multi-user client/server system (load tests). For example, suppose a test must be repeated a thousand times. Running the test manually would be extremely impractical. In this case, you could use QuickTest Professional to create a test that runs a thousand iterations.

Generally, the more user involvement a test requires, the less appropriate it is to automate. The following describes test cases that should not be automated:

—tests providing usage models that check how easy the application is to use.

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