Automation testing is now the default for modern QA teams. Instead of spending hours manually clicking buttons, filling out forms, and triple-checking for bugs (only to miss one in production), testers can write a script once, and the machine takes over. It can mimic the user’s actions, flags issues, and gives teams back hours that they can use for more strategic tasks.
When done right, automation testing is a game-changer.
That means, if your team is experiencing:
...then it's time to go from manual to automation testing.
We have helped QA teams across the world go from manual to automation testing successfully, and here's the playbook to help your team achieve exactly just that:
Step 1: Assess automation feasibility
Step 2: Define automation goals and success criteria
Step 3: Choose the right automation tools and frameworks
Step 4: Setup your test infrastructure
Step 5: Start writing and running the simple automation tests, first
Step 6: Manage your tests properly
Step 7: Track your results
Before you start, let's meet @Alex Martins, who's going to provide a high-level view on the manual-to-automated process:
If you’re going to automate, automate with intent. Automation works best when it's consistent, reliable, and part of your delivery rhythm. Therefore, you should focus on test cases that are:
High frequency: Think regression tests, smoke tests, or sanity tests. These tests are run repetitively and there are usually little to no changes to them. A rule of thumb we usually recommend: if you run it every sprint or every pull request, it’s a strong candidate for test automation.
Stable and predictable: You should avoid automating any tests that change constantly or behave inconsistently.
Business critical: Core flows like login, checkout, or API contract are all flows you must know are working before release. Automating those tests is a smart move.
Data driven: These are the tests where you can reuse logic across many input sets without rewriting.
Time consuming to do manually: These are flows that take up hours of your team each release cycle.
Meanwhile, here are the tests that you should not automate:
Exploratory and UX-focused tests
Highly unstable features or UI elements
Tests requiring physical devices or complex hardware
These tests are more unpredictable and susceptible to change. You wouldn't want to automate tests for a feature that changes too frequently, because then you have to put effort into maintaining them. Moreover, these "unpredictable" tests are usually the fun and interesting parts of testing, and your team probably loves doing them. Why automate the fun and creative part?
After all, automation is basically using the power of machines to leave more space for us humans to do creative work. Let all let the machines do their monotonous work, while we take care of our creative work. Keep that in mind when you start your automation testing journey.
💡 Read More: How to select test cases for automation testing?
To get leadership buy-in for your automation testing efforts, you need to prove that it has a positive impact on ROI. We have built a test automation ROI calculator for you to do just that.
Here are some statistics for you: from our survey on 1,500+ QA professionals, we discovered that companies that see QA as strategic are more likely to see improvements across customer satisfaction, speed, and cost.
You should tie automation testing success to business success. Here are the metrics we recommend:
Defect detection rate (pre-release vs post-release) – fewer escaped defects means reduced support costs and higher customer trust.
Mean time to detect & resolve defects (MTTD/MTTR) – automation should shorten feedback loops, leading to faster delivery cycles.
Cycle time reduction – how much automation shortens regression or release cycles, directly tied to time-to-market.
Cost of quality savings – fewer manual test hours spent, less rework, and lower defect-related costs.
Test execution time savings – show how automation compresses testing windows (e.g., “12 hours of manual work reduced to 45 minutes of automated runs”).
For example, SAGA, a UK-based insurance provider, measured their automated regression testing success as:
That is exactly what you should measure. One small advice: have two types of metrics, short-term and long-term ones. The short-term metrics are the quick wins, while the long-term metrics are the business impacts.
💡 Tip: Don't forget to also communicate the benefits of test automation to leadership. Test automation impacts both the QA and dev team in tangible (cost-saving) and intangible ways (job satisfaction, growth, more creativity in work).
Once you have decided on what to test and how to measure it, it's time to choose the right testing tools and frameworks.
The right automation testing tool/framework is the one that best fits your team's needs. For example, you wouldn't want to start automation testing with code if no one in your team knows how to code. Understand your team before you make the decision.
If you are managing a QA team with many manual testers who need to adopt automation testing quickly, low-code testing tools like Katalon can significantly reduce the entry barrier and help them move from manual to automated testing quickly. With Katalon, you can:
All well-functioning systems are built on a good infrastructure, and the same goes for automation. This test infrastructure ensures that all of your activities operate smoothly.
We advise that you start with the low-hanging fruit. After all, your team is just transitioning from manual to automation testing, so they need time to familiarize themselves with this "new" scope of work.
Common low-hanging fruits are:
Critical happy paths only. E.g., sign in → core action → sign out; add to cart → checkout (no edge cases yet).
Deterministic flows. Stable UI, stable data, minimal external calls.
Short, atomic tests. 1 user goal per test, <60s runtime, no cross-test dependencies.
1 browser + headless. Prove reliability before cross-browser/device expansion.
Here is a list of practical test cases to try:
User can sign up (happy path)
User can sign in/out
Password reset completes
Create primary object (e.g., project)
Update that object
Delete that object
Add to cart / start checkout
Complete purchase with mock payment
Admin-only page access control
Basic analytics/event fired on core action (if stable)
In terms of test design, automation testing should not differ too much from manual testing. Here are some test design techniques to help your team get started.
Test management is a kind of glue that sticks the entire software testing process together.
One of the first test management activities is grouping your tests by test suites and test collections. Test cases belonging to one test suite or collection usually have similar characteristics.
For example, here are some categories for you to consider:
You can assign several tags for one test case. A test suite can be created using many tags. If you are using Google Sheets, you can easily filter the tags to quickly arrive at the list of test cases with specific tags that you want. Here's how you can create and manage test suites in Katalon.
It takes a little bit of effort in the beginning, but once you have successfully categorized your tests and have many suites, you can schedule them to run on trigger (either by a specific interval, or on code push). That's when the true power of test automation shines!
💡 Read More: How to create effective regression test suites?
Rinse and repeat the steps above until you have successfully automated all of the possible test cases. Once done, you can start to create a report to communicate the results.
A good report is more than number. It's the medium through which you share the success story of your team.
Here, you can go back to step 2. What metrics have you decided to track? How are they looking right now? Consolidate all into a test report with visual representations.
Here's an example of a good test report from Katalon Testops:
If you want to go from manual testing to automation testing, Katalon helps you take the first step. It makes automation accessible with built-in frameworks and a wide range of features designed for speed, clarity, and scale:
Katalon builds on your existing QA process and enables faster feedback. Download Katalon and start testing today.
📝 Want us to help you with this process? Request a demo to explore how Katalon fits your team’s testing strategy.