QTP Tutorial #6 – Understanding QTP Record and Run Settings for Our First Test

This is the sixth tutorial in our Quick Test Professional training series. To recap, we have started the online training article series for Quick Test Professional and we will cover most of the tutorials with simple examples to help you understand the concept.

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The previous few tutorials have focused on Quick Test Professional’s Keyword view, which was crucial in understanding the structure of a Quick Test Professional test and introduced ways to tailor tests to fit our needs.

Now, we are ready to record our first test completely.

In the next few tutorials, we will focus on this process. Today’s topic is the first step in this process, which is the “Record and Run settings”. We will explore why it is important and how it can affect a test.

Record and Run Settings Dialog

When Quick Test Professional is launched and we choose to record a new test, the “record and run settings” dialog opens.

Alternatively, you can access this window by choosing the “Automation -> Record and Run Settings” option from the menu. In our examples, we have continued with the default settings, but now we will explore further.

Here is what the dialog looks like:

As the name suggests, this is where you can set parameters that help you create and execute a test via recording.

Quick Test Professional can record and run tests on either a windows app or a web app. The web tab is only available when the web add-in is selected to be loaded at startup. This tab is used for Web, .NET Web Forms, PeopleSoft, and Web-based SAP objects.

So there are 2 tabs to define settings for each of these environments. There will be a separate ‘Siebel’ tab available if a Siebel add-in is installed and loaded during startup.

Let’s look at the ‘Web’ tab first.

“Web Tab” On Record and Run Settings Dialog

The default settings are shown in the above picture. This setting means that the target of the record operation during a record session can be any of the web applications already open in a browser.

You can also instruct Quick Test Professional to ignore certain web pages like QC or any other page with a specific URL or title. You can navigate to “Tools -> Options ->Web” and define those pages in the following Quick Test Professional dialog:

But if you choose the next option “Open the following address when a record or run session begins,” then the corresponding elements on the screen become enabled.

Here is how it looks:

You can enter the address of any page and choose your preferred browser. The browsers supported by Quick Test Professional 11 are listed below.

Only the browsers that are supported and currently installed on your machine will appear on the list.

There is another way to set the record and run settings, which is through Environment variables. We will discuss them in detail later, as we haven’t reached that point yet.

Just to mention, if the environment variables URL_env and Browser_env are set, they will override the URL and browser chosen in the “Record and Run Setting” window. We will cover how to create and use these variables later.

“Do not record and run on browsers that are already open” – If this option is selected, any browsers already open before recording and running, as well as before launching Quick Test Professional, will be ignored.

It is as if these browsers don’t exist for Quick Test Professional because you cannot even spy on these pages to view the objects. In other words, these browsers are completely ignored and deemed inaccessible to Quick Test Professional.

“Close the browser when the test closes” – This option, when selected, will close the browser on which the record and/or run session was performed when the test ends.

“Windows Tab” on Record and Run Settings Dialog

This tab is for Windows-based applications. The default option is to record and run on any open Windows app.

If the “Record and Run only on” option is selected, the other options under it become activated.

• Applications opened by Quick Test Professional: When selected, only the applications opened as a result of an invoke operation performed by Quick Test Professional are chosen for recording.
• Applications opened via Desktop (by Windows Shell): This option selects the application opened from the windows desktop.
• Applications specified below: Choosing this option opens another window where you can define a specific app to be opened by Quick Test Professional at the beginning of a record or run session.

As you can see from the above window, you can add the path of an application and its folder, and Quick Test Professional will open that particular app during recording and/or running.

That covers a quick introduction to various record and run settings that can be used for a Quick Test Professional test. When testing a web app, it is also important to ensure that the correct settings are added in the windows application tab.

This is crucial to prevent unnecessary application openings and accidental changes to already open windows applications. Note that the settings in the Windows tab do not directly affect testing on the web app.

So the recommended settings for the windows tab when testing a web app are:

Once these settings are configured, the test recording begins. Any operation performed on the test will be recorded in Quick Test Professional. You can stop the recording by clicking on the “STOP” option in the Quick Test Professional menu once you have completed all the desired steps on the AUT.

The recorded steps can then be re-performed on the AUT by choosing the “RUN” option in Quick Test Professional. The Run operation will invoke the application (web or windows) based on the specified settings.

Conclusion

This lays the foundation for performing basic steps on the AUT using Quick Test Professional. However, in the real world, this alone is not sufficient. Testing involves verification and validation, so we will need to tailor these basic lines of code to include checkpoints and programmatically check specific conditions.

In the upcoming articles, we will discuss these checkpoints and best practices for efficient test creation.

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If you have any questions about Quick Test Professional or any of the previously covered tutorials, feel free to post them in the comments below. If you have any suggestions to improve these tutorials, please contact us.