A look under the hood at WebUI Test Studio's Execution Engine (Part 2 of 2)

In Part 1 we looked at how we can use WebUI Test Studio’s Execution engine to execute tests either using an individual test or a group of test within a test list.  In Part 2, we are going to look at how we can take the results of our execution and publish them to a non-default location.

Let’s take a look at the first two options for results publishing, out=[folder path] and root=[folder path].

The out=[folder path] option allows us to copy our results file to any directory on our computer.  For example, let’s say that we multiple projects from which we execute tests and test lists from on a nightly basis and we want to copy all execution results to one directory so that we can view them all together.  All we have to do is specify the common directory in the out= option.  For example:

This will copy the execution results to our “ExecutionResults” folder on our c:\ drive.

The root=[folder path] option behaves a little bit differently.  Using the root= option allow us to move tests out of their project folder and be able to copy their results back to the home project directory.  For example, let’s say that we have several projects but want to move the tests to a common directory for execution.  If we specify the root= option, we are telling the execution engine what project the test came from and where to copy the results to.

Team Foundation Server Results Publishing

When you execute your test or test list using the WebUI Test Studio execution engine, you have the option of publishing these results to Microsoft Team Foundation Server

Then next 5 options on our list are server=[name], build=[build name], project=[project name], platform=[platform] and flavor=[flavor].  All of these options help specify results publishing to a Microsoft Team Foundation Server.  All of these options must be specified when publishing a result to Team Foundation Server.  Here is an example of the usage:

Server=[name]: If your TFS server is installed on the same machine you can specify it directly by the computer name.  If it is installed on a different machine in the network you must specify the name by its URI.  For example: http://YourTFSMachine:8080.

Build=[build name]: You must specify the name of the build that has completed.  You can find the name of the build by opening Team Explorer > Open your team project and expand the node > Under “Builds” folder, double click any build to see the build id of a completed build.  This is the build name to use for this option for publishing.

Project=[project name]: This is the name of the team project to which the build belongs.  In Team Explorer, this is the root node name.

Platform=[platform]: This is typically either “Any CPU”, “x86” or “x64” if the defaults are selected.  Make sure this matches the options used for the build instance.

Flavor=[flavor]: Similar to platform, this should match the settings in the build instance.  Typical values are “Debug” or “Retail”.

One important thing to mention here is that you must have Team Explorer installed on the machine where this command option is used.  Make sure you can connect using Team Explorer successfully before running this option with the execution engine.

Although the command line execution engine is a bit more involved than using the GUI options it really adds another level of customization and flexibility for heterogeneous environments.

Stay tuned for more WebUI Test Studio news and features. 

And as always, let us know if you have questions or comments about any of our Automated Testing Tools.

Best Regards,
Christopher