Inflectra Rapise - Test automation made easy

This post is about a test automation program that many people know, Inflectra's Rapise app. What is it and what can it do? We've heard the term automation a lot, but what does it really mean? The definition goes something like this: a machine, device, structure, program that replaces the need for constant human intervention in a process. In our case, we are talking about a piece of software that we want to automate for testing purposes, in order to replace human interaction in the application we want to test. Rapise is an excellent partner in this process.

Where and in what situation have we used it?

We first encountered the app at one of our partner companies, where we used it mainly for mobile app testing. With Rapise, you can record automated tests and play them on a variety of mobile devices, whether Apple iOS or Android. It offers the flexibility to test applications on both real or simulated devices. Appium is an opensource test framework that creates the link between the application and the mobile. Through this application, it can be played on multiple devices, which can be a physical mobile on a remote endpoint or a simulator, without necessarily sitting next to the device.
In our case, we needed Rapise to test an application that communicates with a remote cloud. It proved to be an ideal partner for testing the process on the mobile application, as well as for testing the web interface that was connected to the mobile application.

What challenges can it solve?

The app uses drivers to record and playback on mobile. The drivers are used, for example, to identify items on the screen, buttons, scrollbars and images. When you want to interact with those elements, playback is also done with drivers, for example, to press a button.
These drivers are also needed for web browsers, or even Windows apps, the principle is the same as on mobile. These elements are handled by the driver. We don't need to have deep knowledge to generate these links, but we can manipulate them if necessary. We can name the object/objects more simply by the program. This makes them easier to recognize later, which makes it easier for us to handle them and thus more efficient. Each of these references can be freely edited if we want to have a custom solution or if our test case requires intervention. It is this kind of breadth of functionality that makes Rapise so effective, providing both a lightweight and quick solution, but also the ability to work with pinpoint accuracy.

What makes you better than the others?

Here we should definitely mention the biggest invention of the program, which is, as they say, "scriptless testing". This is not entirely true, of course, but I would say that the interface is a kind of visual script, it doesn't require the knowledge of a particular script or code, as it is basically an Excel spreadsheet with drop-down menus from which you select the items you want to use. This makes it look very easy, and indeed it is if you just want to do simple things in it. If you want to do more serious things, you'll have to use JavaScript functions. Learning the elements and recording them is also automated. These can make your work very efficient, because it records the elements by itself, which can be reused later. During smart playback, the program automatically creates the script from the recording you have made, working in the background, and this part doesn't require any special expertise from the user. A detailed report of the test run is generated, showing where our test went wrong. It is also helpful to be able to add a lot of debug information to the test and get a more accurate picture of possible errors in the generated report.

What is the advantage?

• Visual scripting
• JavaScript available for more serious tasks
• Very quick to learn, no programming language required, just basic logic/scripting experience
• Very fast, excellent support
• Cheaper than rival products
• Multiple usability (web, mobile, Windows app, API)

Conclusion

Rapise is a very powerful application that provides a quick and convenient way to learn test automation. Its ease of use makes this type of testing accessible to a wider audience, as it does not necessarily require programming skills or knowledge of a programming language, but it can still replace most of these programs. Sound exciting? Fortunately, a 30-day free trial is available so anyone who wants to try it out can. With regular and continuous updates, more and more exciting features are being added. Speaking from experience, if there's something missing in Rapise, or a feature or two, we can work with the developers to improve the future of the app ourselves, because they're open to new and useful ideas!