Breaking the test automation myths: what really works for ETRM

Test automation is one of the most overloaded terms in enterprise software. Ask 10 people what it means and you'll get 10 different answers. Recording clicks and replaying them. Writing thousands of lines of code to mimic the front end. Image recognition, screen scraping, bots that "watch" how people work.

For ETRM platforms, none of that is what good looks like. And it's not what we do.

If you're evaluating test automation for Endur, Findur or Allegro, it's worth pulling apart the assumptions, because the wrong choice doesn't just waste budget. It quietly erodes confidence in the data your traders, risk managers and auditors rely on every day.

The myths worth busting

Myth 01: "test automation is recording someone clicking through screens."

Record-and-play looks simple. A tester walks through a process, the tool captures the clicks, and replays them on demand. It also breaks the moment anything changes. A new release, a different screen resolution, an upgraded grid control, and the recording falls apart. And even when it doesn't break, it's only checking that the right buttons can be clicked in the right order. That's not the same as knowing the trade booked correctly, the calculation ran properly, or the data downstream is right. 

Myth 02: "more tests means better coverage."

A test pack of thousands of hand-written scenarios sounds impressive. It isn't, if half of them are testing yesterday's trading book. The business starts trading a new currency, location or instrument, and the tests don't follow. The pack keeps growing. The relevance keeps shrinking.

Myth 03: "any automation tool can be made to work."

Generic tools have been tried repeatedly on ETRM platforms. They struggle for two reasons. They can't reliably reach the grid controls and custom screens these platforms rely on, so they fall back to image recognition, which is brittle. And they have no native understanding of trades, lifecycles, valuations or risk. Every workflow has to be built from scratch. By the time it's working, the platform has moved on.

Myth 04: "automation is a one-time project."

It's not. ETRM platforms evolve constantly. New products, new curves, new versions, new regulation. Test automation that doesn't evolve with them becomes dead weight the moment something changes.

What test automation should actually do for ETRM

Real test automation for trading platforms isn't about mimicking a human at the screen. It's about exercising the same business logic the platform runs on, repeatably, at scale, and with evidence.

That means three things matter:

• Testing at the API layer, not the UI

Triangle uses the same API the platform's uses. When Triangle books a trade, every validation, op service and trigger that fires for a human user also fires for Triangle. The tests exercise the real logic, not a screen sitting in front of it. They're faster, they're accurate, and they're resilient to the UI and infrastructure changes that break other tools.

• Generating tests dynamically from your real configuration

Hand-written test packs go stale. Triangle inverts the model. Instead of enumerating every test case by hand, the test author describes what makes a scenario interesting, and Triangle generates the concrete tests from your actual Endur, Findur or Allegro configuration and trading data. As your business evolves, the test pack regenerates and keeps pace. Coverage that grows with you, not against you.

• Producing evidence as a byproduct

Every Triangle run produces a comprehensive, structured, auditable record. Not screenshots stitched together by hand, but searchable evidence that holds up to governance review years later. Audit readiness becomes the default, not a scramble.

Built for ETRM. Nothing else.

Triangle is the most focused, domain-aware test automation platform in the ETRM market. Purpose-built for Endur, Findur and Allegro, with more than 1,000 out-of-the-box tests and thousands of pre-written step definitions, dynamic test generation from your live configuration, and a behaviour-driven development (BDD) approach that makes tests readable by people who don't write code.

That focus is the point. It's why customers see value on day one rather than months, why regression cycles drop from weeks to days, and why the tests keep working as the platforms evolve.

If you're rethinking your test strategy, we'd love to show you what good looks like.