Suites with MaxTAF - Supercharged Test Batching

Effective test batching is a vital step in any well organized test automation regime. It allows running of an entire body of tests with one command, as well as the theming and effective management of large amounts of test scripts.

MaxTAF has an inbuilt, powerful Suites system which enables users to harness the power of the platform simply and effectively. Here are some of the ways MaxTAF’s suites make life easier than home-grown automation frameworks can offer:

1. Click-and-build User Interface

   MaxTAF is designed to provide great flexibility and configurability, while being super simple to set up and use.

   Test cases can be added or removed at will with just a couple of steps, enabling teams to build up suites in the space of a couple of minutes rather than hours.

2. Suite runs result in beautiful reports

   MaxTAF always produces two reports at the end of an execution run. One is a basic report, simply a list of passes/fails which users can drilldown into, and the other makes use of the open source reporting framework Allure.

   Allure provides report breakdowns in a simple and effective manner, with timelines, charts, information and more. MaxTAF supplies allure with the data of the test run automatically, with no configuration required.

3. MaxTAF Suites are hierarchical

   Suites with MaxTAF can contain both cases, and suites, and suites of suites, up to five layers of hierarchy.

   This provides test teams with the freedom to administer their suites in a dynamic fashion.

   For example, each suite can be themed around a particular area of the site, such as the search displays, the payments, and the user profile. These suites can be ran to get precise information about the health of a particular area of a site.

   The suites could then, themselves, be compiled into an overarching suite, which can be ran in order to execute the entire body of tests, perhaps to be done at night as part of a full system check.

   The possibilities for arranging suites are endless.

   All of this would take less than an hour to set-up, and provide a great deal of flexibility to overall test run management.

4. Suites have their own parameters

   If you need a reminder of just how powerful parameters are with MaxTAF, check the article we wrote here.

   Suites are one area for which parameters can be applied. These parameters can be configured such that the parameter of the suite takes precedence over any other parameters, for example those on the level of the individual test case.

   This can be most useful for top level configuration of the test execution, an area parameters excel in. For example, the team may wish to run the whole suite against an alternative test environment, and this can also be changed quickly and easily from the suite’s parameter list.

5. Cases within suites can exchange information during the suite run

   MaxTAF allows cases to set values that other cases in their suite can fetch and use during their execution.

   This is useful if test cases are handling auto-generated values which are only known at the point of their running.

   For example, a test case may make a purchase, which produces a specific order number.

   The order number can be stored for later test cases to use in their runs. For example a case may wish to cancel the order that was created by the first test, and so would need to fetch the order number stored in the MaxTAF system.

6. Parallelization and Ordering of test runs is a breeze

   If, for whatever reason, test cases are preferred to be ran in a particular order, MaxTAF enables users to order their test runs through the user interface in a couple of seconds.

   Tests can also be arranged to run at the same time, in parallel, through the same user interface mechanism.

   Parallel test runs are an innate feature of MaxTAF and can seriously cut down on the time it takes to run through a test suite. No additional configuration is needed to run tests in parallel with MaxTAF. Subject to the license purchased, MaxTAF has nearly unlimited infrastructure for parallel test runs, using AWS’s vast server network to power it’s grid of specialised selenium nodes.

In summary, MaxTAF suites provide maximum test-run control via an extremely effective, easy-to-use interface.