Case Study: Business Insider

Introduction

Business Insider is an American online media company operating under the umbrella of the German publisher Axel Springer SE, the largest in Europe.

The decision to transition to Currents originated from a necessity for enhanced cost efficiency and improved support, both successfully addressed by Currents. As a result, Business Insider has streamlined its testing procedures and achieved better satisfaction with its test reporting tool.

Since switching to Currents as a test reporting tool for Cypress, Business Insider has experienced significant improvements in both cost efficiency and customer support. In addition, Currents provided an excellent solution for facilitating the Cypress to Playwright migration.

Successful Adoption of Currents

The decision to opt for the Currents Dashboard was influenced by its superior interface, robust test performance metrics, and a more effective toolset than Business Insider's previous automation reporting tool (Cypress Dashboard). Furthermore, the responsiveness of the Currents team to Business Insider feedback and feature requests was outstanding, with the rapid implementation of our suggestions. The interactive relationship developed during the evaluation phase affirmed the reliability of choosing Currents for Business Insider needs.

Use Cases and Dashboard Interaction

The Business Insider team specifically requested the most frequently used features in Currents, particularly the Explorer views for test results and spec files. These features provide a clear overview of the tests that require immediate attention, allowing the team to stay informed and proactive in problem-solving. The Currents dashboard emerged as a central hub for quickly and accurately identifying problematic tests.

Migration from Cypress to Playwright

The Business Insider team evaluated Playwright and Cypress to identify the testing framework better suited to their needs. The primary consideration was the extent to which the Playwright Framework could test impossible scenarios with Cypress, specifically concerning iframes.

The Business Insider team established that Playwright's built-in support for working with iframes removed the need for a community-driven third-party library that was inadequate for certain scenarios.

Having replicated some of the same tests they were performing with Cypress in Playwright, the team compared the execution speed to ensure that the tests were either as fast or faster than their current Cypress tests. During this testing, they discovered that Playwright's capacity to leverage workers to execute multiple tests concurrently was a significant selling point for a potential switch to Playwright.

Ultimately, the team found that Playwright could test more scenarios (without third-party libraries) more reliably than Cypress (with third-party libraries), all while being faster and more flexible with the same reporting we had already been accustomed to using.

The migration process involved the development of a Proof of Concept (POC) to showcase the Playwright's capabilities and viability using Currents. Once it was defined as a suitable tool for Business Insider, the team selected a specific subset of tests for migration from Cypress to Playwright. Although there was a learning curve, as Cypress offered a range of commands that facilitated particular tasks, the migration of tests to Playwright was generally seamless.

Over time, the Business Insider team acquired more experience and confidence in utilizing the tool, which was complemented by incremental improvements in configuration to optimize the efficiency of running tests in CI.

Currents provided an excellent solution by enabling Business Insider to leverage Playwright's superior capabilities. Therefore, Currents resolved Business Insider's primary challenge when contemplating a shift from Cypress to Playwright.

How Currents Helps Business Insider

Currents provides better efficiency for Business Insider's developers while troubleshooting E2E CI failures and managing test suite performance.

Currents dashboard has proven to be an invaluable test reporting tool in our ability to identify problematic tests quickly and accurately. Thanks to the Currents Dashboard, our team can easily distinguish between flaky, failing, and slow tests, requiring minimal effort.

Adam - Senior Test Engineer

Business Insider team can readily locate flaky, clearly labeled, and easily identifiable tests. This feature significantly streamlines the investigation process, enabling the team to resolve the underlying issue behind the flake much faster.

Failed tests are equipped with all the necessary information required to debug the issue for each run, including retries. This feature allows the Business Insider team to promptly review the failure and determine the root cause, whether it's a visual regression, an image diff, or a trace for the run that requires further investigation.

Slow tests are another critical area for us. As longer CI runs can significantly slow down overall development, it is essential to identify these tests and reduce their execution time.

The inclusion of Currents in our operation is essential to maintain the efficiency of our engineering team. Without Currents, our engineers would have to spend more time debugging test failures in continuous integration (CI), resulting in an unclear picture of the tests that require improvement.

Metrics such as flakiness, test duration, and failure rate provide valuable insights that guide the team toward continually improving our test suites. These metrics offer a strategic advantage in identifying the tests that require attention and allocating resources effectively.

Thus, including Currents is vital in helping us achieve our goals of maintaining an efficient engineering team and improving our test suites.

Adam - Senior Test Engineer

Service Excellence: Technical Support and Customer Relationship

Exceptional technical support during adoption of the Currents Dashboard and migrating to Playwright highlighted Currents' commitment to efficiency.

The quality of service provided has been exceptional. The team has consistently demonstrated high responsiveness and efficiency in troubleshooting, debugging, and implementing fixes and suggested changes. Their commitment to ensuring that issues are resolved promptly and effectively is truly commendable.

Adam - Senior Test Engineer

Conclusion

In summary, adopting Currents has proven transformative for Business Insider, effectively addressing initial challenges and reshaping Business Insider's testing process.

Thanks to Currents, we've improved our developer experience, resulting in a surge of engagement and contributions from engineers outside our Test team. Our adoption of Currents has enabled us to streamline our procedures, foster collaboration, and empower our developers to deliver top-notch results.

Corey - Senior Test Engineer

Beyond mitigating cost inefficiencies and enhancing support, Currents, alongside the Playwright framework, has streamlined Business Insider testing procedures and empowered their team to swiftly identify, diagnose, and optimize various aspects of their test suite.

The tangible results and exceptional technical support highlight the success of Business Insider's decision to use Currents and migrate from Cypress to Playwright.

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