Home
Rational® Functional Tester
Tutorials
You can learn to start using Rational® Functional Tester by reviewing the information in the Tutorials for the UI Test perspective and Functional Test perspective.
Tutorials for testing in the Visual Studio IDE
Rational® Functional Tester tutorials contain educational materials to help you learn the technologies and concepts behind products.
Create a functional test
This tutorial teaches you how to get started using Rational® Functional Tester and walks you through the major use cases for testing and performing basic operations. This tutorial uses the sample application provided with Rational Functional Tester to perform all the tasks.
Lesson 1: Set up Rational® Functional Tester
Rational® Functional Tester provides a Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) that is installed and enabled for testing Java applications. You use that JRE for the tutorial. When you want to test your own Java or HTML applications, you must run the enabler and configure your environments and applications. For more information on these set-up tasks, see Getting Started with Rational Functional Tester. For now you do not need to do anything to use the preconfigured JRE to continue.

Rational® Functional Tester
- Release Notes
  This document contains information about what's new, installation instructions, known problems in and contact information of IBM Customer Support.
- System Requirements
  This document includes information about hardware and software requirements for IBM® Rational® Functional Tester.
- Getting Started Guide
  This guide provides an overview of Rational® Functional Tester. You can find the task flows to get you started with Rational Functional Tester. This guide is intended for new users.
- Tutorials
  You can learn to start using Rational® Functional Tester by reviewing the information in the Tutorials for the UI Test perspective and Functional Test perspective.
  - Tutorials for testing in the UI Test perspective
    You can use the tutorials to get started with testing in the UI Test perspective in Rational® Functional Tester.
  - Tutorials for testing in the Functional Test perspective
    You can use the tutorials to get started with testing in the Functional Test perspective in Rational® Functional Tester.
  - Tutorials for testing in the Visual Studio IDE
    Rational® Functional Tester tutorials contain educational materials to help you learn the technologies and concepts behind products.
    - Create a functional test
      This tutorial teaches you how to get started using Rational® Functional Tester and walks you through the major use cases for testing and performing basic operations. This tutorial uses the sample application provided with Rational Functional Tester to perform all the tasks.
      - Lesson 1: Set up Rational® Functional Tester
        Rational® Functional Tester provides a Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) that is installed and enabled for testing Java applications. You use that JRE for the tutorial. When you want to test your own Java or HTML applications, you must run the enabler and configure your environments and applications. For more information on these set-up tasks, see Getting Started with Rational Functional Tester. For now you do not need to do anything to use the preconfigured JRE to continue.
      - Lesson 2: Record a script
        In this lesson, you will record a script using the Rational® Functional Tester Recording Monitor.
      - Lesson 3: Create verification points
        In this lesson, you will record verification points to test objects. Verification points verify that a certain action has taken place, or verify the state of an object.
      - Lesson 4: Play back the script
        In this lesson, you will play back the script and look at some parts of the Rational® Functional Tester interface. Because the script you just recorded is the active script, that script will play back when you click the playback button.
      - Lesson 5: View verification points and object maps
        In this lesson, you will learn how to view and modify the properties of verification points and object maps.
      - Lesson 6: Perform regression tests
        In this lesson, you will execute your script on a different build. When you have a new build of the application, you can run the automated test you recorded by playing back your script on the new build. To execute your script on the new build, you must change the name of the application in your script. (You would not need to do this on a development project; do it here to simulate getting a new build of the application.)
      - Lesson 7: Use the Comparator to update a verification point
        You can use the Verification Point Comparator to compare verification point data after you play back a script. Verification points provide a baseline of the properties or data of an object. If the verification point fails on a subsequent build of an application, you have found a defect or an intentional change to the application. If the change is intentional, you can update the information in the verification point so that the test continues to be valid for future builds.
      - Lesson 8: Update the object map
        In this lesson, you will fix the object recognition warning by using the object map. You will also use a regular expression for more flexible object recognition.
      - Lesson 9: Change the recognition preferences
        In the previous exercise you saw how you can update the recognition properties of an object when they change. Another factor you can change is the recognition weights that Rational® Functional Tester uses during playback. You use the recognition preferences to set this. The label object that you tested with the second verification point can demonstrate how this works.
      - Lesson 10: Use regular expressions
        The last thing you will do using the object map is convert a property value to a regular expression. In this case, the regular expression provides more flexibility in the object recognition.
    - Create a data-driven functional test
      In this tutorial, you will learn how to data-drive a test using a variety of realistic data to test the application with Rational® Functional Tester data-driver wizard.
    - Test Adobe Flex application
      This tutorial walks you through the steps to enable your Adobe Flex application, and test the enabled Flex application from a local test computer using Rational® Functional Tester. The steps are based on the roles that Flex developers and testers perform.
- Samples
  You can find the sample project that you can use with Rational® Functional Tester to test the functionality of an application.
- Administrator Guide
  This guide describes how to install IBM® Rational® Functional Tester software. After you install the software, you can perform administration tasks such as license configuration and integration with other products. This guide is intended for administrators.
- Test Author Guide
  This guide describes how to create test scripts and enhances them by applying different test elements such as dataset, variables, and verification points.
- Test Execution Specialist Guide
  This guide describes how to automate the playback of the tests by using different methods such as Docker, IBM Cloud Private, Jenkins and so on. The test results can be pushed to Rational® Test Control Panel.
- Test Manager Guide
  This guide describes how to keep track of the performance of the application by evaluating the test results. Following topics cover how you can work with the test results.
- Troubleshooting
  This guide describes how to analyze and resolve some of the common problems that you might encounter while you work with Rational® Functional Tester.
- Reference Guide
  This guide describes the additional topics to gain more knowledge about Rational® Functional Tester.
- All Guides (PDF)
  You can find the link to view or download the content of the release notes, system requirements, and persona guides of IBM® Rational® Functional Tester as a PDF file.
- Security Considerations
  You can take certain actions to ensure that your installation is secure, customize your security settings, and set up user access controls.
- Notices
  This document provides information about copyright, trademarks, terms and conditions for the product documentation.

Lesson 1: Set up Rational® Functional Tester

Rational® Functional Tester provides a Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) that is installed and enabled for testing Java™ applications. You use that JRE for the tutorial. When you want to test your own Java™ or HTML applications, you must run the enabler and configure your environments and applications. For more information on these set-up tasks, see Getting Started with Rational® Functional Tester. For now you do not need to do anything to use the preconfigured JRE to continue.

Start Rational® Functional Tester and then perform the following tasks before you record your first test script.

Setting logging options

Rational® Functional Tester provides several logging options. We will use the HTML log.

To verify that this is the logging option you have set, click Tools > Options.
In the left pane of the Options dialog box, expand Functional Test, then Playback, and click Logging.
Select html as theLog type
Click OK.

This setting opens the HTML log automatically after you play back a script.

Create a Functional Test project

Before you start recording, you must create a Functional Test project.

In the product menu, click File > New > Functional Test Project.
Under Name, type FTtutorial (no spaces).
Under Location, type C:\FTproject. Rational® Functional Tester creates this directory.
If the source control option is available, do not select Add the project to Source Control.
If the associate project option is available, do not select Associate the Functional Test Project with current Project.
Click OK.

The FTtutorial project is now visible in the Solution Explorer, which is the right pane in the Rational® Functional Tester window.

Advance to Lesson 2: Record a script.