Users always expect the best possible user experiences from the applications they use. Thus, developers need to meet those needs and develop flawless bug-free applications. Since quality is a crucial characteristic, developers must make sure that the application is free of flaws and produces the expected results. Manually determining the root cause of issues is becoming more difficult and expensive as application testing methods become more complicated.
Fortunately, as technology advances, so do the testing procedures. Many organizations are now using the power of AI in the automation testing of application processes. QA teams can automate various manual operations related to application testing by utilizing AI technologies.
Through the streamlining of automation testing and the enhancement of QA procedures, AI testing assists many organizations in protecting their testing processes from expensive disruptions. Additionally, it can be used to design more thorough tests that more accurately replicate user interaction in the real world.
The field of quality assurance (QA) is being overtaken by AI-driven techniques, which are revolutionizing how an organization approaches automation testing. One of these techniques is AI-powered Root Cause Analysis (RCA), a systematic method to continuously monitor the performance of applications. AI-driven Root Cause Analysis offers quicker and more effective ways to find flaws. As a result, testing can be completed in much less time as compared to what it would take to manually test each feature.
We will talk about AI-Driven Root Cause Analysis in automation testing in this article. We shall first define RCA and AI-driven RCA before getting started. We’ll also go through how to perform root cause analysis, the advantages of employing AI-powered RCA, and a few pointers for doing it well. So let’s get going.
What is Root Cause Analysis?
Every problem has an underlying cause, and application defects are no different. Organizations employ the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) method to pinpoint the root cause of an application failure. This aids developers in determining the cause of a specific application issue and how the team may fix it from the root of the issue.
It’s a quality control measure that employs a variety of tools, techniques, and processes to work through a series of steps to identify the potential root of the problem before starting to establish a procedure to lessen the possibility of the problem recurring.
RCA efficiently identifies a primary cause of an issue or numerous primary causes. It determines whether a flaw was brought on by a testing error, a development error, or perhaps an operational or design error.
Developers first utilize root cause analysis to pinpoint and fix problems, and then they employ AI to automatically pinpoint the root cause of a larger range of problems that humans could hardly grasp. This enables developers to quickly discover the necessary fix or reconfiguration to address those problems before they have an impact on end users.
What is AI-Driven Root Cause Analysis?
The data processing and analytical capabilities of traditional RCA approaches are limited. Since they are susceptible to human mistakes, they do not present an accurate depiction. RCA powered by AI, on the other hand, enables quicker time to insights, more accuracy, improved reliability, improved process accountability, and more effective knowledge transfer.
The root cause analysis (RCA) method of application testing makes use of AI, machine learning, and other proficient analytics techniques to accelerate the development and execution of automated tests.
This allows testers to develop and run tests without manually writing code. With the use of AI-driven testing tools, testers may quickly find bugs in applications by creating test scenarios based on user behavior. These tools can also automatically update tests in response to changes in user behavior.
Developers won’t have to search through hundreds of thousands of lines of code anymore to identify the main cause, thus speeding up the bug-fixing procedure. As a result, the QA and development teams are more productive and can complete the application on schedule.
How to Conduct Root Cause Analysis?
To reduce the likelihood of defects occurring, it is essential to identify and address the root causes of flaws. Although root cause analysis might be a difficult task, it is manageable when approached logically and structurally. The following are some of the main steps in executing and documenting RCA.
Identifying a Flaw or Issue
A team must precisely identify and define the problem before utilizing RCA. This covers the specifics of what occurred, the stage of the process at which the issue emerged, the frequency of occurrence, the sequence of events, how the issue was found, and other concerns.
With all the information gathered, the team will need to further examine it to better grasp the issue at hand and characterize it using the available data.
Collecting Data Regarding Issues
It is essential to carefully gather data on the defect, including details about the impact, proof of error, and how long the problem persisted if it is a recurring defect, before determining the underlying cause.
The team must then review the problem discovered through analysis of all the data and evidence. Teams must also frequently communicate with users or employees.
Determining the Root Cause of the Defect
After gathering the data, the RCA team tries to pinpoint the root cause of the defect so that the appropriate remedies can be taken. The team holds a brainstorming session to dig further into the issue to better understand “why” and “when” the defect happened, and then they identify the tools that best meet the needs to achieve successful results.
Choosing the Appropriate Course of Action
Root Cause Corrective Action (RCCA) deployment comes after root cause identification. It entails addressing the problems by choosing the best course of action to either fix the flaw or prevent its recurrence in the future.
Finding the appropriate tool to correct the flaws is crucial for the team. To make sure that no existing functionality is broken, the RCA team must do an appropriate impact analysis. Additionally, a productive procedure needs to be set up to validate the fix and keep an eye on the solution that was put in place to see if it works as intended.
RCPA (Root Cause Preventive Action) execution
The true significance of root cause analysis is revealed by ongoing improvement and defect prevention. The RCA team provides recommendations that can identify methods to stop problems from happening again in the same or different applications after identifying their root causes.
Benefits of Using AI-powered Root Cause Analysis
RCA involves a structured investigative process that looks at the requirements, design, coding, testing, and deployment phases of the application development and testing life cycle.
When properly carried out, a Root Cause Analysis assists in identifying and addressing the underlying causes of application errors as well as offering the necessary modifications that the team must implement to stop the problems from recurring. RCA helps to improve application quality by boosting processes for development, interaction, and collaboration by addressing the root causes.
Root Cause Analysis enabled by AI has numerous advantages over manual testing. Testing experts can develop thorough test suites that more accurately imitate real-world user behavior and spot potential coding errors by utilizing AI technologies. Additionally, AI-assisted automated testing is quicker and more effective than manual testing, saving organizations both time and resources.
Below Are Some Key Benefits of Using AI-Powered RCA
It is well-known that when a project moves further along in its development, the cost of addressing applications’ flaws rises considerably. Early in the test cycle, AI-powered RCA can help developers quickly uncover potential bugs in their code, reducing the time needed for troubleshooting and raising overall quality control.
Additionally, removing the need for manual test generation and execution lowers the cost of application development and maintenance. Organizations can save time and money by automating many of the testing-related operations rather than paying manual testers or creating lengthy test scripts.
Accelerated Time to Market
One of the biggest advantages of employing AI-powered RCA is its capacity to analyze enormous amounts of data more rapidly and effectively than manual tests.
Additionally, pinpointing the primary reasons for any defects during the early phases of app development makes it easier to execute appropriate corrective steps, which cuts down on testing time and enables organizations to roll out new features or updates more quickly. Testers can generate thorough test scenarios using AI-powered RCA in less than half of the time it would take to hand-test each feature.
Greater Accuracy
AI-driven testing enables testers to design more thorough test scenarios that more accurately reflect user behavior in the real world, notice changes in usage patterns, and update tests automatically as necessary. More data points can be analyzed by RCA driven by AI than by humans. As a result, test results and suggestions are far more accurate.
Enhanced Application Quality
Organizations can determine the existing and future needs for the overall enhancement of the application with the use of AI-driven RCA. The ability to locate the cause of errors makes problem-solving more efficient and ensures improved application quality.
Greater Reliability
RCA powered by AI helps to lower the possibility of human error. AI-powered RCA offers a scalable, feasible, and broader approach to address the root causes of problems. The RCA is improved using AI, leading to more reliable suggestions and better decision-making.
Better User Experience
The secret to keeping users on the app is flawless performance. The best possible user experiences are ensured by AI-driven RCA, which helps uncover potential user experience (UX) design flaws before they influence the user experience.
Artificial intelligence tests can identify usability problems that would not have been noticed otherwise by replicating real user interactions. Additionally, future releases’ potential flaws can be efficiently controlled with effective AI-driven RCA.
Suggestions for Performing RCA Efficiently
It’s vital to perform RCA, but it’s also crucial to follow a few recommendations and choose the appropriate path for analysis to make the process effective and useful. Listed below are a few of the tips.
- To create a strong foundation for the analysis, gather the necessary data from error log files, test results, feedback from users, and system performance indicators.
- Select a test automation solution with logging and reporting capabilities to ensure that RCA is carried out correctly.
- Bring together experts from many fields, like testing, development, design, and others, to acquire a variety of perspectives.
- To ensure a thorough study, approach the problem from a variety of opinions, including technical, process-related, human aspects, and external impacts.
- Prioritize the issues to be addressed first for the greatest impact using data and impact analysis. Considering that not all underlying causes could be the same.
- In addition to resolving present concerns, put in place preventive measures to stop similar issues from cropping up in later development cycles.
LambdaTest’s AI-Powered Root Cause Analysis
Modern apps are complicated; making it difficult for developers to predict what can go wrong at any given moment. By offering uniform, repeatable, and thorough testing processes, test automation plays a crucial part in facilitating effective Root Cause Analysis. Defects can come from several different places in a complicated application testing environment, including code modifications, integration problems, and configuration inconsistencies.
Automated testing provides the benefit of carrying out a variety of test cases regularly and collecting useful data. With such thorough test coverage, plenty of data is produced, which may be examined during RCA to spot patterns, trends, and possible failure root causes. RCA and test automation can be effectively integrated when using an automation testing platform like LambdaTest, which can carry out RCA.
LambdaTest is a test orchestration and execution platform that uses AI to conduct both manual and automated tests at scale. This platform allows users to carry out real-time and automated testing across more than 3000 environments and real mobile devices with support for popular automation frameworks such as Selenium, Cypress, Playwright and Puppeteer. Enabling testers to examine test failures, look over logs, and provide summarized data across all tests run.
Additionally, it can aid in delivering concise and practical results complete with images, videos, and a log. Debugging tools are also included to facilitate quick and effective debugging, capture significant performance issues, and pinpoint the root causes. This enables testers to analyze test failure patterns throughout test runs over time and boost overall app efficiency by fixing issues more quickly guaranteeing a superior user experience.
Moreover, it offers test engineers, QAs, and developers its AI-powered Root Cause Analysis capability to simplify and quickly address problems and minimize their impact on the end-user experience.
Conclusion
Although application errors are inevitable, developers can find and fix problems that lead to failed automated tests by employing AI-driven Root Cause Analysis. Additionally, they support the development of flawless applications, enhance the reliability and precision of test scripts, stop future failures, save time and money, and provide the best possible user experiences.
With the aid of the LambdaTest cloud, teams can quickly build reliable tests while gaining crucial details about user behavior.