Understanding the External Parent Concept

The application being tested can contain objects from more than one environment. The objects supported by your Testing Agent might be contained in objects from other environments. For example, your application might run within a Web browser, or your controls might be contained in a Java object.

When the Testing Agent provides an object's description, it includes all of the ancestors and descendants that belong to the same environment. To enable UFT One to integrate test objects from your environment into the overall hierarchy of the application, you must provide information about the external parent.

The external parent is the object outside your testing environment that contains the highest test object of the Testing Agent's hierarchy. In other words, it is the parent object of the highest ancestor included in the description of your test object. For example, if your controls are contained in a Web browser, and you want the steps in your test to reflect the entire hierarchy, you would specify the Web browser as the external parent of your controls.

If you want test steps to reflect only the Testing Agent's hierarchy, or if the top-level object belongs to your testing environment, you do not need to specify an external parent.

The external parent must be provided in XML format according to the ExternalParent Schema