Selenium or RPA: A Comparison of Test Automation and Robotic Process Automation, with RPA Certification offered by Edureka.

Automation is the word on everyone’s lips these days, from testing web apps to automating business processes. Selenium and RPA are two major players in this game. But what’s the scoop? Selenium is all about testing web apps while RPA automates those pesky business tasks that eat up time. They’re both handy, but RPA takes the cake for flexibility and time-saving. So, if you’re looking to rock the automation world, keep these tools in your toolkit! 🚀

Introduction 🚀

technology in recent days has reached the Peaks and the growth of automation has added more Wings to this transformation from automating a simple unit test to automating the whole business process technology has augmented its way to the digital era hi all this is vnav and I welcome you all to this edureka’s YouTube channel in this module we are going to compare the two booming automation technologies that has been in the industry for more than a decade that is robotic process Automation and selenium you might wonder why are they of such great importance well stick on to this video to find out what exactly are their features and how they differ from each other based on certain parameters so without any further Ado let’s take a look at the agenda for this session first let’s start by understanding what is Automation and take a real time example that demonstrates the advantages of it and then we’ll discuss about the different types of automation that exist and after that I’ll give you a brief introduction to the different forms of automation that is automation testing and business process automation which are the major Fields where one can try to build a career okay so first we’ll talk about the automation testing tool that is selenium and learn its features once we’re done with that we’ll take a look at the business process automation technology RP and comprehend how it is used to automate repetitive tasks moving further we’ll discuss about the parameters taken into consideration for comparing both selenium and RPA and talk about the similarities between these tools and finally we’ll wrap up this session by comparing them based on the parameters that is mentioned above so that’s it about the topics we’ll be covering in this session guys now let’s start the session by understanding what is automation what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word automation is it a robot or a web service or a file handling function technically all I will give you a formal definition of what is automation automation is something that reduces human intervention to complete a desired task now let’s consider this particular example suppose you want to pay a bill and the due rate is very near but you are not in a situation where you can physically go there and pay it as you know every time you want to make a transaction you need to add in some details so that the system acknowledges that it’s a genuine user and not a malfunction it is obvious guys who is ready to go there stand in the queue fill in the forms and then pay the bill right technology has improvised so much that there is an option called automatic bill payment where the amount to be paid is directly deducted from the respective account and the user can pick a date in that month letting the firm know know that they can process the transaction on that given date isn’t it interesting guys the way automation has evolved all right so now that you’ve understood what is automation let’s try to understand the different types of automation that exists there are basically three types of automation depending on the process which the user defines they are fixed automation programmable Automation and flexible automation let’s start off with understanding what is fixed automation fixed automation is nothing but the sequence of various operations that remains fixed and cannot be scheduled or customized by the user this type of automation is mainly used in the mechanical industry to carry out a desired job so that’s it about fixed automation guys let’s take a look at the programmable automation programmable automation can be used to change the sequence of any operation based on the requirements specified by the user it has made it to the front end of the user interface by providing various options to the user to edit the sequence as per the requirements now let’s discuss about flexible automation flexible automation can inherit both fixed as well as programmable automation it has the ability to produce a variety of sequences that are not just limited to one static type of automation now that you’ve understood the different types of automations let me quickly introduce you to the automation testing suit Selen and talk about the importance of this tool any software or application that is being developed needs to be tested thoroughly to ensure that the system does not break down under a given circumstance so what is testing testing basically refers to the process of evaluating the functionality to make sure that the system works fine and helps in detecting the errors you might ask which form of testing do I prefer let me answer this for you guys automation testing is more preferred over manual testing because it reduces the errors that occur during the simulation of the process now let’s start off with understanding what is selenium selenium as you all know is an automation tool that is used to test web applications you might think it is just a testing tool why is it of such great importance why not the other tools that help in testing the answer to this would be it is because selenium makes the process relatively Easy by providing valuable functionalities and libraries that helps in testing any software or web application selenium is an open-source portable framework used to automate the test cases in a web application it can be run on different browsers like Chrome Safari Opera Explorer and so on and supports cross browsing too talking about the languages that are used to write the test scripts selenium supports different programming languag anges like Java python Ruby C Etc but the most commonly used language among these would be Java because of its userfriendly Behavior now let’s talk about the license of this tool is it free of cost or is it a paid version all right guys selenium is free of cost the user does not have to pay for any of the versions of this tool the latest version available in the market is selenium 3.1 to get an end to end guidance on how to set up selenium on your system refer the link that is put up in the description of this video now let’s talk about the features of selenium selenium is highly flexible when it comes to functional and regression testing functional testing helps in testing the software against the business requirements and ensures that there are no defects in the system and regression testing helps in re-executing the tests against the modified application that’s it about selenium guys now let’s move on to understand what is robotic process automation commonly called RPA patients are very tarious and try to take most of her time which gradually decrease the productivity and result in the downfall of an organization now if we try to complete the same task by automating it the time taken to finish the task is reduced the rate of productivity increases and the number of errors are reduced RPA was coined with the vision of empow in business users to create software Bots that would interact with the system just like humans it is a combination of artificial intelligence and automation now you might ask which programming language should I learn in order to work on RPA well the answer to this would be none RPA runs on the end users PC programming the software is not required as RPA deals with the database and problem solving capability so the organization worldwide are transforming to this new technology because of its various advantages that’s it about RPA guys now let’s take a look at the similarities between selenium and RPA selenium and RPA both are automation tools used to automate a task selenium automates web applications and RPA automates business processes both these tools are rule based by rule based I mean they follow a set of procedures to automate any given task now let’s look at the parameters that will be taken into consideration for comparing the two automation Giants first I will compare them with the type of automation that takes place then the cost of these tools then move on to the programming knowledge required to run the test cases their life cycle their platform dependency the components used to automate a task the level of automation that takes place and the use case of automation let’s get it started by comparing the type of automation selenium supports programmable automation whereas RPA supports flexible automation programmable automation can be used to change the sequence of any operation based on the user requirements whereas flexible automation is a hybrid of fixed and programmable automation now let’s talk about the cost of these tools selenium is an open-source tool used to automate web applications whereas RPA has a set of tools like UI path automation anywhere and blue prism among these uip paath is free for Community Edition and the advanced versions are licensed whereas automation anywhere gives you a free trial for a month and the advanced versions are licensed as well coming to Blue prism blue prism is completely licensed guys talking about the programming knowledge required selenium does require the knowledge of java to run any test case whereas RPA does not require any coding knowledge as it deals with the backend processes and the database operations what is their life cycle how do they differ based on this parameter let’s take a look guys the life cycle of selenium is a little complicated compared to that of RPA selenium deals with test planning generating basic test cases enhancing the cases running and debugging the test and analyze and Report defects whereas RPA deals with just four processes that is analysis B development testing and support and maintenance now let’s talk about that platform dependency selenium can be run on different browsers and it can test only the web applications no mobile or desktop applications can be tested using selenium whereas RPA can run on any platform be it web mobile or desktop applications now let’s talk about the major component used by these tools to automate a task selenium uses web drivers to automate any task this is a simplified view of selenium web driver test scripts written in any programming language can be invoked by the system and is automated using selenium web driver that can run on different browsers like Chrome Safari Mozilla and so on whereas RPA makes use of robots to complete a task consider the situation where you need to enter data from different sources and you have a time constraint of several minutes how would you do that the smart answer would be by automating it guys RPA Bots help in automating the data from different sources and saves it in the form of an Excel file where you can find the data in a sequence now let’s talk about the level of automation that takes place selenium does not automate any clerical processes it automates functional regression and performance testing whereas RPA automates all clerical processes like data entry calculations and so on now let’s talk about the use case of automation or where does the automation takes place selenium works on the front end of the process whereas RPA works on the back end selenium can test only the current web page whereas RPA deals with the processes that are time consuming this is how the data is stored onto the database the browser details are sent via the web server and is stored in a sequence onto the database so that’s it about the param meters to compare both selenium and RPA now let’s talk about the most commonly asked question about selenium and RPA what if I try to use RPA as a testing tool I would say both selenium and RPA help in delivering automation Solutions talking about using it as a testing tool it can be used to test web applications but it is not recommended let me talk about the Practical aspect that resists RPA from being a test machine RPA is not directly applied to the product but it is applied to the processes associated with the business environment whereas selenium completely depends on the product for testing a case and about selenium as RPA selenium cannot be used as RPA because it does not automate business processes so that’s it about selenium versus RPA guys if you want to learn more about selenium web driver and RPA tools don’t forget to take a look at the Ed ak’s YouTube channel and check out selenium and RPA playlist thank you for watching this video Happy learning

Key Takeaways 🎯

Conclusion 📝

In conclusion, both Selenium and RPA are powerful automation technologies with their own unique capabilities and use cases. Selenium is best suited for web application testing, while RPA excels in automating repetitive business processes. Understanding the differences and similarities between these technologies is crucial in making the right choice for your automation needs.

FAQ 🤔

• Can I use RPA as a testing tool?
  RPA can be used for testing, but it is not recommended as it is designed for automating business processes, not direct product testing.
• Can I use Selenium as RPA?
  Selenium cannot be used as RPA as it does not automate business processes, it is primarily for front-end web application testing.