Test Automation Fundamentals with Selenium, Cucumber, Gherkin, Maven & More

Course Objectives

This “skills-centric” course is approximately 50% hands-on lab and 50% lecture, designed to train attendees in essential web testing and Selenium skills, coupling the most current, effective techniques with the soundest industry practices. Throughout the course students will be led through a series of progressively advanced topics, guided by our expert instructor, where each topic consists of lecture, group discussion, hands-on lab exercises, and lab review.

This course provides indoctrination in the practical use of the umbrella of technologies that are on the leading edge of test engineering.  Working in a hands-on learning environment, led by our expert practitioner, students will learn:

• Test-Driven and Behavior-Driven Testing concepts
• An overview of the Selenium WebDriver API
• How the Page Object model works
• How to use Cucumber
• Gherkin and Automated Acceptance Tests
• An overview Maven and how to configure testing in Maven
• Cucumber in the JVM
• An overview of how it all works in Continuous Integration

Need different skills or topics?  If your team requires different topics or tools, additional skills or custom approach, this course may be further adjusted to accommodate.  We offer additional testing, Selenium, Cucumber, Gherkin, Python, TDD, BDD, programming, testing tools, test automation, QA, services, security and other related topics that may be blended with this course for a track that best suits your needs. Our team will collaborate with you to understand your needs and will target the course to focus on your specific learning objectives and goals.

Course Prerequisites

This is an intermediate level course, geared for Test Engineers, Quality Assurance Engineers, and their management who have prior knowledge of Selenium basics. Code examples are in a combination of the specific domain-specific languages and Java, so some experience in object-oriented development with Java is expected. The WebDriver portion also assumes some prior exposure to the Selenium family of tools.

NOTE: For some of the Selenium oriented labs, attendees should have some familiarity with basic Java syntax prior to attending this class. Basic Java fundamentals are NOT covered this course.  For attendees who may be light on Java skills, exercise code may be copied and pasted to complete those exercises.

Please see the Related Courses tab for specific Pre-Requisite courses, Related Courses that offer similar skills or topics, and next-step Learning Path recommendations.

Course Agenda

Please note that this list of topics is based on our standard course offering, evolved from typical industry uses and trends. We’ll work with you to tune this course and level of coverage to target the skills you need most.

Session: Selenium Basics

Lesson: Introduction to Selenium

• Selenium Concepts and Terminology
• Manual Testing using Selenium and the Katalon Recorder
• Automated Testing using Selenium WebDriver
• Lab: Running the Web Application
• Lab: Analyzing the Web Application

Session: Testing with Java and Selenium WebDriver

Lesson: JUnit5 for Selenium

• Aspects of JUnit that are relevant for Selenium testing
• Understand the basics of testing with JUnit constructs
• Working with Java and JUnit for managing and running tests
• Demo: JUnit
• Lab: Reapply JUnit
• Walkthrough: Using JUnit with Selenium

Lesson: Selenium WebDriver

• Working with WebDriver in Java
• Finding Spots on Web Pages
• Working with different browsers
• Built-In Locators
• Lab: Creating and Running a WebDriver Test
• Lab: Testing with Other Browsers
• Lab: Working with WebDriver Locators
• Lab: Adding WebDriver Tests

Lesson: WebDriver Deep Dive

• WebDriver Commands for working with forms
• Working with complex form components
• Taking screenshots
• Working with alerts
• Lab: Testing Forms using WebDriver
• Lab: Screenshots

Lesson: Advanced WebDriver

• Use WebDriver to work with windows, tabs and iframes
• Utilize Actions class for mouse and keyboard actions
• Testing file uploads and downloads
• Testing AJAX elements
• Waiting for events to happen
• Feeding data sets into a testing sequence
• Lab: Testing Wait Styles

Session: Selenium Practices and Processes

Lesson: Selenium Best Practices

• Preparation
• Managing Names
• Multiple Browser Testing
• High Quality Tests and Test Plans
• Using Whitespace
• Efficient Operations
• Establish Selenium Standards

Lesson: Testing Strategies and Patterns

• Types of web application tests
• Strategies for locating elements
• Wrapping Selenium calls
• User interface maps
• Lab: Using Delayed Exceptions
• Lab: Automated Running of Multiple Test Cases

Session: Next Steps with Selenium

Lesson: Page Object Model (POM)

• Need for POM
• What is POM
• Implementing POM    
• Using Object Repositories
• Page Factory
• Lab: Building Page Object Models
• Build an Object Repository
• Lab: Using the Page Factory
• Lab: Testing the Bank Web Application

Lesson: Introduction to Selenium Grid

• Need for Selenium Grid             
• Architecture of Selenium Grid
• Remote WebDriver Workflow; Hub, Node            
• Setting up Selenium Grid          
• Using DesiredCapabilities Object

Lesson: Introduction to Selenium Frameworks

• Automation Framework Basics
• Data Driven Framework
• Keyword Driven Framework
• Hybrid Framework

Session: BDD and Cucumber Fundamentals

Lesson: BDD and Testing

• Understanding BDD
• Requirements and BDD
• Requirements to Features
• Features to Stories
• Executable Acceptance Criteria

Lesson: Cucumber Overview

• Feature Files
• Step Definitions
• Cucumber and JUnit
• Implementing and Testing Features
• Lab: Creating and Using a Features File

Lesson: Executable Specifications

• Gherkin Keywords
• Feature, Background, Scenario
• Given, When, and other Gherkin concepts
• A detailed look at Step Definition
• The use of Step Definition Files
• Lab: Cucumber Step Definition
• Lab: BDD for Echo Messaging Service

Session: Gherkin and Cucumber

Lesson: Step Definitions

• Steps and Step Definitions
• Capturing Groups and Arguments
• Returned Results: Success to Ambiguous
• Resolving Collisions
• Organizational Techniques
• Lab: BDD for Calculator Service

Lesson: Managing Cucumber

• Cucumber Runtime Options
• Working with Plugins
• Filtering Scenarios
• Cucumber Profiles
• Automating Cucumber

Lesson: Working with Non-UI Applications

• Challenges Testing the UI
• Testing at Controller and Service Layers
• Testing Business Logic
• Working with Legacy Applications
• Testing Non-Functional Requirements
• Lab: BDD for a Movie Service
• Lab: BDD for a Grocery Service

Session: Test Automation Overview

Lesson: Maven and TDD

• Maven Essentials
• The POM file
• Test configurations
• Maven and WebDriver
• Maven and Cucumber
• Lab: Cucumber Automation using Maven

Lesson: The Bigger Picture

• Source Code Control and Automated Builds
• Test Engineering and Continuous Integration
• ATDD and Continuous Deployment

Course Materials

Each student will receive a Student Guide with course notes, code samples, software tutorials, diagrams and related reference materials and links (as applicable). Our courses also include step by step hands-on lab instructions and and solutions, clearly illustrated for users to complete hands-on work in class, and to revisit to review or refresh skills at any time. Students will also receive the course environment software and set up files, project files (or code, if applicable) and solutions required for the hands-on work.