Category: Test Automation

  In module 1 of this Fast Start TestComplete course we’ve looked at the TestComplete development environment. You might not necessarily understand what everything does but you should be familiar with these core components: Project Workspace – where you develop your automated tests Object Browser – where you can examine the application you’re testing And within each of those components you should understand what these sub components are for: Project Workspace     - Project Explorer: shows the artifacts created for your automation project - Workspace: where you create and modify those different artifacts Object Browser - Object List: hierarchy of objects (processes, windows & browsers) on your system - Properties: a list of characteristics relating to a specific object...

If you’re looking to learn TestComplete fast then this is the place to start. We’ve pulled together 12 fast start training modules teaching you all you need to know when you start out with TestComplete. Everything you need to become productive in the shortest time possible. Each module comprises of one short video along with a list of key learning point and concepts. All this designed to get you productive with TestComplete in the shortest time possible. The quicker you become familiar with TestComplete the quicker you’ll be writing and running effective automated tests. Over the course of 12 modules we’ll cover the following topics: Module 1 – Getting Started Key Components Module 2 – Creating our first test Module...

Cross browser testing is always a bit of a challenge for test teams that are trying to keep up with the ever increasing combinations of browsers, platforms and operating systems. Add mobile browsers into the mix and you may as well forget traditional approaches testing. Testing manually just isn’t going to cut it. One approach worth looking at for cross browser testing using TestComplete’s browser emulator feature. Depending on your website or web app you may well be able to write a test once then just scale up using emulations of browsers on a single machine. Alright, nothing really replaces testing on the real device with the final release of the product. That’s an approach that’s time consuming, requires lots...

We’ve looked at ‘Why we need name mapping‘ and we’ve covered ‘What name mapping is‘. Now we’re going to take a look at the ‘How to map objects’ part of TestComplete. The quick way to get started with mapping objects is to have TestComplete populate the name map as you record tests. This isn’t the best approach though. TestComplete does it’s best to create a concise list of mapped objects but it doesn’t always get it right. The best way to build your name map is to map your objects manually. So switch off the automatic mapping (to stop TestComplete filling up the name map with stuff you’re not interested in). Then select all the objects you need to interact...

Bringing manual and automated tests together to deliver combined reporting and traceability is an important goal for many QA teams. Usually this means linking an automated testing process into a manual test tracking tool. With the new 9.9 release of QAComplete and release 10.0 of TestComplete implementing an integrated solution becomes possible without investing vast amounts of money or lots of time and effort. In this post we’ll be looking at how to setup QAComplete and TestComplete integration. Then we’ll see how this can really benefit your QA efforts as we look at combined reporting and traceability in the follow up post. The high level architecture here revolves around having a central test management capability (delivered by QAComplete) and a...

Often when you start out with TestComplete you’ll find yourself bewildered by the complexity of identifying and naming the objects in the application you’re testing. TestComplete has a lot of powerful features to help with identifying objects in applications but when you’re starting out you’ll want to get to grips with the basics. The next few posts look at good approaches for mastering Name Mapping in TestComplete. If you want to understand ‘why’ we have name mapping then this into article is a good place to start. If you want to understand ‘what’ name mapping is then read on. Or if you just want to find out ‘how’ to get started then we’ve got another post coming up soon. What...

Record and playback features in test automation tools have a bad reputation. Why? When you purchase the automation tool it says on the tin “record and play back”. And for most tools this is exactly what they do. Yet many users seem to expect far more. Let’s be clear though, the tin does not say “record and play back with 4 man years of development which will deliver you a world class framework that will make you look like a god in the realm of software test automation”. As users our expectations for this technology are set far to high. Most test automation tools have this feature and pretty much all of them implement this very well. When you look...

When implemented well, automated testing can save a significant amount of time and money. The key is to start your planning with something small, and with tests that offer a high return on investment. A good example of this is the smoke tests run by the team to check that the latest build meets a minimum standard. Assuming these automated smoke tests pass then the release can be accepted by the QA team. Since these types of tests need to be run frequently they make good candidates for automation and should be factored into your planning efforts. Building up a breadth of these smokes tests can then help you develop up a very effective regression suite. Planning the development of...