Unified Functional Testing Features
Unified Functional Testing Key benefits Features
· Automate testing of multi-layer test scenarios, including GUI and API testing
· Powerful visual user experience and toolset
· Testing of emerging technologies with innovative HP UFT Insight object recognition
· Easy conversion of manual tests to automated tests
· Framework definition for better test management thanks to tight integration to HP Business Process Testing and HP Application Lifecycle Management
What is UFT 11.5?
The new version of HP QTP is being called HP Unified Functional Testing 11.5 (UFT 11.5). UFT 11.5 is actually a combination of HP QTP (for testing GUI) and HP Service Test (for testing API).
Brand New Modern IDE?
This point has been discussed so many times at many forums. QTP’s IDE lacked the punch when compared to many modern IDE’s like Eclipse, Microsoft Visual Studio etc. It lacked many must have features that were there in many IDEs available in the market. With UFT 11.5, HP will be introducing a brand new modern IDE, which will
a) have a new IDE aligned with modern dev IDEs (like Eclipse).
b) have many new features such as script editing, coding, MDI, checkpoints, auto completion etc
Image Courtesy: HP Webinar Slides
Image Based Automation – Using HP UFT Insight?
With what I have understood, this seems to be a real killer. HP claims that, using HP UFT insight, you can simply recognize controls in the application by their appearance. This feature would enable you to record any object displayed on the screen, even if UFT is not able to recognize the Object’s technology.
Image Courtesy: HP Webinar Slides
Integration with Open Source CI Systems?
This is another very good feature that has been implemented in UFT 11.5. This was one of the key drawbacks due to which QTP was not considered a good tool for automation in Agile Projects. With this new feature, you would be able to -
a) integrate UFT with popular CI systems like Jenkins.
b) automatically execute smoke and regression test cases repeatedly as part of nightly builds.
HP UFT Mobile – Extended Support for Mobile Testing
As part of UFT 11.5, HP will be providing lot of new features in mobile testing, where you will be able to -
a) write agnostic scripts, which once written can be used on multiple devices.
b) test your scripts on simulators as well as real devices.
Image Courtesy: HP Webinar Slides
Apart from these major features, there are lots of other features such as pdf checkpoints, graphic UI – canvas, workflows support thanks to integration to QC / ALM, support for latest technologies – Qt apps, Flex, more than 20 new versions etc.
New Add-Ins for Flex and Qt applications
UFT now supports:
§ Flex
§ QT
The add-ins give you the ability to test both Flex and QTGUI applications using UFT. For UFT to work with a Flex application you must compile it with a UFT Flex pre-compiled agent. Testing Qt applications does not require any other steps, other than loading the QT Add-in and testing your QT app just like you would any other UFT supported application.
Run step feature for API tests
For Service Test API test users, this feature is a simple change but an absolutely killer enhancement that's going to save me a lot of time--the ability to run any step on the canvas areas using the new "Run step" command.
If you have an API test made up of 50 operations, you'll no longer need to run the whole test from the top. Simply right click on any operation on the Canvas. For instance, selecting "Run step" will run only that operation.
Insight – Image-Based Object Identification
Need to test an application that QTP was never able to recognize? Or do you need to test an application that runs remotely on a non-windows OS? In theory, using the new Insight feature in UFT will now allow you to successfully run tests against these types of challenging situations.
Basically, Insight works by UFT recognizing objects in an application based on what they look like. So, if you're testing an application that UFT doesn't support, it shouldn't matter that none of the objects' native properties are recognized, since UFT will instead use an image to help identify it.
All images are stored in the object repository.
(I'm not sure how reliable this approach is yet, since I haven't had time to really try it out, but the concept sounds promising.)
Enhanced Debugging Features
Anyone that has been coding on QTP knows how frustrating and the limited the current QTP debugging capabilities are. On top of that, debugging is one of the most important parts of creating a script—which is why you'll be happy to know that the debugger in UFT has been greatly enhanced.
The following panes have been added and enhanced:
§ Call Stack – allows you to view info about the methods and functions that are currently in the call stack.
§ Loaded Modules – for API tests, this pane allows you to view info on .dlls that are loaded and executed in API test runs.
§ Threads – For API tests--allows you to view info about threads currently running as part of the run session.
§ Local Variables Pane – allows you to view all the current values and types of variables in their current context.
§ Console Pane – when debugging a script, this pane allows you to run lines of VBScript (for GUI tests) and C# code (for API tests) in your suspended run session.
§ Watch – when debugging, this pane allows you to view the current values ad types of selected variables, properties, and VBScript of C# expressions in a test's suspended run session.
§ Debug pane – enables you to view the current values and types of variables, properties, and VBScript or C# in a test's suspended run session.
Unified Functional Testing 11.5 feature enhancement
Unified IDE
In previous releases, HP had separate products for functional testing. QuickTest Professional (QTP) was used for testing GUI applications, and Service Test was for testing non-GUI technologies. Unified functional Testing (UFT) combines both products and features a frontend that merges the separate tools into one common user interface.
When creating a new test script in UFT, the user is now given a choice between creating either a GUI Test (formerly known as QTP) or API Test (formerly known as Service Test). This book focuses on the API testing piece of UFT.
UFT also allows the user (with a proper license for each piece) to integrate steps from GUI, API and LoadRunner into one test script. The ability to call and pass data from one test type to another enables the user to create true end-to-end testing solutions.
The new IDE also allows you to open multiple tests and libraries at the same time. This is destined to be a huge time saver, especially for QTP engineers that have created action-based frameworks.
