I was asked to give a Business Process Testing demo this week.
To prepare, I created some simple graphs that I thought might be helpful for visualizing some core BPT concepts.
I believe that sometimes a graphic is the most effective way of conveying an abstract idea. Here are the graphs I created, along with a high-level outline of what each graph represents. I hope you find them helpful.
Is BPT separate from QTP?
One of the questions I'm asked most often when giving a demo for BPT is: "Is BPT a different functional tool then QTP?" The answer is, not really. I think of BPT as an extra layer that wraps around QTP and uses QC as a user-friendly interface for test automation creation that, in theory, is meant to make testing easier for non-technical users.
What is a BPT made of?
The two main elements that make up a BPT are not much different than a QTP test:
- Object Repositories
The first step in creating business components is the same step you would begin with for QTP -- that is, to create an Object Repository -- exactly like you would with QTP.
- Function Libraries
After you have your OR setup, you would normally create a function library which contains common functionalities that are frequently used against your application.
What's new to BPT is the concept of an Application Area.
What is an Application Area?
So -- once you have your test resource setup (like your OR and function library), the next step is to bundle all the resources into an application area. The application area provides a single point of maintenance for all elements associated with the testing of a specific part of your application. Typically, you should define separate application areas for each portion of your application and associate a component with the appropriate application area.
Components
Business components are the reusable, easy-to-maintain building blocks of a business process test -- kind of like Legos. These components are usually made up of one or more steps that perform a specific task in your application.
Building a Business Process Test
Once your components are created, A Quality Center business user who is using a QC visual interface can create a test. The components can be by strung together by dragging and dropping them into QC's test plan test area. Once they're in the test plan, each components test data is exposed and easily changed.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Joe,
I have a very simple question for you about the BPT of QTP (QC). How does this differ from some one creating multiple functions in a shared qtp(vbscript) library? For example, if I created a library that opens a browser, selects a text box using descriptive programming and enters username and password and clicks submit I would create 4 functions (hypothetically)
call runBrowser(“www.mysite.com”)
call selectText(“username”)
call selectText(“password”)
call clickButton(“submit”)
However, I understand that BPT allows me to create similar components….but my disconnect is am I to assume that BPT allows this via QC thus no need to have QTP installed on every SME’s PC or is there another advantage that I am not seeing?
Thanks a mil.
Murat » Hi Murat – you are correct, the concept is the same. The big difference is that 1. that data is not hardcoded in the scripts 2. Users can in QC create different test cases using existing components. So think reusability. They don’t need QTP on their machine to create the scripts but would if they wanted to run locally. The big downside with BPT (even with the newest version) is they tend to be much slower than straight QTP.