UFT-14-features

HP has released UFT 14 on Feb 1st and the 60-day trial version is now available for public download.

This update is equipped with lots of new features and enhancements:

• Test Data Generator.
• Sniper aka Capture mode.
• New UFT Editions.
• LeanFT for Selenium.

Here are the 9 most important things to note about the latest version.

1. Upgrade to UFT 14

• If you are on UFT 11.5 or above version, you can directly run the SetUp to upgrade to UFT 14.
• If you are on UFT/QTP version earlier than 11.5, you need to uninstall the current version of QTP and then install UFT 14.
• If you are upgrading from a version of UFT earlier than 12.5, you should get a new license. Since UFT 12.5, HPE has moved from Sentinel to AutoPass licensing mechanism.

2. More UFT Editions

UFT is now offered in 3 new flavors. UFT Ultimate, UFT Enterprise, and UFT Pro.

• If you previously had a UFT License, it will now be renamed to UFT Enterprise.
• If you previously had a LeanFT License, it will now be renamed to UFT Pro (LeanFT).
• While UFT Enterprise and UFT Pro are available as seat license as well as concurrent license, UFT Ultimate is available only as a concurrent license.
• Starting with UFT 14, UFT will now support device id based concurrent licenses in addition to concurrent license based on license server IP address.
• UFT RunTime Engine licensing remains the same.

The UFT Runtime Engine enables you to run UFT GUI tests, API tests and Business Process Tests on your computer without installing the entire UFT IDE.

Here is the complete matrix for the new license editions offered by HPE UFT.

3. UFT 14 Look and Feel

Installation setup, launch splash screen, and record-and-run settings screen have a new look now. Green color has taken a front seat across various buttons, progress bars and font color in UFT IDE.

This is the setup screen sequence you will see when you click setup.exe for the first time. Other than the variation in background-color-theme, there isn’t any difference when compared to the earlier UFT versions.

Once UFT is installed, this is the look of the new splash screen.

The Add-in manager screen.

The Record and Run Settings screen has undergone a visual change. No new feature is introduced and no functionality seems to be altered.

4. Data Generator or Test Combinations Generator for GUI tests

Getting relevant test data has always been one of the challenges of automated testing. Till now, one has to rely on 3rd party tools for test data needs.

Starting with UFT 14, UFT has introduced a new tool inside the UFT IDE called Test Combinations Generator.

When a GUI test tab (flowchart) is in focus in the Editor, you will find a new button in the Toolbar.

Clicking this button will launch the Test Combinations Generator tool. Using this tool, you can automatically generate data for various types of values you need.

The most common types of data values needed can be selected from the drop-down on the right side as shown in the image above. For each value type, there are various combinations that can be chosen. For example, in date value type you can choose the minimum date, maximum date and the format of the date that you wish to generate.

Once the data is generated, you can do further voodoo on it. You can select the values to be recognized as HAPPY PATH which means the value is expected not to cause an exception or error OR it can be an ERROR PATH which means the values is expected to cause an exception or error. (useful for negative testing).

Values designated as HAPPY PATH or ERROR PATH can then be seen and applied in the data table using the Test Combination Generator button.

The data can be mixed and matched or you can choose to JOIN the data which means no permutations will be allowed further.

Join the columns in TCG

5. New “Capture” Mode

Using the newly introduced Capture button on the toolbar, you can capture all the objects in a selected area of your application.

I would want to know and explore the use cases for this feature and how is it better than Navigate and Learn which is already available in the object repository manager.

6. UFT Help Moved To New Location

UFT help files have been moved to online by default. I don’t get the rationale behind this move. There is nothing faster than having and retrieving files from your own system. Moreover, it will be a pain for those on VPN with limited or no access to the internet.

However, to HPE’s credit, they haven’t removed the local help completely. You can still configure the help files so that they can reside on your machine and can be launched using the favorite shortcut F1.

Here are the steps to configure UFT help on your local machine.

1. Download UFT 14 Help file
2. The download is in the form of a zip file. Extract the contents to <UFT installation folder>/help. Most likely the location would be C:\Program Files (x86)\HP\Unified Functional Testing\help
3. In UFT, go to Tools > Options > Help and select Access local Help radio button.

7. UFT Pro (LeanFT) goes cross platform

LeanFT is now supported across Windows, Mac OS and Linux for your web and mobile testing needs.

For web testing, you would get all capabilities you had in Windows version.

You should, however, note in case of mobile testing you still need to create scripts on Windows OS. Only execution is supported on Mac OS and Linux.

8. LeanFT for Selenium

Selenium has seen a high rate of adoption in the past few years. HPE has developed a solution LeanFT for Selenium which is bundled with HPE UFT Pro (LeanFT). It enables Selenium users to create and maintain Selenium scripts easily. LeanFT4Selenium is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac, and supports the most common browsers.

You can learn more about it on Yossi’s excellent article.

9. Other Changes and Enhancements

• UFT now supports the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome including Chrome v56. [Trivia: With the launch of Chrome 56, Google has started marking web pages “Not secure” that accept sensitive info like passwords and credit card on plain HTTP]
• UFT now supports sensor simulation operations on Mobile devices.
• You can use API tests of your application when the service level uses the MQTT protocol for communication.
• UFT 14 is now available in six languages which include English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, and German.
• UFT now supports Windows Server 2016, AutoPass License Server 9.3,  EXT-JS 6.0, SiebelOpenUI 16, Safari 10.12, SAPUI5 1.38, Visual Studio 2015, Solution Manager 7.2, Delphi Berlin 10.1, SAP Hybris.