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Rational® Functional Tester
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.
Testing in the Functional Test perspective
When you develop Java, HTML, or Terminal-based applications, you can use IBM® Rational® Functional Tester to create traditional functional tests for these applications. You must first record the tests and then use Rational Functional Tester to run the tests before you can view the test results.
Preparing the functional test environment
This section describes the tasks you must perform to configure the functional test environment.

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.
- 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.
  - Testing in the UI Test perspective
    When you develop web applications, Windows-based applications, or mobile applications, you can use IBM® Rational® Functional Tester to create functional tests for these applications. You must first record the tests and then use Rational Functional Tester to run the tests before you can view the test results.
  - Testing in the Functional Test perspective
    When you develop Java, HTML, or Terminal-based applications, you can use IBM® Rational® Functional Tester to create traditional functional tests for these applications. You must first record the tests and then use Rational Functional Tester to run the tests before you can view the test results.
    - Preparing the functional test environment
      This section describes the tasks you must perform to configure the functional test environment.
      - Automatically enabled environment for functional testing
        From Rational® Functional Tester version 8.2.2 onwards, Rational Functional Tester automatically enables the environments for functional testing.
      - Before you record
        Before you can start recording functional test scripts, perform the following setup and configuration tasks:
      - Enabling Java environments
        You need to enable Java™ environments before you can use Rational® Functional Tester to test Java applications. Rational Functional Tester is shipped with a JRE that is automatically enabled during your installation. The JRE is called "Default JRE." To enable other JREs, or if you install a new JRE, you must run the enabler again.
      - Enabling web browsers
        To test the HTML applications in Rational® Functional Tester, you must enable web browsers. You can then record and play back tests by using the browsers that you enabled.
      - Multiwindow support for functional HTML tests
        When you record functional test scripts for HTML applications, Rational® Functional Tester provides multiwindow support to record actions that you perform on multiple windows of the same browser instance.
      - Preparing for functional testing in the Google Chrome browser
        You can use Rational® Functional Tester to test HTML applications in the Google Chrome browser. To do this, you must enable the Google Chrome browser and add the Rational Functional Tester extension for Google Chrome™ to the browser.
      - Enabling the Eclipse non-p2 based applications for functional testing
        If the application under test is a non-p2 Eclipse based application, you can enable the Eclipse platform for functional testing using the Eclipse enabler.
      - Enabling the Eclipse p2- based applications for functional testing
        If the application-under-test is based on p2-based Eclipse, you must enable the Eclipse platform for testing using the Eclipse Software Updates feature.
      - Enabling stand-alone Standard Widget Toolkit applications
        You must enable stand-alone Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) support before using Rational® Functional Tester to test SWT applications in the application under test.
      - Configuring applications for testing
        You must configure your Java™, HTML, VB.NET, SAP GUI, Flex or Windows® applications for functional testing by providing the name, path, and other information that Rational® Functional Tester uses to start and run the application. You use the Application Configuration Tool to configure applications.
      - Configuring the Java environment for testing
        You must configure JREs for testing Java only when the application under test is either Internet Explorer or a Java-based application that requires a Java distinct from the Java which is bundled with the product. The configured Java provides path, run options, and other information that Rational® Functional Tester needs to access and use your JREs.
      - Configuring browsers for testing
        You need to configure your browsers for HTML testing with Rational® Functional Tester. This provides name, path, and other information that Rational Functional Tester needs to access and use your browsers. You use the Web Browsers tab of the Enable Environments dialog box to do this.
      - Browser enablement diagnostic tool
        The Browser Enablement Diagnostic Tool is used to diagnose problems you might have with enabling your browser for HTML testing. The tool will diagnose the enablement problem and report how to solve the problem.
      - Enabling the Java plug-in of a browser
        The Oracle Java™ plug-in of your browser(s) must be enabled in order for some applets to be tested, and for the View Results link that launches the Verification Point Comparator from the HTML log to work properly. If you get an error regarding the plug-in during HTML testing, or when trying to launch the Comparator, use the following steps to fix the problem.
      - Adding references to external resources
        Functional test scripts or projects may refer to or use external resources like the DLLs in .Net IDE or JAR files in Eclipse IDE. To enable the scripts or projects to use these files, you must add references to these files in Rational® Functional Tester.
      - Setting up the environment for testing AJAX-based web applications
        You can test AJAX-based applications in two different ways; by setting the Auto Trace option to true or by setting the Auto Trace option to false. If you set the Auto Trace option to false, you must use the Rational® Functional Tester APIs for AJAX in the script by manually inserting them.
      - Enabling SAP client and server
        To use Rational® Functional Tester to test SAP applications, you must enable the SAP client and SAP server.
      - Enabling applications with WebDynPro controls for functional testing
        When you playback functional test scripts to test HTML applications with WebDynPro controls, you may get object not found exception or a weak recognition warning even if the control exists.
      - Enabling the GEF application
        You must enable the GEF support before using Rational® Functional Tester to test GEF objects on the application under test.
      - Enabling response time breakdown
        You can enable response time breakdown to see how much time is spent in each part of the application as the test runs. To collect response time breakdown, the data collection infrastructure must be installed and running on all computers that are used in the distributed application under test.
      - Flex applications testing process
        The testing process is based on the tasks that Flex developers and testers perform. The process for automating functional tests of Flex applications differs, depending on the way developers create the application under test.
      - Importing and exporting configuration and customization files
        You can configure and customize files in the configuration and the customization directories. The configuration files contains information such as the application that must be configured for testing. However, the customization files contain information about the external jar files used in your project, customization of any recognition properties, and third-party proxy extensions. You can export these files and later deploy them using the export and import utility. The default location for the configuration and customization file is C:\ProgramData\IBM\RFT . For example: If you want to use the same configuration and customization files on different computers, you can archive these files and later deploy them using this utility.
      - Setting preferences
        You use the Preferences dialog box to customize Rational® Functional Tester in a number of different areas, such as settings for time options; colors for the Verification Point Editor, the Verification Point Comparator, and the Object Map Editor; highlight color for test objects; operating system; playback; delays; log; playback monitor; ScriptAssure(TM); recorder; recording monitor; and the workbench.
    - Managing functional test projects
      A functional test project stores application test assets such as scripts, object maps, verification point baseline files, and script templates. You must create a functional test project before you can record scripts.
    - Functional test assets
      This section describes the different types of functional test assets that are available in Rational® Functional Tester.
    - Working with functional test scripts (Windows-only)
      This section describes the process of creating functional test scripts to test your applications.
    - Verification points
      Verification points verify whether an expected behavior occurred during a test playback, or they verify whether there is a change in the state of a control or an object. When you create a verification point, you capture information about a control or an object in the application to establish this information as a baseline for comparison during the playback.
    - Driving functional tests with external data
      This section describes techniques you can use to data-drive functional tests with external data.
    - Testing terminal-based applications
      Use the Rational® Functional Tester Terminal-based Applications feature to create test scripts and automate your host-application test cases. You can test host attributes, host field attributes, and screen-flow through a host application. It uses terminal verification points and properties, as well as synchronization code to identify the readiness of terminal for user input.
    - Troubleshooting issues
      You can find information about the issues or problems that you might encounter while you work in the Functional Test perspective of Rational® Functional Tester. You can also find the details about the causes and resolutions that you can apply to fix the issues.
  - Extending the UI Test perspective with custom code
    You can use custom code to extend the default Web UI testing capabilities. You can write custom Java™ code and call the code from the test. You can also specify that results from the tests that are affected by your custom code to be included in reports.
  - Extending the Functional Test perspective
    You can use custom code to extend the default functional testing capabilities. You can write custom code and call the code from the test. You can also specify that results from the tests that are affected by your custom code to be included in reports.
  - Extending the functionality in the Visual Studio IDE
    These topics describe various ways that you can customize Rational® Functional Tester or use the application programming interface (API) to extend Rational Functional Tester functionality.
  - Experimental Features
    Rational® Functional Tester contains a set of pre-releases that enable you to test various experimental features. These experimental features, while still in progress, are introduced early in the release to seek your feedback on its overall functionality and performance. You can play around with these capabilities before they are made available and supported as a general feature in an upcoming release.
- 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.

Preparing the functional test environment

This section describes the tasks you must perform to configure the functional test environment.

You can refer to the following topics to learn more about preparing the functional test environment: