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Rational® Performance Tester
Test Author Guide
This guide describes how to create test scripts in Rational® Performance Tester and enhances tests by applying different test elements such as dataset, variables, and verification points. This guide is intended for testers.
Compound tests
You can create compound tests to help you organize smaller tests into scenarios that can then be run end-to-end. You can combine tests from different extensions to achieve end-to-end flow.

Rational® Performance Tester
- Release Notes
  This document contains information about what's new, installation instructions, known issues in IBM® Rational® Performance Tester, and contact information of IBM Customer Support.
- System Requirements
  This document includes information about hardware and software requirements for IBM® Rational® Performance Tester.
- Getting Started
  This guide provides an overview and describes the task flows to get you started with Rational® Performance Tester. This guide is intended for new users.
- Tutorials
  This section contains the tutorials which explains the main features of Rational® Performance Tester.
- Samples
  This section describes about the sample project which can be used with Rational® Performance Tester to test the functionality of an application.
- Administrator Guide
  This guide describes how to install Rational® Performance Tester. After you install the product, 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 in Rational® Performance Tester and enhances tests by applying different test elements such as dataset, variables, and verification points. This guide is intended for testers.
  - Creating tests
    To create a test, you record representative interactions with an application.
  - Editing tests
    After you record a test, you can edit it to include datasets (to provide variable data rather than the data that you recorded), verification points (to confirm that the test runs as expected), and data correlation (to ensure that returned data is appropriate for the corresponding request). You can also add protocol-specific elements to a test. When you edit a test, the modified items appear in italic type. The italic type changes to regular type after you save the test.
  - Compound tests
    You can create compound tests to help you organize smaller tests into scenarios that can then be run end-to-end. You can combine tests from different extensions to achieve end-to-end flow.
    - Creating a compound test
      You can create compound tests to help you organize smaller tests into scenarios that can then be run end-to-end. You can combine tests from different extensions to achieve end-to-end flow.
    - Viewing compound tests
      You can view a compound test in the Compound Test Editor.
    - Adding tests into a compound test
      After creating a compound test, you can add the smaller test pieces that contribute to the larger workflow you are constructing with the compound test. When you run a compound test, each of the tests added to it are invoked in the sequence defined.
    - Modifying a compound test
      You can modify a compound test in the Compound Test Editor.
    - Running compound tests
      When you run a compound test, its test elements are run in the order defined in the compound test.
    - Generating compound test result reports
      When a compound test run is completed, a Test Log is shown in the Test Execution perspective. You can work with the information in the test log and also generate test result reports.
    - Adding a compound test to a Test Workbench project
      You can create a compound test in a test workbench project. If you have an existing compound test, you can import the test to a test workbench project.
    - Adding compound tests to schedule
      To test the performance of multiple tests, you can add all the tests to a compound test and add the compound test to a user group or a rate runner group. When you run a schedule, all the tests in the compound test are run in a sequential order.
  - Simulating services with stubs
    Service stubs enable you to simulate the behavior of an actual service for a wide variety testing or integration purposes.
  - Sending service requests with the generic service client
    The generic service client enables you to send requests to services for which you do not have a convenient client and to view the responses returned by the service.
  - Emulating workloads
    You emulate a workload by creating a schedule and adding user groups/rate runner groups, tests, and other elements to it.
- Test Execution Specialist Guide
  This guide describes tasks that you can perform on schedules, test execution with custom code, and Extending Rational® Performance Tester to support other protocols. This guide is intended for testers or test execution specialists.
- Test Manager Guide
  This guide describes how to keep track of the performance of the application by evaluating the test results. This guide is intended for test managers.
- Troubleshooting Guide
  This guide describes how to analyze and resolve some of the common problems that you might encounter while you work with Rational® Performance Tester.
- Reference Guide
  This guide describes, additional topics to gain more knowledge about Rational® Performance Tester.
- All Guides (PDFs)
  You can find the link to view or download the content of the release notes, system requirements, and persona guides of Rational® Performance 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.

Compound tests

You can create compound tests to help you organize smaller tests into scenarios that can then be run end-to-end. You can combine tests from different extensions to achieve end-to-end flow.

If you need to combine various tests into a single workflow or end-to-end scenario, you can organize the tests into a compound test. Each test may perform a part of the scenario. Each test may also run in a different domain, for example, different web browsers. A typical example of a compound test is an online buying workflow. You may have built smaller tests for each part of an online purchase transaction, such as "log on", "log out", "view item", "add to cart", and "check out". You can combine these tests into a single flow in a compound test. When the compound test is run, its individual tests are run in sequence.

The types of tests you can combine into a compound test depend on the testing capabilities you have purchased. You can also shell-share IBM® Rational® Test Workbench family products to add multiple tests into a compound test.

To build the scenario you require in a compound test, you can also add the following annotations:

Comments
Synchronization points
Loops
Delays
Transaction folders
IF-THEN-ELSE
Tests that are mandatory, using the Finally blocks
Tests to be run in random order, using the Random Selector