Automation with SeqZap
The word automation can mean a lot of things. In the context of SeqZap the
word means that a piece of desktop software, SeqZap, can be used to perform repetitively
executions of a series of actions, to perform one or more tasks by simply pressing
a button.
This page will give a simple explanation of how automation is basically done with
SeqZap, and some different kinds of automation possible with SeqZap.
System Testing Automation
The primary goal for SeqZap is to enable professional, easy and pragmatic automation
of system testing.
System Testing Automation is both the formal test discipline of automating
the execution of the system testing test cases during the software development phase
of a product, but it is also the ad-hoc testing done throughout the whole product
development life cycle.
How a test is automated
Basically the automation process is done in three steps:
- Creating a script. Scripts can be created in different ways as is explained in the section below.
- Executing the script. This could be as easy as pressing an icon or could be done unattended by a build-server. It is especially this easy and readily available execution that is the greatest gain from automating the test. The test can be executed just as many times as is needed, and most often much, much faster than manual execution.
- Evaluate and analyze the result. This process varies very much for the different scripts, applications and test tasks. If the execution result is FAIL it is necessary to get as much information from the automation tool as needed, about the execution flow and measurement values, to locate the point of failure.
Creating a script
A script can be created in three different ways in SeqZap:
- Manually. The developer or tester creates test scripts in the SeqZap Studio editor.
- Capturing. The capture function makes it possible to record different events and convert them directly into actions (procedure steps) for later replay. For more info see the capture page. In some applications this can be a real time-saver for generating the skeleton for a new test script.
- Importing. SeqZap can import script-files from other tools (through plugins) to make it very easy to automatically execute the externally generated scripts.
Other ways to use SeqZap for automation
While SeqZap is targeted against automation of embedded system testing, SeqZap can also be used for many other automation tasks. Below we will just mention the most common and obvious automation types.
Test stand and workbench automation
While there are much larger solutions available for this, SeqZap is also very suitable
to control test execution, instruments and fixture in a test bench.
By using SeqZap, you get a very flexible solution, where custom extensions are created
in a real software (C#).
Application Automation
Application Automation is an automation kind where the user is allowed to automate different tasks in a specific application. Many applications allow the user to record macros or write scripts which will perform several actions when pressing an associated shortcut or activating a menu item.
SeqZap is the perfect solution for automating technical applications.
Because SeqZap is a .NET application the automated application must also be developed for the .NET platform.
Contact Sequanto for more info.