Technology has indeed made our job easier regarding testing.
Back in the day, we had to call the Exchange and a tech would assist from his test-desk, (imagine the stuff you see on old films where the operator pulls a switch-cord and plugs it in to a slot .... well, like that but with the addition of knobs, switches and dial's with which to apply certain conditions, or to test with).
Then came similar things like SALT (test) and 17070 ..... which would provide a low level of assistance ..... followed by HAWK Testers and associated Remote Units (RU). These were the kings in their day ... the RU was the size of a small country, but you could fit it anywhere in the node and access it from the other end to 'switch in' whatever it was you required to help with testing. Fantastic on long rural runs.
At the time, the Exchange test heads were being invested in and 'Fast Test' became a 'thang'. This was accessed by dialling it up and requesting the desired function using the touch-tones on the phone keypad ... the new king in town !!
Now (as j0hn mentions), it's all done by smart apps ..... far, far quicker and precise as it links automatically to your task and there is no human error with the input request.
It also allows remote testing of xDSL circuits (bandwidth, SNR, errors etc), as well as PSTN and all the associated elements you may need applying, as a faultsman.
But ...... none of the aforementioned systems can detect a split-pair as a one-shot test ... :-)