Release notes for IBM Rational Functional Tester

Product description

IBM® Rational® Functional Tester is a GUI test automation tool that is used to accelerate the functional and regression testing. It provides a flexible environment to test the desktop and web applications very efficiently. It is used to test a wide range of applications that includes HTML, web, native and hybrid mobile, SAP, Java, Power Builder, and Windows desktop applications. Rational® Functional Tester is available in two integrated development environments (IDE): Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. The Eclipse integration supports both Java and simplified (non-programming) method of scripting while the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET integration supports Microsoft Visual Basic .NET scripting language. See Product overview.

What's New

API support for updating datasets

Rational® Functional Tester now supports getValue and setValue APIs for updating datasets. 
Enhanced browser extension for Google Chrome browser

The Rational® Functional Tester extension for Google Chrome browser now supports Manifest V3.
Enhancements to the Jenkins plugin

You can now define the build parameters during the configuration of either Freestyle or Pipeline projects in Jenkins. You can then use those build parameters to run the Jenkins job. See Build parameters for Jenkins and Build parameters for Jenkins.
Provision to pass specific arguments to web browsers

You can now specify and pass arguments to the web browser before Rational® Functional Tester opens the browser to record or play back Web UI tests.

See Running a Web UI test, Running tests by using the browser launch arguments from the command line, Web UI recording, and Recording a Web UI test.
Support to capture the user actions on UI controls of multiple windows

Previously, during the recording of functional test scripts, if an HTML test application had UI controls and the controls opened a new window, Rational® Functional Tester was unable to capture the user actions on UI controls performed on the new window.

Now, Rational® Functional Tester correctly captures the actions that are performed on multiple windows. The captured actions on multiple windows are correctly displayed during the playback.

See Creating a simplified test script.
Support to customize PDFs exported from unified reports
You can now customize the appearance of PDFs that you can export from the unified reports for functional, web, mobile, or windows tests. You can perform the following customizations in the exported PDFs:
- Highlight only the verification points in test steps and exclude details displayed in tables for all test steps.
- Increase the size of screen captures that are displayed.
- Exclude screen captures of specific SAP GUI test steps.
See Customizing PDF files exported from unified reports, Removing customization of PDF files exported from unified reports, Prerequisites to export unified reports as a PDF, and Configuration of test runs from the command line.
Support to record Web UI tests in Apple Safari 15 on macOS

Rational® Functional Tester now supports the recording of Web UI tests in Apple Safari 15 on macOS.

See Enabling the Apple Safari browser to perform Web UI tests on macOS.

Deprecated capabilities

You can find information about the capabilities that are deprecated in this release and are planned for a removal in a future release.

Note: You can contact the IBM Support team if you have any concerns.

Support for the following operating systems is deprecated:
- Windows Server 2016
Support for the following software are deprecated:
- Power Builder 12.6
- .Net Applications 4.6.1
- Eclipse 4.7 and 4.8
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2015
- Docker Compose 1.29
Support for the following browser is deprecated:
- Google Chrome 91 to 96
- Microsoft Edge 91 and 96
- Mozilla Firefox (including ESR versions) 89 to 92

Removed capabilities

The following features that were announced in previous releases as deprecated are now removed in this release:

Support for the following operating systems is removed:
- RHEL 8.5
- Android 10
- iOS 13
Support for the following software is removed:
- Docker CE 19.3
- Docker Compose 1.25, 1.26, and 1.27
- Microsoft Visual Basic 5
- .Net Applications 3.5, 4, and 4.5.2
- Appium 1.18, 1.19, and 1.20
- Rational Quality Manager 6.0.6
- Rational Team Concert 6.0.6
- UrbanCode™ Deploy 6.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.1.1.1, and 7.1.2.1
- Jenkins 2.235.1, 2.263.3, 2.277.4, and 2.289.3
Support for the following browser version is removed:
- Apple Safari 12, 13
- Google Chrome 84 to 90
- Microsoft Edge 84 to 90
- Mozilla Firefox (including ESR versions) 78 to 88
- Opera 67 to 77

Installing the product

For installation instructions, see Installing Rational Functional Tester.

Remember:

You cannot upgrade to Rational® Functional Tester 10.5.0 from the previous versions. You must uninstall the existing version of the product before you install the latest version of the product.
After you install Rational® Functional Tester 10.5.0, at any point in time if you want to use the previous version of the product, you cannot roll back to the previous version. If you want to use the previous version of the product, you must uninstall the existing version, and then install the required version of the product.

Known issues

You can find information about the known issues identified in this release of Rational® Functional Tester.

Product	Download document	Knowledge base
Rational® Functional Tester	Release document	Knowledge articles

Known problems are documented in the download document and in the form of individual tech notes in the Support Knowledge Base. See the Support Knowledge Base.

The knowledge base is continually updated as issues are discovered and resolved. By searching the knowledge base, you can quickly find workarounds or solutions to issues.

Contacting IBM Rational Software Support

For contact information and guidelines or reference materials that you might need when you require support, read the IBM Support Guide.
For personalized support that includes notifications of significant upgrades, subscribe to Product notification.
Before you contact IBM Rational Software Support, you must gather the background information that you might need to describe your problem. When you describe a problem to an IBM software support specialist, be as specific as possible and include all relevant background information so that the specialist can help you solve the problem efficiently. To save time, know the answers to these questions:
- What software versions were you running when the problem occurred?
- Do you have logs, traces, or messages that are related to the problem?
- Can you reproduce the problem? If so, what steps do you take to reproduce it?
- Is there a workaround for the problem? If so, be prepared to describe the workaround.

Release notes for IBM® Rational® Functional Tester

Contents