Release Notes for IBM® Rational® Test Automation Server

This document includes information about What’s new, installation and upgrade instructions, known issues, and contact information of IBM Customer Support.

Contents

Description

Rational® Test Automation Server is a server that includes capabilities such as project and role-based security, Docker-based distribution and installation, and running of test cases. For more information about the server, see IBM Rational Test Automation Server overview.

What's new

The following sections list the new features, enhancements or other changes made in this release.

  • Documentation

    • You can now quickly add your comments to provide your feedback about the documentation for Rational® Test Automation Server by posting to a product forum. To add your comments as feedback, you must first register at IBM Support. Your login information along with your comments are governed by the privacy policy of IBM. By commenting, you accept the terms of use of IBM.

  • Installation

  • Server licensing

    • Enhanced license configuration settings

      If you are an administrator, the Configure license option enables you to change the configuration values such as the value of Rational License Key Server. An administrator can also add, remove, or replace prioritized users. See Configuring floating licenses.

  • Repository

    • Refreshing repositories

      The repositories are refreshed automatically at regular intervals to ensure that each repository is in synchronization with the remote repository. You can also trigger the refresh activity manually for a repository to fetch the changes instantly. See Refreshing repositories manually.

    • Creating webhooks

      You can now create a webhook for a repository in Git server. For each push event in the Git server, the webhook notifies Rational® Test Automation Server to trigger the refresh activity to pull the latest changes to the server repository. See Creating webhooks.

  • Agents

    • Viewing capabilities of registered agents

      Previously, you were able to view the details about the agents. You can now view and ascertain the system and application capabilities of all agents that are registered with Rational® Test Automation Server. With the information presented, you can make informed decisions about selecting an agent for running tests from Rational® Test Automation Server. See Adding an agent to the project for running tests.

  • Projects

    • Managing notifications

      You can now choose whether to receive in-app, email, or both notifications for each notification channel. By default in-app notifications are enabled. The notifications are about tasks that need completion from users or for information purposes. See Managing notifications.

    • Configuring notifications

      As an administrator, you can now set up an SMTP email server to send email notifications. The notifications are about tasks that need completion from the users or for information purposes. See Configuring email notifications.

  • Integrations

    • Enhancement of integration plugins

      • Azure

        You can now use the IBM Rational Test Workbench extension to establish a trusted and secure connection between Azure DevOps Server and Rational® Test Automation Server to run the Rational® Test Automation Server tests from the Azure DevOps Server. See Integration with Azure DevOps.

      • Jenkins

        You can now use the Rational® Test Automation Server Jenkins plugin to establish a trusted and secure connection between the Jenkins server and Rational® Test Automation Server to run the Rational® Test Automation Server tests from the Jenkins server. See Integration with Jenkins.

      • UrbanCode Deploy

        You can now use the IBM® Rational® Test Automation Server UCD plugin to establish a trusted and secure connection between the UCD server and Rational® Test Automation Server to run the Rational® Test Automation Server tests from the UCD server. See Integration with UrbanCode Deploy.

    • Jira software

      Rational® Test Automation Server is now integrated with Jira software, as a result, you can create a defect in Jira from the Rational® Test Automation Server UI. See Integration with Jira as a defect management system.

  • Test authoring

    • Importing a CSV file with a separator character

      You can now import a CSV file that has a separator character into the dataset and configure the required separator values in the CSV Editor. See Editing a dataset.

Known issues

You can find information about the known issues identified in this release of Rational® Test Automation Server.

Known problems are documented in the download document for each product and in the form of individual technotes in the Support Knowledge Base:

Table 1. Download documents and technotes
Product Download document Knowledge base
Rational® Test Automation Server Release document Knowledge articles

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

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.