TestComplete: Distributed Testing using test script tags ?

[jkrolczy]

Has anyone done any work in this area yet to establish a form of Distributed Testing to Slave machines using the new functionality of tagging scripts of the area they cover.

Exploring to create a setup for DevOps Cont. Testing using Distriubuted testing using tags to kick off script runs by the way they are tagged.

[tristaanogre]

Hrm....   I haven't done such work, but a couple of thoughts.

1) The vary structure of creating "Jobs" to run on slave machines means you are manually selecting what is to be run at the time you create the job.  So, it's almost redundant to use "tags" to achieve the result, especially since I don't believe the creation of a job is something that can be done in code.

2) Even if creating jobs is something that can be done in code, I don't recall whether or not "tags" are something that are accessible at Runtime.  That would also create a barrier in doing so as you would have no means of filtering out items based upon tag.

[sonya_m]

Hi @jkrolczy , could you provide more details about your scenario? What is it exacly that you are trying to achieve?

That should make it easier to suggest something. Thanks.

[TanyaYatskovska · Accepted solution]

Hi @jkrolczy,

As far as I see, there us the Tag property in the Task and NetworkSuite objects. So, you can run tests by tag. Here are several articles to review:

https://support.smartbear.com/testcomplete/docs/keyword-testing/tags.html

https://support.smartbear.com/testcomplete/docs/scripting/run.html#run-by-tag-or-by-tag-expression

[tristaanogre]

@TanyaYatskovska I learned something new.  Very interesting.  Thanks!

[jkrolczy]

Thanks for the articale links:

Per Team City Jobs I use, and a way to I haveTestComplete know what env. I want my scripts to run against.

  i.e.  QA, STAGING, PROD 

I use the Tag parameter property in the Task and NetworkSuite objects as that control.

I was trying to see if there was another way to use the Tagging of Scripts to break the test suite run into the areas of functionality by how the tagging is done per test script.

I will go ahead and tag the scripts for having those set for future use.

What I may do now here is further tweak the way I am using this Tag properity and include additional info along with it.

i.e.    QA_MainMenu,  STAGING_ViewEdit, QA_Printing, QA_LoginLogout

Then on my OnStartTest event, I can parse and set my Global vars so when the Jobs\Tasks script is hit it would now know the test environment and the area of functionality to test.  I would then just need to add more into the Tasks scripts, used by my Slaves, to now recognize not just the test env but now also the area of functionality to test against or default back to running the complete package of scripts originally set for the Slaves.

All of everyone's comments is clearing up my approach here for what I need to do.

This is all prep work to be able to run continuous testing on specific functional areas of a app per Dev changes checked in and avoiding wasting script runtine on areas not affected by Dev changes.

DevOps Cont. testing per Dev checkin\build\deploy\test.

Thanks All