How To Manage Test Data in QTP Test Scripts?

Well, QTP is the acronym of Quick Test Professional. It is an automation testing tool. In 2011, QTP was released as a product under the UFT (Unified functional Test Software). QTP is one of the popular automation tools available in the market. The best part of QTP is that the QTP GUI has many options and tools. Some of those include:

• Object Spy – It is used to  know about the properties & values of objects

• Object Repository – It is used to store test objects.

• Record Button – It is used to record application.

• Play – It is used to play the recorded script.

• Results – It is used to see the results of script execution.

• Debug Viewer – It is used to debug scripts & watch runtime variables.

• Data Table – It is used to store the test data.

• Active Screen – It is used to have a view of the snapshot of the actual application.

• Expert View – It is used to view the code.

• Keyword View – It is used to view the code in a much easier way.

Tips to manage test data in the QTP test scripts

Well, Test Data management is a critical factor when it comes to a robust automation framework. In fact, test data must be easily utilized by test scripts and must cover positive as well as negative test scenarios. An important key for successful automation, of course, is avoidance of hard-coded values & data in the test. In order to avoid hard-coding test data within the script and to run the same test script along with multiple test data, one must take care of the points explained below to use test data with regards to the automation framework: 

• Test data must be maintained in the external data source that can be an Excel, database or CSV.

• Test data has to be flexible. Provided we require extra column for test scripts, test data must be used by the test script in a manner that modifying the order of the columns or adding new columns doesn’t bring about any kind of change in the entire test script.

• The test script must offer sufficient flexibility so as to execute a provided row of data. To offer this, we must use a column meant for ‘Execution Flag’; this will indicate whether or not to execute the test along with the test data within the same row or skip to the next row. The test script must be created in such a manner that it can be executed as well as iterated with many rows of data.

• When changing test data from one source to the other, i.e., database to excel, there must be minimal impact on test script execution.

• Of course, we can think of employing test generator tools that can create random data to test an application.

• When preparing test data, we must dry run the test script coupled with positive as well as negative data in order to validate the script behavior on not only positive but also negative conditions.

A Course In Advanced QTP

By enrolling yourself in an Advanced QTP course, you will learn to make use of different advanced features in QTP and hence, you can take your skills in functional test automation to the next level. An Advanced QTP course provides you with discussions & hands-on exercises through which you will easily learn to generate steps which work with a range of dynamic objects & data, make use of VBScript statements to control your tests & components flow, and use the Data Table methods as well as database connection objects in order to retrieve external data.

Who can learn Advanced QTP to improve career prospects?

A certificate course in Advanced QTP is suitable for not only beginners but experienced software engineers who fall under the following categories as well:

• Project / Test Leads

• Project / Test Managers

• Quality Assurance Specialists

• Software developers

• Test Engineers

There are many online tutorials to learn Advanced QTP too. Choose a good tutorial or certificate course and shape your career in the domain.