1. TurnKey Lunch and Learn: ALM/UFT Best Practices
September 15, 2016

2. Agenda ALM Housekeeping Folder Organization
Business Process Components Area
Test Plan Area
Test Set Area
Deleting Content
Execution Best Practices
Performance Test

3. ALM “Housekeeping” Practices
Make sure that you apply recent patches. Patches are certified within 90 days of release due to the large number of bugs that HP ships
Back up ALM weekly
You can copy/paste assets between projects within the same domain, but watch that all dependencies and attachments are copied as well
Don't touch the Testing Resources area. We manage this for you. You can copy some of the utilities to your desktop, but don't delete anything.
Clean out your /tmp directory often (every time you log in is a good practice). ALM does a lot of work in this directory and leaves datasheet copies and other artifacts here.
Consider setting different privileges within ALM
Decide who to give delete, copy/paste, create folders, create test sets
Suggested roles: developer, PM, tester, Admin, etc.
TurnKey only needs developer or tester (we don't need admin or project manager)

4. ALM Folder Structure Recommendations
Accelerator Projects are Module-based and can serve as a “good example” for that type testing
HP recommends no more than 3-folders deep in a single project
Components need to be opened and loaded when tests are executing
Deeper the folders the more “overhead” needed to executed
Most customers separate UFT tests from cFactory in different folders within the same project
Some of our customers separate these in multiple projects
You can mix and match UFT, manual and cFactory-based tests in a single test set but you don’t achieve unattended execution
Recommended that you create a separate project per application type, but many of our customers are ok with multiples for E2E testing

5. Keeping Components Organized
TurnKey Accelerator - out of the box from TurnKey
Leave this alone so that TurnKey can update your content from time-to- time without overwriting your updated content
Standard - components from the accelerator that you're using all the time
Pool of “working” components for team of people to use
Change status to “ready”
Copy from the Accelerator, update to your application’s customizations if needed
New/Custom- creating components that aren't inside of your accelerator
Components
Sandbox - testing area where you are trying to get the components to work
Components are “under development” status

6. Keeping Components Organized

7. Business Component Area Tips
Make sure you run the object identification script before creating components
Change status - "Ready“ when they have been tested
If you don't have the UFT add-in for ALM installed you won't see the automation steps
Naming conventions are really important to be able to find the components (screen name is best)
Check the Accelerator screen shot to see if the component is useful for what you are doing before updating it in cFactory
Components are setup according to TurnKey rules base
Log out of cFactory when you’re not using it to free up a concurrent license
When you add a component, make sure that the order of the test case is correct (ALM messes up the order sometimes)
Clicking components inside a test case can reorder components
If you're adding it to a group make sure it's in the right group

8. Component Tips, Continued
When you add a component to a test plan multiple times, is numbered by its instance (name is concatenated by its instance number). Make sure that the number is correct to ensure the proper order.
TurnKey’s DataSheet Manager (DSM) assigns parameters during runtime according to component name. The instance of component 1 should be in the correct location.
If you swap the components the test will fail
Always make sure you have DataScenario set to default value 1. If you have groups or iterations, add one more iteration in the test plan than what you have in the datasheet - this is for UFT’s execution engine to know when to exit the component

9. Test Plan Area Organization
Create the following folders:
Sandbox – area to develop your tests until they are finished
Accelerator Tests – shipped from TurnKey; use for updates to your Accelerator
Reusable Tests – tests that can be used by anyone else developing in your project
Custom Tests – tests that have a specific purpose that aren’t reusable because you’ve had to specially customize them
Manual Signoff Steps – keep a list of steps required to have BAs or App Users sign off on tests
Create a Test template with DataLoad and navigation components already built-in. Returning to main menu after test completes is also a best practice.

10. Test Plan Area Organization

11. Test Set Area
Carefully consider the Test Set level options for your DataSheets – Replace option and Archive option will have impacts on memory and storage
Create a Master Copy area for regression cycles
Archive the Test Cycle Folder when the cycle is completed

12. Deleting Assets
Remember that if you delete a test case you lose the test case from the set as well (Test Set becomes unattached and will not execute)
Only delete the test cases if all dependencies have been removed first
Likewise, be careful deleting components that have dependencies
Consider creating an “obsolete” project (or folder)

13. Execution Practices
UFT option to allow execution from ALM must be enabled for each user when logging in for the first time
Restart UFT after every 3-4 runs
Make sure that you have the proper privileges recommended by HP
Execute tests on VMs is recommended (no personal laptops, hypervisor terminals, etc.) – enough memory and free space is very important
Breaking up test sets to execute on multiple machines can improve your performance

14. ALM Performance
HP now has a benchmark test to see what your ALM performance is
ce=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjv7cL ajfHOAhXLr48KHakhD7sQtwIIGzAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fw ww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DoagHv- AfGIM&usg=AFQjCNG4znHo8iqNorbuKUbnqvB0dpOVcw&sig 2=pYXiid9IS_oVbPyquQszyw&bvm=bv ,d.c2I
For more information read: test-benchmark-kit?quicktabs_co_vtabs=2