Author: AutomatedQA Corp.
Last updated: April 15, 2009
Applied to: TestComplete 7
Preface
Application building is an inherent part of a software development process. Typically,
it includes a number of steps, like getting the latest version of source files from
a version control system, compiling libraries and packages, linking, making the
installation program, software testing and others. Building an application manually
quite often becomes a very tedious, is prone to errors and is an inefficient process.
It often takes a lot of time, especially if there are large, complex projects. To
save time and money and to reduce human mistakes that are possible during manual
building, software developers usually try to automate this process.
Automated builds are very important during software development and the use of automated
tests during the build process is also important. To achieve maximum efficiency,
automated tests are included in automated builds and ran during the build process.
This allows you to detect failures in a new build, catch bugs in newly integrated
code and report them to developers.
Running automated tests in your automated builds guarantees that every build is
tested for bugs. If any bug in the code arises, it is best to detect and fix it
as soon as it appears. Using automated tests in automated builds makes it possible
to discover bugs in the shortest period, when it is easier to find the reason for
the bug and fix it. This allows software developers to find and correct more errors
before the application is released.
AutomatedQA’s TestComplete is a powerful automated
testing tool and it is well suited for efficient testing of applications during the automated build process.
TestComplete’s Automated Tests in Automated Build Studio
Many development tools use TestComplete via COM to automate software testing. For
example, AutomatedQA’s Automated Build Studio uses
COM to integrate TestComplete’s automated tests and test results with its macros.
Automated Build Studio is a powerful build and release management system that provides
features for automated software build, test and release processes and lets you optimize
day-to-day building tasks and perform them automatically.
Automated Build Studio can be tightly integrated with TestComplete. With both of
these tools, you get a powerful and flexible system for automating builds and software
tests. You can perform automated builds and run TestComplete’s automated tests from
Automated Build Studio. To execute TestComplete’s automated tests, Automated Build
Studio provides special operations. These operations use COM technologies to communicate
with TestComplete. Automated Build Studio includes appropriate versions of these
operations for each version of TestComplete.
To test your application properly, you should add the appropriate TestComplete operation
at the end of your build macro, after the main building operations. So, Automated
Build Studio will apply TestComplete’s automated tests to the finished build to
detect bugs in it.
Figure 1 — The TestComplete operation within the Automated Build Studio macro.
After you add the operation to your macro, you should specify its properties. All
versions of the operation have similar sets of properties. Let’s consider, for example,
how you can use the operation that corresponds to TestComplete 6 and specify its
properties. Just double-click the operation in the macro or select Properties
from its context menu to display the "TestComplete 6" Operation Properties
dialog. In this dialog, the operation properties are organized into the following
three pages:
- Properties — contains properties common for all Automated Build Studio operations.
On this page, you can specify the operation’s description, enable or disable the
operation, specify actions that you want to perform if the operation fails (stop
execution, run a submacro or no actions) and some others.
Figure 2 — The Properties page in the TestComplete Operation Properties dialog.
- Project — contains the main properties of the operation. On this page, you
can specify TestComplete’s project suite, projects, project items, test items, script
units and routines that you want to run for automated testing during the automated
build process. You can also specify whether TestComplete will be hidden during the
test execution.
Figure 3 — The Project page in the TestComplete Operation Properties dialog.
- Result — on this page, you can specify variables that will receive the total
number of error and warning messages in the test log. You can also specify whether
the test results will be exported to a .mht file.
Figure 4 — The Result page in the TestComplete Operation Properties dialog.
The operation can also have child operations. They are run by Automated Build Studio
after the specified TestComplete automated tests have been loaded. These child operations
can change some settings of TestComplete or modify the automated test project’s
settings. Once all of the child operations are executed, the operation starts running
the automated test.
TestComplete’s automated tests can also be executed with another AutomatedQA’s tool — TestExecute. This tool allows you to execute
TestComplete’s automated tests on machines without TestComplete installed. Automated
Build Studio also includes the appropriate operation for launching automated tests
from your build macros using TestExecute. This operation has a similar set of properties
as the TestComplete operation has and it is used in the same way.
TestComplete’s Integration with Other Build Tools
TestComplete can also be integrated with two other automated build tools: MSBuild
and Visual Studio Team System. You can use TestComplete automated tests in your
MSBuild projects or run automated tests as part of your team builds in Visual Studio
Team System. This makes your automated builds more powerful. For more information,
see the Running TestComplete Automated Tests from MSBuild Projects and
Automated Testing with TestComplete and Team Build technical papers.
Conclusion
In this paper we have just given an overview of how you can use TestComplete automated
tests in your automated builds. The paper explains how to run TestComplete tests
from Automated Build Studio macros and explores the approaches to using TestComplete
when making automated builds. We hope this information will be useful and will help
you improve your automated build projects and make them more powerful, reliable
and efficient. If you haven’t tried either of these products, download
TestComplete and Automated Build Studio today.