Top-10 Tips for Choosing an API Testing Services

API testing is an integral part of application development for identifying defects at multiple layers and ensuring a seamless user experience. There are multiple tools and approaches used by testing engineers for delivering API testing services. But on the other hand, how can you get the ROI necessary for achieving automation to deliver high-quality products at the speed of DevOps and agile initiatives?

The key challenges businesses have to face include test maintainability, rapidly-changing APIs, microservices, omnichannel testing, and incapabilities to identify defects. So, most importantly to find the right quality assurance testing solution to help your business succeed.
Here are ten key areas you should focus on when evaluating automated API testing solutions.

• Workflow Optimization

The API testing tool used by your QA provider should be able to optimize your workflows. It should simplify processes for example message flow, API testing integrations into existing requirements processes, and test creation. Following are the series of workflows that your API testing service provider should be able to optimize:

• Test data generation/management
• Behavior-driven development (BDD) support
• Using artificial intelligence for test creation
• Event monitoring

• Managing API Endpoints

Your application development project may have a few or hundreds of APIs integrated that need a reliable testing procedure. Your QA provider should organize them into categories for better test management. By doing so, you can create test cases with high coverage and better integration. 

Also, APIs in the same category have common data such as resource path and type. Your API QA provider should be able to organize test cases with the same structure to make the test reusable and extendable with integration flow.

• Automated API Testing

Your QA service provider should be able to run API tests in automation. Automated API testing executes the test cases library on-demand as required. It’s a combination of available APIs and a command-line interface to execute test cases as a part of the continuous delivery/continuous integration process.

• Access to Latest Automation Tools

A further step to leverage the capability of QA providers is to assess the type of tools they use for API testing. Here are some key points when assessing the automated API testing tool:

• Do the tool support API/web services types test that your application under test (AUT) is using? It will not make sense if your AUT is using SOAP services while the selected tool supports RESTful services testing.
• The tool must support the authorization methods required by your AUT services.

• Maintenance and Management

Once you have a large library of test cases, you have to frequently maintain and manage those test cases. Your QA service provider should have mechanisms to understand the API tests required by you and understand the requirements associated with those API tests. There should be a built-in change management feature to allow you to use multiple versions of API test projects and provide a clear understanding of the impact of application change on these API testing projects.

• Verification Methods

The response status code shows the request status while the API returns the response body content with the given input. These responses can be in an XML document, a JSON data structure, or in plain text. It can be a hundred-page JSON/XML file or a few-word string. In addition, your QA service provider must use a suitable verification method for a given API. They must use tools that provide rich libraries to verify multiple data types using JsonPath, XmlPath, matching, and regular expression.

• Technologies Supported

The tool used by the API testing provider must support all the necessary formats and industry-specific message protocols. It must support all the previous and latest technologies, such as:

• MQ/JMS testing
• Web-based testing
• REST API testing
• DAtabase testing
• SOAP API testing
• IoT and microservice testing
• Performance Testing

• Analyzing Small Functional APIs

When testing a project, firstly, you will find simple APIs with one or two inputs such as health check API. Secondly, login API, and much more. Certainly, these APIs are important as they act as a gate to enter further APIs. Your QA provider should focus on these APIs before testing the others to ensure API servers, authentication, and environment function properly.

• Core Capabilities and Easy-to-Use

The API testing tool used by your quality assurance provider should be easy to use and moreover allow even beginners to pick up and start with minimal training. The solution should be visual and intuitive and offer functionalities to handle complex actions without scripting. The specific functionalities include:

• Data-driven testing
• Authentication
• Visual and script-less functionality
• Above all, create rapid tests before service is available
• Automated assertions and validations
• Test re-usability

• Understanding API Requirements

Knowing what an API is meant to do sets a firm foundation to test data for input and output. For instance, for some APIs, you have to verify the responses against the database, while for others, you will verify the response against other APIs. Most importantly, QA service provider should be able to understand your API testing requirements before implementing a reliable solution. 

Conclusion

Selecting the right API testing service provider for your business might be a daunting challenge if you consider all the features and capabilities mentioned above. If you are looking for a trusted and reliable API solution provider with all these capabilities and more, contact QASource now.