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Overview

Robot Framework is a tool used by teams adopting ATDD (Acceptance Test Driven Development).

Broadly speaking, it can be used to automate acceptance “test cases” (i.e. scripts) no matter the moment you decide to do so or the practices your team follows even though it's preferable to do it at start, involving the whole team in order to pursue shared understanding.

In in this tutorial, we will specify some tests using Robot Framework assuming that your team is adopting ATDD.

This tutorial explores the specific integration Xray provides for Robot Framework XML reports.


You may find the full source for this example in this GitHub repository.


Requirements

  • Robot Framework
  • SeleniumLibrary
  • Java (if using the Java variant of the "Robot Framework")

Description

If the team is adopting ATDD and working collaboratively in order to have a shared understanding of what is going to be developed, why and some concrete examples of usage, then the flow would be something similar to the following diagram.



All starts with a user story or some sort of “requirement” that you wish to validate. This is materialized as a Jira issue and identified by the corresponding issue key (e.g. ROB-11).

We can promptly check that it is “UNCOVERED” (i.e. that it has no tests covering it, no matter their type/approach).

A Test Plan can be created to define the scope of the testing that we aim to perform, group, and consolidate the corresponding results. Besides the user story, we may also add the Test Plan to the Board and assign it explicitly to a sprint. This will increase visibility of testing progress and help closing the gap between dev<>testers.


   


A tester/SDET could simply focus on implementing the automated test cases:

  • The tester would write one or more test suites and corresponding test cases, using his/her favorite tool/IDE 
  • Each test case could be linked to the corresponding requirement/user story in Jira by adding its key as a tag
  • Tests could then be run locally, or from the CI pipeline
  • Unique, non-duplicating, Test entities would be auto-provisioned in Xray, corresponding to each test case; tester could also, optionally, enforce the result to an existing Test entity by specifying its issue key as a tag


Let’s take the following .robot file as an example, which acts as a suite containing one test case.

login_tests/valid_login.robot 
*** Settings ***
Documentation     A test suite with a single test for valid login.
...
...               This test has a workflow that is created using keywords in
...               the imported resource file.
Resource          resource.robot

*** Test Cases ***
Valid Login
    [Tags]  ROB-11  UI
    Open Browser To Login Page
    Input Username    demo
    Input Password    mode
    Submit Credentials
    Welcome Page Should Be Open
    [Teardown]    Close Browser



The previous Robot file use a common resource that contains some generic variables and some reusable "keywords" (i.e., steps).

login_tests/resource.robot 
*** Settings ***
Documentation     A resource file with reusable keywords and variables.
...
...               The system specific keywords created here form our own
...               domain specific language. They utilize keywords provided
...               by the imported SeleniumLibrary.
Library           SeleniumLibrary

*** Variables ***
${SERVER}         192.168.56.1:7272
${BROWSER}        Firefox
${DELAY}          0
${VALID USER}     demo
${VALID PASSWORD}    mode
${LOGIN URL}      http://${SERVER}/
${WELCOME URL}    http://${SERVER}/welcome.html
${ERROR URL}      http://${SERVER}/error.html

*** Keywords ***
Open Browser To Login Page
    Open Browser    ${LOGIN URL}    ${BROWSER}
    Maximize Browser Window
    Set Selenium Speed    ${DELAY}
    Login Page Should Be Open

Login Page Should Be Open
    Title Should Be    Login Page

Go To Login Page
    Go To    ${LOGIN URL}
    Login Page Should Be Open

Input Username
    [Arguments]    ${username}
    Input Text    username_field    ${username}

Input Password
    [Arguments]    ${password}
    Input Text    password_field    ${password}

Submit Credentials
    Click Button    login_button

Welcome Page Should Be Open
    Location Should Be    ${WELCOME URL}
    Title Should Be    Welcome Page


Running the tests can be done from the command line or from within Jenkins (or any other CI tool).



Importing results is as easy as submitting them to the REST API.with a POST request (e.g. curl), or by using one of the CI plugins available for free (e.g. Xray Jenkins plugin).



Examples of running tests from the command line

Running tests is primarily done using the "robot" utility which provides many options that allow you to define which tests to run, the output directory and more.

You may also specify some variables and their values.

Next follows some different usage examples.


If you're using Python:

robot -d output --variable BROWSER:Firefox login_tests


If you're using Java:

java -jar robotframework-3.0.jar login_tests


An unstructured (i.e. "Generic") Test issue will be auto-provisioned the first time you import the results, based on the name of the test case and of the corresponding test suites.

If you maintain the test case name and the respective test suites, the Test will be reused on subsequent result imports. You may always enforce the results to be reported against an existing Test, if you wish so: just specify its issue key as a tag.

Tags can also be used to cover an existing requirement/user story (e.g. “ROB-11”): when a requirement issue key is given, a link between the test and the requirement is created during the results import process. 

Otherwise, tags are mapped as labels on the corresponding Test issue.





Please note

Note that Robot Framework considers the base folder of the project as the first test suite. The way you run your tests also affects Robot's XML; so, if you execute the file from somewhere else or you execute the file directly by passing it as an argument, the test suite's information will potentially be different.


A Test Execution will be created containing results for all test cases executed. In this case, you can see that it is also linked back to an existing Test Plan where you can track the consolidated results from multiple "iterations" (i.e. Test Executions).


Within the execution screen details, accessible from each row, you can look at the Test Run details which include the overall result and also specifics about each keyword, including duration and status.




Tracking it everywhere

On the user story issue screen

Right from within the user story issue screen, we now see one test (i.e. automated script) covering it. We can also see its latest result and how it impacts the overall coverage calculation for the user story; if the user story shows as “OK”, you know that all tests covering it passed, accordingly with the latest results obtained for each one of them.


On the Agile Board

On Agile Boards (e.g. Scrum boards), we can now assess the coverage of our user story taking into account the testing results.

We may also track the overall Test Plan consolidated progress on the Test Plan issue related card. Note that we could include Test Executions in the board if we wish so; however, in CI scenarios that could be counterproductive.


On the Test Plan

At the Test Plan-level, the entity that defines the scope of testing and tracks its progress, we can quickly assess the latest consolidated test results (i.e. the latest result obtained for each Test being tracked).

References

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