Forum Discussion

alibaba82's avatar
alibaba82
Super Contributor
16 years ago

'MANUAL' test step type

Hello,
We have some QA teams who have to do some manual testing and would like to use soapUI for verification of manual actions. The typical scenario for embedded teams and web teams is something like this.

1. Start up devices like cellphones (manual step)
2. press some button on device or perform action on website (manual step)
3. make some HTTP/SOAP/REST call (soapui step)
4. Check database / logs for manual action verification (soapUI test step)

Many testtools like Quality Center, provide user the ability to create 'manual' test cases. For our testing requirements for embedded/web teams, if soapUI can have a 'MANUAL' teststep, we can probably consider soapui for a wider QA audience.

Here are the requirements for a 'MANUAL' teststep details/behavior

1. Manual teststep should let the user specify a description, expected results, actual result in some text boxes.
2. When the test case execution reaches a 'MANUAL' teststep, the user should be prompted with a pop up. The user can add details to actual results, and specify pass/fail/N/A radio button for the test step status.
3. User click on continue, soapui goes to next step.
4. These tests cases, testacases which have manual stepssteps, should be skipped when launching via testrunner since no way to interact with pop ups.

Let us know what you think and if this could be doable in the near future so we can plan accordingly.

Thanks

Ali
  • M_McDonald's avatar
    M_McDonald
    Super Contributor
    16 years ago
    You might be able to roll your own with a Groovy script step and some Swingbuilder code...
  • alibaba82's avatar
    alibaba82
    Super Contributor
    16 years ago
    I'm sure we can but we're talking about a team of blackbox testers. Want to keep this simple. Groovy code scares some black box testers
  • SmartBear_Suppo's avatar
    SmartBear_Suppo
    Icon for Alumni rankAlumni
    16 years ago
    Hi Ali,

    I think this is a great idea, and probably not that hard to implement.. but I can't make any promises regarding delivery-date, by when would you need it?

    regards!

    /Ole
    eviware.com
  • alibaba82's avatar
    alibaba82
    Super Contributor
    16 years ago
    We don't really have a delivery date. Basically some other QA teams came to my team to see how we are using soapUI and if it something thing they can use in their teams as it works really well for us. I know they are looking at other tools to see what best fits their needs. I wanted to do a proof of concept for them and knowing some of their testing issues, I know this is something they will absolutely need. There could be others requirements as well but for now implementing this would help.

    Ali
  • alibaba82's avatar
    alibaba82
    Super Contributor
    16 years ago
    I think this feature would also help soapUI become more of a standard testing software. Many companies still rely on excel sheets for their testing frameworks. Allowing those companies to use this feature might simplify their life and probably allow soapui to get newer customers outside of the REST/SOAP world. I worked on windows based applications before which was really hard to automate and having soapui at that time with 'manual test steps' would have helped tremendously.

    Ali
  • alibaba82's avatar
    alibaba82
    Super Contributor
    16 years ago
    Hi Ole,
    Had some conversation with some other teams and received some very good feedback about this test step.

    We have a web application teams and for them the biggest problem is website automation because during development the interface keep on changing so it is almost impossible to automate using any tool (selenium, qtp, watir). This team develops automation framework using selenium after code freeze. However, through out development they have to either do a lot of manual testing using excel sheets, SQL queries, REST/SOAP calls etc or write C#/Selenium code hoping that the UI does not change too much. So in short these guys think its a good idea too.

    One very useful requirement came out of this discussion from a few teams. This step should contain an optional file attachment feature. So if you are running a testcase, and a manual test step fails, we typically capture screenshots (for websites), or take pictures (for cell phones etc). Most of the time we dump the screenshot in some network share so that they have linked via bug reports. In this case the junit report would have hyperlink to the location.

    example Requirement:
    Add attachment file: file share, network share location, url
    Specify some comment: installing network driver causes windows vista to  blue screen (see screenshot)

    Ali
  • M_McDonald's avatar
    M_McDonald
    Super Contributor
    15 years ago
    It might also be useful to also have references to documentation about how to perform the manual step (screenshots, etc.) attached to the test step. This would also allow common instructions to be kept in one place rather than in scattered test steps.

    We commonly do this in our QualityCenter test cases.
  • alibaba82's avatar
    alibaba82
    Super Contributor
    15 years ago
    Hi Ole,
    Any ballpark date as to when this might be done. 2-3 weeks ?

    Ali
  • SmartBear_Suppo's avatar
    SmartBear_Suppo
    Icon for Alumni rankAlumni
    15 years ago
    Hello,

    The manual TestStep was introduced in soapUI 3.6, you can find the documentation for it here.

    Regards,
    Dain
    eviware.com