Tool Mentor: Executing a Test Suite Using Rational TestManager

Purpose

This tool mentor describes how to use Rational TestManager to execute a test suite. For other information on this topic, refer to Tool Mentor: Creating Test Scripts using Rational Robot.

This section provides links to additional information related to this tool mentor.

• Execute Test Suite

Overview

As part of its ability to manage your testing effort, TestManager allows you to coordinate test scripts of all types-GUI, Manual Test, Virtual User, Command Line, Virtual Basic, and Java-into one user-executed step. This step, called a suite, allows you to distribute, execute, and evaluate families of test scripts across your testing team as a cohesive whole, rather than in fragments.

When you execute a suite, you supply runtime-specific information. Each virtual tester that executes its assigned suite items runs with these guidelines. The results of executing the suite are stored in logs. After you execute the suite, you can generate reports to analyze the data stored in the logs and to display execution results in the form of graphs and charts.

See Tool Mentor: Designing an Automated Test Suite Using Rational TestManger for more information on creating a test suite.

This tool mentor is applicable when running Microsoft Windows 98/2000/NT 4.0.

Tool Steps

To execute a test suite using TestManager, you need to perform these steps:

1. Specify a suite
2. Define your user load
3. Specify a log file
4. Enable or disable resource monitoring
5. Choose whether to ignore configurations
6. Specify run-time reporting options

1.   Specify a suite

• To specify a suite, from the File menu, click Run Suite. The Run Suite dialog displays.
• To change the suite, click Change... within Suite Information.

2.   Define your user load

• If the suite you've chosen to run has a fixed computer group defined and there are no fields visible under Name, proceed to step 3, Specify a log file now.
• Otherwise, enter the number of virtual testers you want to run in the Number of users box.
• If a suite includes both fixed and scalable groups, the fixed groups are assigned first. The number of available virtual testers depends on the type of license you have. If your license doesn't support the number of virtual testers you specify, you'll see an error message.

Note: When you defined computer groups, if you selected the Prompt for computers before running suite checkbox, the Computers list appears along with Edit Computers, Edit Computer Lists, and Properties buttons.

3.   Specify a log file

The current build number appears in the Build box. The name of the Log Folder is based on the suite, and the Log Name is based on the number of virtual testers and the number of times you've run the suite.

To change the log folder or log name, click Change... within Log Information.

4.   Enable or disable resource monitoring

If you plan to monitor resources, click the Monitor resources checkbox. Modify the interval in the Update Rate box to change the rate at which the views are updated. The lower the interval, the faster the update.

Monitoring observes computer resource usage when you play back the suite, and then graphs this usage data over the corresponding virtual tester response times when you analyze your results.

5.   Choose whether to ignore configurations

Click the Ignore configurations for test cases checkbox to have TestManager ignore system configurations for test cases and run the test cases on any available computers.

TestManager has three ways of running suites with this option selected:

• If a suite contains a test case with configured test cases and the parent test case has an implementation-for example, a test script or suite-TestManager runs the parent test case on any available computer, but does not run any of the configured test cases.
• If a suite contains a test case with configured test cases and the parent test case does not have an implementation, TestManager does not run the parent or any configured test cases.
• If a single configured test case has an implementation, TestManager runs the test case on the specified computer.

6.   Specify run-time reporting options

• To change how TestManager reports the status of your suite execution, click Options... . You'll be able to set the following types of options:
  • Monitor tab controls how TestManager displays information during suite execution.
  • Reports tab specifies the reports generated by TestManager when he suite completes execution. This option is applicable only to performance testing.
  • Run tab controls the logging of suite execution for later evaluation.
  • VU Compilation tab specifies the default definitions for conditional VU compilation and the inclusion of external C libraries in the suite.

   For more information, refer to the topic titled Options dialog box in Rational TestManager online Help.

• Once you've configured your execution, click OK to execute your test. TestManager checks the suite and compiles any uncompiled or out-of-date test scripts. To stop suite execution while TestManager is checking the suite, click Cancel.
• After TestManager checks the suite and compiles the necessary test scripts, it minimizes the Preparing to Run window. At this point, you cannot cancel or dismiss this window. To halt execution, click Stop on the Monitor menu.
• After you execute your tests, you can evaluate the results of the tests.

   For more information, refer to the topic titled Executing Tests in TestManager online Help.

Rational Unified Process