Once automated tests are successfully performed, they provide information to the testers. Automation provides information about the expected behavior of a system, leaving the interpretation of this information up to the testers to determine if it is a valid defect. How many times have you considered a test as flaky or rerun a test suite simply because it failed due to unexpected reasons? Automation did not find a defect, instead, it sent back the information that you used in your suite to determine the next action. So it means when a defect arises which will not be fixed, you accept that your team has determined the expected behavior of the system. This behavior may not be the result of the defect, but your system is not expected to do so.

Update Your QA Teams

 In order to ensure that the information your suite returns is meaningful and actionable, all it needs to have is a context. Testers can create context through Jira stories. In case your test does not fail for several months, it is a good sign. But are you sure you will be working on the same project? Will anyone know to ask you about this specific test? Such questions can be difficult to answer. Thus, begin by documenting all your tests. Defect tracking tools allow testers to record all details. If you are using custom failure messages, create something meaningful that other testers can understand too.

Never Abandon Your Tests

Designing tests to fail requires maintenance, which is one of the most popular methods of test curation. Since there are TODOs for testers, they should be visible to others working on automation or code-based at large. When testers work with a codebase that has multiple TODOs, they should check them regularly if they are still valid. One of the best ways to do this is to tag these tests or use the available tools built into your IDE.

Design your Tests to Fail

It is a method to ensure that applications are displaying expected behavior and reducing failure fatigue. Testers should start with the identification of behavior that they expect from an application or API and then categorize defects that a team won’t fix. Once all these are listed down, then consider the expected behavior and rewrite tests to pass on this behavior.  Document all these carefully so that team members coming after you will have the context about tests if they start failing. These tips can be useful in using tools to achieve the maximum from defect tracking efforts.

Always start by identifying the behavior that you expect from an application and then categorize the defects your team won’t fix. Once you have listed down all the defects that you can consider expected behavior, write down your tests to pass on this behavior. Make sure you use the right defect tracking tools for effective results.