QTP Tutorials – HP QuickTest Professional (QTP) Training Tutorials

Today we are publishing part one of a multi-part guest post series on HP QuickTest Professional (QTP). In this multi-part QTP training series we’ll be covering all QTP tutorials and concepts in detail with adequate illustrations. Our new author Swati Seela (author bio at the end) is helping me to bring this series for our readers.
These QTP tutorials are designed for beginners to advanced users. Starting from QTP basics you will learn advance scripting all with practical examples for your easy understanding.
Considering the big list of these QTP tutorials, we’ll be publishing new articles frequently. Keep track of all articles in this Quick Test Professional Online training series so that you won’t miss any topic. Follow the topics closely, practice at home on QTP trial version and ask your questions in respective article comment section. We will make sure all relevant questions get answered.
If you are an expert QTP user please share your experience to improve this QTP training series by discussing advanced QTP concepts and answering readers’ questions.
QTP Training Series Tutorials:
QTP Introduction:

• Tutorial #1 -  Introduction to QuickTest Professional (QTP)
• Tutorial #2 -  Working with QTP Keyword View and Expert view
• Tutorial #3 -  Adding Standard Steps From Keyword View
• Tutorial #4 -  Conditional & Loop Statements in Keyword View
• Tutorial #5 -  Moving Steps and Dealing with Breakpoints
• Tutorial #6 -  Understanding QTP Record and Run Settings
• Tutorial #7 -  How QTP Identify Objects Uniquely? (Must Read)
• Tutorial #8 -  Recording Modes, Object Spy and Repositories

Learn VB Scripting:

• Tutorial #9 -  VBScript Basics Tutorial 1
• Tutorial #10 – VBScript Basics Tutorial 2

QTP Checkpoints:

• Tutorial #11 -  Use of Password Encoder and Active Screen
  
• Tutorial #12 – Expert View, Step Generator and Checkpoints
  
• Tutorial #13 – Inserting Standard and Image Checkpoint
• Tutorial #14 – Inserting Bitmap and Text Checkpoints in Tests
• Tutorial #15 – Using Text Area, Table, and Page Checkpoints
• Tutorial #16 – XML, Accessibility, and Database Checkpoints

Test Automation Frameworks:

• Tutorial #17 – Automation Frameworks Part-1 (Must Read)
• Tutorial #18 – Test Automation Frameworks Part-2

Enhance Your Tests:

• Tutorial #19 – Parameterization in QTP Part-1
• Tutorial #20 – Parameterization in QTP Part-2
• Tutorial #21 - Actions and Function Libraries
  
• Tutorial #22 - Using QTP Object Repositories 
  
• Tutorial #23 - Smart Object Identification & Test Result Analysis
  
• Tutorial #24 - Virtual Objects and Recovery Scenarios
  
• Tutorial #25 - Descriptive Programming     

Test Your Understanding:

• QTP Interview Questions and Answers part 1
• QTP Interview Questions and Answers part 2

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Here is the first article in this QTP training series – “Introduction to QuickTest Professional (QTP)”

Introduction to QuickTest Professional (QTP)

What is QTP?
HP’s Quick Test Professional (QTP) is a software that facilitates Automation Testing for software applications – Functional and Regression testing to be more specific. QTP comes with a user interface that can be considered an Integrated Development environment (IDE) for the test itself. The IDE has various features that aid the tester to develop a comprehensive script which would successfully validate the purpose of the test. All these features will be discussed in detail as we proceed through the series of these articles.
Some of the important aspects of QTP:

1. It uses VB Script as its scripting language. (A scripting language is one that gets interpreted at run time)
2. QTP runs only in a windows environment.
3. The current version of QTP is 11.0 (Latest version Unified Functional Testing – UFT 11.5)
4. The technologies it supports are Web, Java .Net, SAP, Oracle, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Web Services, and many major languages. Although some of the older versions don’t support all the technologies listed.

How does it work?

The basic test creation method is record and playback. What does this really mean? Let’s talk about ‘Record’ first. When a tester launches QTP and performs a series of operations on the AUT (Application under test) QTP generates lines of code that corresponds to each operation performed. This will be the basic test script. Moving on to ‘Playback’. When the test script created is run, it performs the exact same operations on the AUT thus playing back the sequence of steps already recorded.
E.g.: When I launch QTP and try to access the login page of a web based email program, I enter the login ID, Password and press the OK button. These actions are recorded in their equivalent VBScript lines of code in the QTP IDE. When I save this test script and play it back, QTP will enter the same login ID, Password I entered before and clicks on the OK button for me.
Now this being the gist of the basic test creation technique, record and playback are not always sufficient to a robust test script. The tester will have to use the other features in the IDE in conjunction with a little bit of his programming skills to achieve the required results.
There are various technical aspects to be taken into consideration before we attempt to record and playback, like the state of the AUT, synchronization, the exact menu options, the exact code that QTP generates etc. We will get to that as soon as we discuss the basic concepts of the tool itself.
Here’s how all this works. QTP identifies the various objects in the AUT by a name or handler ID or any other unique property/properties that the object possesses. During the record phase it captures all these properties and during playback, it performs the desired operations like mouse click, checkbox checking etc. on these objects.

What will you need to get started with QTP?

A valid QTP license or in the case of a learner a trial version on their computer.
QTP Download: Here is a link to download the QTP trial version: Download QTP.
In the above link, go to the ‘Trials and Demos’ tab and select the ‘HP QTP Essentials 11.0 English Evaluation (web GUI Testing only) option’. You can also select the latest version HP Unified Functional Testing 11.50 CC English SW E-Media Evaluation. Let us know if you want more detailed instructions on downloading and installing QTP trial version on your machine.
There are two kinds of licenses – Seat license and concurrent/floating license. Seat license is for a single machine at one time whereas a current license is for a particular number of concurrent users.
Now that we have some background information about QTP, let’s examine the tool itself starting with the UI.
QTP GUI:
When a test is recorded or created it can be viewed in one of these two views:

1. Keyword view: This view is a tabular representation of all the objects and the actions that are performed on them. Every row in the table is a step performed on the AUT and can be modified. Some of the most common columns displayed are: item, operation, value and documentation.
2. Expert view: As the name indicates, this view is for more technical users who would want to tweak the source code as per their requirements.

Both the views are available simultaneously so the user can switch between them anytime during the test creation or modification.
Let’s record a little something to get started
Step #1): Launch QTP. The first thing that comes up is an Add-in manager. It displays all the add-ins that are available and the user can check or uncheck the ones as needed. Active-X, Web and Visual Basic are available by default. (This feature can be turned off if required).

Step #2) On Clicking OK in the Add-in Manager QTP start page comes up. (click to image to enlarge)

Step #3) On choosing “Record” option (F3 key) the ‘Record and Run settings’ screen comes up with ‘Web’ and ‘Windows Application’ Tabs. Click OK without changing any settings. However, all the features of this screen will be discussed at length later on.

Step #4) For our example, I am going to launch the ‘Flight’ application from the samples that come with QTP. I am going to enter the ‘Agent Name’ and ‘Password’ in the Login screen. Now, let’s examine the code it generates.
The following is the keyword view. As you can see, the actions are in the form of a table with columns: Item, Operation, Value and Documentation. Item corresponds to the object in the AUT on which we performed an action, operation is the action itself, value is the data we set the particular object to and documentation is more or less like a description. (click on image to enlarge)

The corresponding keyword view to the same test is as follows. As you can see this view contains the source code for all the actions performed.

Step #5) The code can be manipulated from either of these views.

Conclusion:

Here is a gist of everything we discussed in this article:
QTP is a software that aids automated Functional and Regression testing of software applications. The current version runs only in a windows environment and uses VB script as a scripting language. The basic method for creation of a test is Record and Play back, although that’s not always sufficient. It comes with two kinds of licenses, seat and concurrent.
The default add-ins are Active X, Web and Visual Basic. A test can be recorded on a Web or Windows application; the specific details are to be provided in the record and run settings pop-up window. The GUI provides two views, Keyword and Expert. Keyword view is a tabular form that shows details like the name of the objects, its value, and the operation performed etc. Expert view displays the performed actions on the AUT in the form of source code.
Additional operations to be performed on the test objects can be added or deleted either from the Keyword view or programmatically from the Expert view. More details on this in the next article.
About Author: This is Swati and with these articles I am trying to establish a comprehensive learning experience for QTP beginners. Having worked for more than 4 years on QTP in my overall 8 years of life as QA, I realize that the potential for Automation Testing is immense. I attempt to exercise that very potential collectively with all our readers through these articles.