Automated Functional Testing Using IBM Rational Robot

In the past, most software tests were performed using manual methods. This required a large staff of test personnel to perform expensive and time-consuming manual test procedures. Owing to the size and complexity of today’s advanced software applications, manual testing is no longer a viable option for most testing situations. The manual testing approach has inherent risks and costs associated with it, as it relies on humans to verify the validity of functionality within an application. Automation is key to improving the speed, accuracy, and flexibility of the software testing process, enabling the company to find and fix more defects earlier. By having an automated functional testing process, owners of software applications can be assured that regression testing can be completed in a more cost effective manner with fewer errors. Rational Robot is an automated functional regression tool. This helps to execute the tests much faster than we could manually. The key to doing this is to have a way to capture interactions with an application and make those interactions available to be repeated later. This paper demonstrates how to use IBM Rational Robot to record, edit, and execute functional tests.