Best Practices for Recording a Testcase to Work the First Time - Web Performance
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Best Practices for Recording a Testcase to Work the First Time

Sometimes, HTTP testcase don’t work immediately after being recorded. Your application may require special configuration, or your workflow may need some special data entry in order to work in a repeatable fashion. However, sometimes the problem can be compounded by easily avoidable conditions.

Recommendation 1: Close unnecessary applications while recording

During recording, Load Tester will capture HTTP and HTTPS network traffic from your workstation as you record. This allows Load Tester to observe your recorded browser window, and child windows that may be spawned from it. If you have other browser windows open, e-mail clients, etc, these can all interfere with the recording by generating traffic unrelated to the workflow at hand. Load Tester also needs the system to be reasonably responsive during the recording process, in order to perform timing analysis. Having CPU intensive applications running will impair Load Tester’s ability to accurately capture traffic in this manner.

Closing any applications which are non-essential during the recording will greatly improve the recording process.

Recommendation 2: Pause between screens

When a user visits a step or page in your testcase, it is normal to expect that the user will pause for a moment, before making a selection to move on.

As testers, after using the same system day after day, it’s natural to simply make a selection and move on, without providing the same pause that an average user would.

The problem is that these pauses are important in the way Load Tester analyzes network traffic. When traffic from two steps in the workflow arrives with no delay, it is very difficult for Load Tester to which HTTP transactions were triggered by the first step, and which by the second. Often enough, this will cause the HTTP traffic to arrive as if it were all originating from the same step in the workflow. Load Tester will emulate a modern browser, which downloads many page resources in parallel. However, if Load Tester is unable to distinguish where to separate pages, then HTTP requests could become out-of-order, causing a testcase to fail.

This is easily remedied by simply waiting for your browser to indicate it has “finished” after each step, and wait at least an extra two seconds for good measure.

Another good indicator is the recording status displayed by Load Tester while a recording is in progress. When the status indicates “Ready”, Load Tester is waiting for you to move to a new page.

If the status indicator is not “ready” then this indicates the browser is still busy, and it will be best to wait for the browser to finish the page it is on.

Final Notes:

Even after following these recommendations, sometimes testcases will still need a little extra configuration after recording to get them to replay properly. If you find that you are stuck, simply contact our friendly support staff, and we’ll be happy to help point you in the right direction!

Happy Testing!

1 Comment

26 September 2014 The Week That Was | Practical Performance Analyst

[…] Best Practices For Recording A Testcase To Work For The First Time – Link […]

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