Testing Siebel Business Applications > Automating Functional Tests >

Architectural Overview of Functional Testing

A Siebel application consists of a set of Web pages accessed through a Web browser, and generated dynamically by the Siebel Web Engine (SWE) on the Siebel server. Each Web page in a Siebel application is constructed with components such as applets, views, and controls. Siebel Test Automation provides objects that run on the client to access corresponding user interface components in the Siebel application. (For more information on the infrastructure of the Siebel Web Engine, see Configuring Siebel Business Applications.)

When test automation is activated on the Siebel server and requested in the URL, the SWE generates additional information about each user interface component in the application when constructing the Web page. The test tool uses this information when recording and running test scripts against the application. Figure 20 shows the relationships between the components of the functional test automation architecture during the recording of a test.

Figure 20. Functional Test Components During Test Recording

Figure 21 shows the relationships between the components of the functional test automation architecture during the replay of a recorded test. For more information on activating test automation, see Setting Up Your Functional Testing Environment.

Figure 21. Functional Test Components During Test Replay

Test Object Information in High-Interactivity Applications

High-interactivity Siebel applications use specialized user interface components that run in the Web browser on the client machine. Each component has a specific set of properties, events, and methods that provide functionality for the application. The functional test automation objects for high-interactivity Siebel applications map to these user interface components, and allow you to manipulate the Siebel application from a test script. See Functional Test Automation Objects for High Interactivity Siebel Applications for a description of each of these test automation objects.

Test Object Information in Standard-Interactivity Applications

Standard-interactivity Siebel applications are rendered in standard HTML that does not provide the rich set of usability features available with the high-interactivity components. Therefore, the test automation information generated by the SWE is quite different.

Each user interface component in a standard-interactivity Siebel application is identified in the Web page by three special attributes that support creating automated test scripts:

• RN (Repository Name) indicates the name of the object as it is stored in the repository.
• UN (UI Name) indicates the name of the object as it appears in the user interface.
• OT (Object Type) indicates the type of object that the HTML element represents (for example, SiebWebTextArea). For a complete list of the object types for standard-interactivity applications, see Standard Interactivity Functional Test Objects.