Release notes for IBM® Rational® Functional Tester

This document contains information about what's new, installation instructions, known problems in and contact information of IBM Customer Support.

Contents

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

  • Configuration of a global delay for test steps

    You can now configure a global delay in milliseconds for all the recorded steps in Web UI, Windows, and mobile tests either from the Preferences page or the Run configuration wizard. When you configure the delay, during play back, each step starts after the configured delay time is passed. See Setting a global delay for test steps and Running a Web UI test.

  • Custom log messages in unified reports

    You can now insert custom log messages in the test scripts of Web UI, Windows, and mobile tests. Rational® Functional Tester displays these messages in the unified report after the test run.

    You can also substitute the text in custom log messages by using a variable or dataset. During the playback, the value of the variable or dataset replaces the text marked for substitution.

    See Inserting a custom log message into a UI test script.

  • Enhancement in the unified report to view the details of verification point

    You can now view the details of verification points in the unified report. You can also filter the test results in the Details pane to display any of the following:
    • All the test steps
    • Passed steps
    • Failed steps
    • Passed verification points
    • Failed verification points

    See Unified reports.

  • Enhancements to the driver download process

    Rational® Functional Tester provides a download link to download the correct version of the driver if the browser driver is incompatible when you record or run a test. After you click the download link, now, you can also view the progress bar and relevant messages that indicate the result of the driver download process.

    See Running a Web UI test and the topics under Recording a Web UI test.

  • Support for SAP GUI tests

    Rational® Functional Tester now supports the installation of SAP extension to record and play back SAP GUI tests. See Recording SAP tests.

  • Support to add user actions that use the navigation and special keys

    You can now add user actions that use the following keys in your test scripts:
    • Left Arrow, Right Arrow, Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Page Up, Page Down, Home, End, and Function (F1-F12) keys in the functional tests by using the Web UI engine.
    • Left Arrow, Right Arrow, Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Home, and End keys in the Web UI tests.

    See Simulating keyboards and special keys actions on Web and native application windows and Supported keyboard actions.

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.
  • No capabilities were deprecated in this release.

Removed capabilities

No capabilities were removed in this release.

Installing the product

For installation instructions, see Installing Rational Functional Tester.

Remember:

  • You can upgrade to Rational® Functional Tester 10.5.1 from the previous version, 10.5.0. See Updating Rational Functional Tester.

  • If you installed Rational® Functional Tester that is earlier than 10.5.0, then you cannot upgrade the product to the latest version. You must uninstall the existing version of the product before you install the latest version of the product.

  • After you install Rational® Functional Tester 10.5.1, 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.