HP UFT Software and the Benefits That It Provides While Testing

HP Unified Functional Testing (UFT) software helps enterprises to automate functional testing of variety of applications. It comes with tools to help users to test web applications, mobile apps, APIs and packaged applications. At the same time, businesses can further use UFT to automate functional and regression testing of both applications and environments. HP has been updating the software on a regular basis to help users to test modern software applications in a quick and effective way. There are also a number of reasons why HP UFT software is hugely popular among modern QA professionals.

Features of HP UFT That Help Testers to Test Software More Efficiently

Supports Many Commonly Used Technologies

The latest version of UFT supports most of the commonly used technologies. Along with .NET and Java, it also supports REST, SOA and other web protocols. So the QA professionals can use a single tool to test the functionality of variety of applications including complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software. They can even avail the cross-browser testing feature of UFT to write the test script once, and execute the same script to assess the functionality of a web application across major web browsers.

Simplifies Manual to Automation Conversion

Often QA professionals find it challenging to switch to a new test automation tool. But they can learn and use HP UFT without investing any extra time and effort. UFT further makes it easier for them to create new automations by importing the existing recordings and other manual testing assets. The testers can avail HPE Sprinter, an advanced manual testing solution, provided by software to convert the manual testing assets into automation resources, and reuse them to conduct functional and regression testing effectively.

Supports Keyword-Driven Testing

Unlike other popular software testing tools, HP UFT supports keyword-driven testing. The feature makes it easier for QA professionals to create and maintain test scripts. They can use the software to capture the flows from the application screen directly, and convert the captured flows into test scripts through the record/replay options. The scripting and debugging environment included in UFT further enables users to access the tests and object properties, and incorporating the required changes. The environment further helps users to create tests rapidly by providing features like auto-completion of code, built-in code snippets, and tools to validate specific activities.

Facilitates Mobile Application Testing

The users also have option to test a variety of mobile apps through UFT Mobile. They can use the solution to create a virtual mobile device lab or leverage a wide variety mobile device on the cloud. Thus, UFT Mobile helps businesses to assess the functionality and performance of their mobile devices across many devices. At the same time, the software allows QA professionals to write the test script once, and execute the same script automatically to test the mobile application across multiple devices, platforms and browsers.

Provides a Visual Interface for Web Services and API Testing

HP UFT provides a visual interface that makes it easier for users to test web services and APIs. As the interface enables QA professionals to test the web services and APIs at the headline layer, they are not required to write longer lines of code. The interface displays the GUI and API tests in the graphic area, and allows testers to assess the test flow accurately. The visual interface further simplifies assessment of complex application compositions and custom business processes by providing useful information like   activities, actions, test flow and test logic. At the same time, it effectuates API testing by helping users to generate HTTP, web and SOAP requests without writing any extra code.

Facilitates Integration and Collaboration

While testing software applications in agile environment, the testers can avail the built-in continuous integration tools provided by the software. The tool makes it easier for them to create reusable test plans, manage different versions of the test plan, and share the test plan with different members of the team. The UFT object repository manager is also designed based on an open XML format. It helps the manager to share application object definitions, assess definitions, and function libraries with different testers. The collaboration and integration contributes towards reducing the testing time significantly.

UFT is a commercial test automation tool. So businesses have to incur additional expenses to take advantage of the features provided by the software. Also, HP UFT can be used only for testing applications running on Windows Platform. However, a business can always speed up and effectuate functional testing by investing in the most recent version of UFT. 

The Different Types of Functional Testing

Software testing is an important part of the software development life cycle and should be done with utmost care in order to ensure the success of the software. Functional testing is a part of the software testing procedure which renders perfectly functioning software to the users.

People often have the misconception that functional testing of the software just deals with testing the software’s functionality to check that it provides the right output when fed with a particular input. But in reality functional testing deals with a lot more than just testing how the software functions. Software testing is classified into various types which are discussed in this article. These various tests are very important to ensure software which will be equipped to handle any kind of scenario or stress load.

1. Function Based Testing: Of the various types of functional tests that can be performed, this is probably the easiest one which is possible. It just takes the individual modules of the software and checks if it works properly. You check the component with various scenarios. You check it both individually and also you test the components functionality when they are working with each other as a whole system.
2. Scenario Based Testing: This type of functional testing can be a tad bit complex. Ultimately the software that is being developed is going to be used by the end users. In the real world, the software will be facing scenarios which are both simple and complex. Successful software is one which can smoothly perform in both the situations with equal ease. It is the job of the software tester to check the software’s functionality in such situations. The detected defects should be reported along with the scenarios in which they were tested so that it can be rectified.
3. Negative Testing: When the software is being used by the end users, there are numerable numbers of ways in which the users may handle the software in a wrong way. Negative testing checks the functionality of the software in such negative situations. These tests check how well the software handles these negative situations. The negative testing also ensures that no permanent damage or loss of data occurs when the software is going through the negative situations.
4. Long Range Testing: Long range testing checks the software for prolonged working period. There are situations in which the software may have to be up and working for a long period of time. In such situations, chances are that the software may crash due to the long working periods. Long period testing ensures that the software keeps running with similar ease for the entire period of time. It also detects the flaws that may appear in the software for the long working periods i.e. due to over loading. The functionality of the software in situations like long file processing is checked in long range testing.

Yes! We accept that some of the tests which are mentioned under the category of fictional testing may appear to be similar and overlapping. However each of the tests are important for the detection of the defects that may appear on the functional front of the software and must be performed for delivering a quality product to the customers or end users.

Objectives of Performing Functional Testing

Software testing is one of the most important and integral part of the software development life cycle, which is gaining importance day by day. Not only does it checks the performance, efficacy of the system, but also strives to make the system a better one. People are starting to take heed of the fact that the success of a software depends hugely on the testing procedure performed on it. The software testing procedure starts off before the development process and lasts till after the development has been finished. While the whole process is an elaborate one, functional testing is an integral part of the process.

Functional testing basically deals with the checking of the functionality of a particular product, but it packs a little more punch to the process. It not only checks how the software is functioning or the defects that are produced in the result, but also other related things which may affect the function of the same. Certain objectives are to be kept in mind while performing the functional tests on a product.

1. The main aim of the functional testing is to check of the given piece of product is delivering the results which it was desired to i.e. it is functioning properly.
2. Just checking the functionality at a controlled environment is not enough. The product should be checked for proper functioning at adverse situations which it may face in the real world.
3. It is not uncommon for the end users to mal handle the product, hence the functionality of the same may get affected in such situations. Functionality testing checks the software for such adverse occurrences.
4. Often, it may so happen that the product is being utilized for a long period of time. This may cause overloading of the system which in turn affects functionality. Functional testing checks how the product works even after prolonged utilization.
5. Functionality testing checks how the system is behaving when a wide range of valid inputs are supplied to it in a chronological or haphazard method to see whether it provides the correct output or not.
6. At times, the end users may end up feeding the product with invalid inputs. The behaviour of the product in such cases is also tested by functionality testing.
7. Apart from testing the individual components of the software, functional testing also checks how the system is working as a whole when the various components will have to depend on each other.
8. It also checks the system of the product to see whether it delivers the desired results.
9. Another major job of the functional testing is to detect all the simple failures that may cause rejection of the product at the very basic level.
10. Functional testing is done to check the modifications that will make the product more acceptable to the targeted customers. It basically concentrates more on how to satisfy the customers with the functional aspect of the product than the designing aspect.

While you are performing a functional test on the system, it is best to keep the above objectives in mind in order to get the maximum output from the procedure. However, there are many more aspects which you can take heed of while performing the test apart from those mentioned in the article.