Worksoft automation is based on the patented Object Action framework that effectively models the application under test into a series of windows/pages containing objects and test steps performing actions against those objects. Rather than relying on recorded scripts and scripting languages that are hard to read, difficult to use and costly to maintain, Worksoft Certify captures test assets in a standard format and stores the information in a central, shared repository.
This core concept was originally used for web (HTML), Windows desktop, Java and mainframe applications and has since been extended to responsive web and packaged applications including SAP, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Workday, HTML5-based UIs, and many others. The framework allows automated test steps to be created and stored in a relational database, without requiring any scripts or programs to be generated. The automation produced is resilient to changes in the application under test and is easily maintained.
Remember, test tools aren’t magic — but properly implemented, they can work wonders!- Worksoft Founder Linda Hayes, The Automated Testing Handbook
No code is recorded, written, generated, or maintained
Exploits the services power of relational databases for industrial scale
New platforms in weeks, new classes in days, and new actions in hours
Develop hundreds of processes in weeks
Update thousands of steps in minutes
Shared logging, reporting, error handling, and recovery
Worksoft Certify features a robust hierarchical approach to organizing and maintaining automation assets within a business process portfolio. Each object is stored in a centralized database that can then be easily versioned and reused across tests. This means applications are versioned with a collection of actions; when the UI changes, a new version of the application is created, and the attributes are updated for the new/changed actions. This enables the test to run even after changes have been made to the UI because the technical description of the field in the application under test is centralized and versioned versus being hard-coded in the test case, like it is in Selenium. This decoupling of the object from action is the core premise behind the architecture and design of Worksoft Certify and is still relevant in maintaining the decoupling of test actions from the application, causing Worksoft tests to be less brittle than other technologies.
This categorization system is unique to Certify because additional steps, reordering, and more can be done with a Certify process that would break an ordinary script-based approach to testing. The application can change, such as by adding additional features and capabilities to a screen, and Certify will still execute the process without modification. Subprocesses are supported and can be referenced by multiple calling processes.
The efficiency of the underlying database structures used by Certify enables clients to scale test execution at unprecedented levels, which makes it the perfect choice for large, distributed teams tasked with testing complex enterprise systems. One of Worksoft’s largest government clients uses Certify to test 400 core processes and 500,000 business process steps every night!
Worksoft makes it easy for users with any skill set to build tests. Capture can be used by anyone within an organization to document test steps. Users just install a simple agent that runs in the background while they do their normal jobs. Capture runs in the background, collecting all the steps, fields, and data, and screen shots are recorded while the users work and then can be easily imported into Certify. This allows business users and subject matter experts to create high-fidelity documentation of their business processes.
LiveTouch enables test-automation professionals to quickly build tests by selecting objects on the screen, and the actions are created automatically. The users highlight everything they are interested in acting on to automatically generate the application maps that tell Certify what the users want to use for the test. Both Capture and LiveTouch present objects and their actions in the test case via drop-down lists and simple test narratives. Editing is done via drag and drop or by selection of prebuilt actions in the UI.
Capture and LiveTouch also participate in seamless model building by adding objects representing an application version to the existing Certify library. This allows the user to build highly reusable processes that can be run individually or can be assembled with other processes to automate end-to-end business processes. Users have full flexibility to decide how big or small individual processes are. Unlike other tools, Certify hides the underlying complexity from consumers of those processes.
Today, user-driven web-based interfaces have become the norm because customers demand highly dynamic, interactive, customizable, and even predictive data. Unfortunately, from a quality assurance standpoint, modern UIs present complex testing challenges. Backend services are consistent but the UI presenting the information can change more easily, making the data more accessible to the end user, or multiple UIs are created for responsive web so the application renders based on the platform, phone, tablet, or computer. To help clients overcome these challenges, Worksoft has developed an Extensibility Framework that can be used to tailor object recognition to any web-based UI.
The Extensibility Framework uses AI and machine learning to identify how an application generates user interfaces and tailors object recognition based on those patterns. Worksoft was granted a patent for this unique object recognition technology and extensibility to define objects. Once an Extensibility Framework is developed for an application, it is then added to the Worksoft community for consumption by any current Certify client. Extensibility Frameworks are built to follow the applications they support. As new versions for an application are rolled out, the supporting Extensibility Framework is also updated.
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