Introduction to UFT

UFT stands for Unified Functional Testing. It is an automation testing tool from Hewlett Packard(HP) and has been released in many versions.Its latest version is UFT 12.02 and till version 11.0, it was used be known as QTP(Quick Test Professional).It is a licensed tool, which comes with 2 type of licenses.

1. Seat license : For a single user
2. Concurrent license : For multiple users

Its trial version is also available for 1 month. So, you can download it and practice. We will see how to download and install UFT in next part.

In earlier versions before UFT, tool was available in 2 part. One was QTP used for functional and regression testing(GUI testing), second was Service Test which was used for testing webservices(API testing). Now, UFT has come with the combination of both i.e. UFT is capable of testing both GUI(Graphical user interface) as well as API(Application programming interface).

Important point to note is that it runs on the windows environment and support safari on MAC OS. From UFT 12 only, they started supporting safari. With earlier version,it was not possible. Its default language is vbscript that gets interpreted at run time.

When you open UFT, it opens an add-in manager which shows you all available add-ins. Add-ins are nothing but the technologies that UFT supports. You can choose your desired add-ins at the time of installation. Its default add-ins are Web,VB and Active x.

All add-ins which are available in UFT are Web, Java (Core and Advanced), .Net, WPF, SAP, Oracle, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Delphi, Power Builder, Stingray 1, Terminal Emulator, Flex, Web Services, Windows Mobile, VisualAge Smalltalk and Silverlight.

New Features of UFT:

1. The size of installation package has been reduced to 1.5 GB, hence making the installation faster.
2. Became more secured as it allows to install UFT without disabling UAC(User access control) unlike version 11.5     and previous versions.
3. You can choose to install add-in for ALM and Run result viewer during the installation of UFT.
4. Supports testing Web applications on a Safari browser that is running on a remote Mac computer.
5. ALM site admin can not set the parameter to conditionally upload the Run result to ALM.This version supports   ALM version 12.00.
6. You can run both GUI and API test using virtualized services. It can be used in the case ,suppose we are testing   an application and application contains multiple components or third party tools are involved.Now, if any component is not available or third party tool is not accessible. Then we can create that service virtually by using service virtualization.By using UFT, we install it at service virtualization server. Now, application can utilized it     instead of a real service.
7. Flex application can be tested in different ports provided by UFT(24654 – 24663).
8. Provided Run result deletion tool which will be able to delete test results from tests and business process tests stored on ALM without needing to independently connect the Run Results Deletion tool to ALM.
9. Now, supports XLSX format.
10. If test contains unmapped repository parameters, it will be visible in error pane.
11. Additional support for HTML5 objects like WebVideo,WebAudio,WebNUmber and Webrange.
12. It will keep running the test on remote machine even after it get disconnected.
13. VbScript provide method called ‘CreateObject’ which supports 32 bit COM object. UFT has added CreateObject64′ which enables us to create 64 bit COM objects.
14. Save with Resources option allow to save all resources with the test.
15. Support IE,Firefox,Chrome and safari.

Advantages of UFT:

1. Object identification and maintenance becomes easy with the objects repository feature.
2. Can be integrated with ALM easily. Test can be executed directly from ALM.
3. Test execution can be a lot faster than manual testing.
4. In-built feature of exception handling using recovery scenarios.
5. In -built run result report with all details passed,failed with graphical representation.
6. Record and playback feature available. It will be a good point to start learning UFT for a novice.
7. Multiple add-in support like java, Terminal emulator (mainframe),Web,Siebel etc.
8. VBscript is default language which english like language and easy to learn.
9. Support working with Excel,Microsoft word document, Database,outlook,XML etc.
10. Provide datatable utility which is used for parameterization and makes data driven testing very easy.
11. Provide many technique for object identification if one is not sufficient ,another one can be used.
12. XPATH can be used for object identification.
13. Test can be batched and scheduled.
14. Provide its sample applications where one can practice and learn tool features.
15. Provide utility for password encoding.

Disadvantages of UFT:

1.  License cost is very high. Big organization only are able to afford.
2. Need to buy different addins –  SAP, .Net, Seibel, Peoplesoft,Java, Oracle etc.
3. Hamper the execution performance if object repository become huge.
4. Multiple user can not work on the resources at the same time ,it will show error ‘locked by other user’. One       resource has to wait until he resource is released.