Education Platform

Challenge

Implementing a robust and scalable test automation solution for this project came with several unique challenges, both technical and organizational. While the initial scope seemed manageable, the long-term vision required a forward-thinking approach to ensure that the framework could handle significantly increased complexity down the line.

One of the first and most critical challenges was selecting and designing a scalable automation framework structure. The client’s platform included four distinct mobile applications, each available on both iOS and Android — resulting in eight unique target platforms. To maintain efficiency and avoid test bottlenecks, it was essential to build a framework that could execute tests in parallel across all platforms, while remaining maintainable and flexible for future growth. This required careful consideration of the test execution strategy, environment configuration, and codebase modularity.

Another significant challenge revolved around test reporting. The project demanded integration with multiple reporting tools, each used by different stakeholder groups:

• TestRail was used by the manual QA team for test case management,
• Allure Reports were essential for upper management visibility,
• Slack and Email integrations provided real-time feedback loops to the delivery team.

However, these tools counted and reported test results differently, which led to inconsistencies and confusion in early stages. To overcome this, we developed a custom reporting layer within the WDIO (WebdriverIO) configuration, aligning all outputs to ensure consistent and accurate reporting across all platforms and stakeholders.

We also encountered structural challenges in the existing test case base. The manual test cases, while thorough, were not optimized for automation. Many lacked clarity, reusability, or had redundant checks that complicated automated coverage. To address this, we initiated a test case refinement process in close collaboration with the manual QA team. This involved reworking existing cases, creating new ones optimized for automation, and eliminating unnecessary steps — ultimately improving both automated and manual testing quality.

From an infrastructure perspective, there were environmental and connectivity constraints that added additional layers of complexity. The STAGING environment was shared across departments, making it difficult to isolate automated runs or guarantee stable test data. Moreover, since the client’s infrastructure was secured behind an internal VPN, we had to set up tunneled connections for both the CI/CD pipelines (hosted on GitHub) and our BrowserStack integration — ensuring secure, uninterrupted communication between services during automated test runs.

Solution

To address the client’s challenges and lay a foundation for long-term scalability, we designed and implemented a unified, modular automation framework built with WebdriverIO. Given the complexity of maintaining eight unique platform variants (four apps across iOS and Android), we structured the project within a single shared repository. Using object-oriented programming principles, we created a flexible architecture that allowed us to reuse core logic while easily overriding platform-specific behaviors. This significantly reduced code duplication and simplified future maintenance.

Our test execution pipeline was fully integrated into the client’s GitHub Actions (GHA) environment. We established multiple workflows, including:

• Scheduled daily runs for proactive issue detection,
• Suite-based execution for targeted testing of new builds,
• On-demand runs triggered by stakeholders, allowing for real-time validation and reporting.

Test execution was distributed via BrowserStack, enabling parallel runs across multiple devices and platforms. This drastically improved execution time and provided better coverage within limited testing windows.

We introduced a structured release certification process, tailored specifically to their Agile sprint cycle. Each release began with a sanity check — lightweight, high-priority test cases to quickly verify the integrity of a new build. Once passed, the system automatically advanced to a full regression suite, ensuring all critical paths were validated before sign-off.

To optimize test case quality, we redefined the structure using Page Object Model and organized tests into functional modules, improving readability, maintainability, and alignment with business flows. Manual test cases from TestRail were collaboratively refined with the QA team to improve automation readiness, which included rewriting, cleaning up redundancies, and introducing missing scenarios.

We also built a custom reporting layer that synchronized test outcomes across TestRail, Allure Reports, Slack, and Email, delivering consistent and accurate feedback to all stakeholders — from QA teams to upper management.

Through consistent collaboration, regular syncs, and comprehensive documentation, we helped shape a transparent, scalable testing ecosystem. The results were impactful: the number of production bugs dropped by 40%, and the overall release certification time was reduced by approximately 70%, enabling faster and more confident delivery cycles.