1. QC integration – which (mostly) boils down to Resource Management and Source Control:
Resource Management: Although you could keep saving your resources as attachments (for backward compatibility), you can upgrade to a new, fuller mode of work. This includes a whole new Resource module in QC, and allows for some very neat tricks on Function Libraries, Tests, Object Repositories etc.
It should be noted, though, that other types of files (external excel / XML files, for example), remain as unmanaged attachments.
Resources have full meta-data, and have a special view pane – you can view Object-Repositories, data-tables, and function libraries code right from QC. This looks quite nice, however, I missed the ability to open the resource for editing in QTP with a single click.
Resources are aware of their dependencies – Who relays on them, and who do they relay on. This enables a very strong warning system – when changing / deleting a resource, you’ll be alerted to the repercussions – namely, which tests, if any, might break. Also, the ability to immediately know who uses a share object repository is very useful, nearly revolutionary.
A very neat trick is a live, automatically updated path system – When moving a function library between folders, QC will automatically update all the tests which depend on it, so they will use it at its new location. This makes the once critical problem of hard-path-link a non-issue. Very impressive.
A word about the user interface – when opening a QC resource / test from QTP, the file dialog shows the items with large, crisp icons, very similar to Word’s save dialog. Everything is very clear and intuitive, as is the ability to revert back to saving / opening a test from the File-System.
And what about your existing projects? Well, when upgrading to QC 10, a wizard will automatically transform all you unmanaged attachments to managed resources (if you’d like it to).
Source Control: This includes a very rich line of features which are very well executed, and effectively allow you to manage a QTP project as any other code project:
First, the basics – QTP and QC 10 introduce a new Check-in/Check-out ability. It works similar to what you’d expect – a checked out item will be locked to all other users, and you can immediately know an item’s status by looking at its icon (green/red locks).
An interesting twist regards manner in which a test / resource is locked – it’s at the user level (not the local machine level). This means that if you log into QC from a different machine, you’ll have access to all your checked-out items, even if they were originally checked-out on a different local machine. The ability is implemented very well, both from QTP’s end, as well as from QC’s end.
A major enabler for source control is the new versioning feature of QC. It manifests both with a kind of instant versioning for a single resource, and with a project-wide “base-line version”, which allows you to revert your entire test framework to a previous version. Both types of versioning are supported by a surprisingly robust comparison mechanism. You can select two versions of a resource / test, a see a very detailed comparison of their respective changes. For function libraries this amounts to a “simple” text comparison, but this feature truly shines in full test comparisons.
It will present changes in the different actions and their resources (data-table, object repositories, inner code), as well as in the global test-settings, associated function libraries, recovery scenarios, and pretty much anything you could think of. The ability to drill-down into the data is very impressive; and the effective, concise manner in which the data is presented in the top level view is downright unbelievable. A nice touch is a small screen capture of the change, in case you don’t remember what “Run all rows –>Changed into-> Run a single iteration only” means (for example).
Now to the versioning mechanism itself: Whenever you check and item in, a new “version” will be created, and you’ll be able to revert back to it with ease. As this is a version of a single, isolated resource, in this I found it better to refer to it as a SnapShot – my terminology, not HP’s. The snapshots are visible both from QC and QTP, and you can very easily choose which one to open. This allows you a kind of an instant undo to a single file which worked in the past, but is broken in the present.
The second mechanism presents the ability to select several folders, and create a full blown “base-line version” of them and everything they relate to. Defects, inner-connections, tests, history data, resources – all these and more will be “frozen” and preserved as a base-line. You can then choose to revert back to an old baseline, and truly regain all the abilities that were present at that time. As all the resources, attachments tests and reports will be restored, you don’t have to worry about forgetting anything, or leaving some minor resource at the wrong version. This is versioning with a vengeance – it allows you to track the AUT’s versions with your own automation versions, enabling, among other things, running automation efforts on several AUT versions at once.
For conclusion – The new abilities inherit in the connection of QTP and QC Atlantis are (or at least seem to be) revolutionary. At last, QTP projects can be natively managed as code projects; and some of the supporting infrastructure is surprisingly robust and useful. As a “raving” anti-QC-ist, I must admit QC Atlantis seem tempting, and for me, that’s saying a lot!
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