API test creation overview

Relevant for: API testing only

Use OpenText Functional Testing's API testing features to test your non-GUI applications and other API processes.

Create a test that represents the activities that your application performs, and use checkpoints to assess the success or failure of the test. Use actual output data from your application in your test.

OpenText Functional Testing provides a number of standard activities that test common application processes.

Standard activities examples

Activity type	Description/Examples
Flow Control activities	Examples: Wait, Break, and Conditional steps. These activities enable you to customize your test to match any special application workflows.
String Manipulation activities	Concatenate Strings and Replace String.
File system activities	Enable you to test your application's interaction with the file system.
Database activities	Enable you to test your application's ability to connect and communicate with a database.
FTP activities	Enable you to test your application's ability to perform FTP-related and SFTP-related procedures. When working with Secure FTP (SFTP), specify the URL path in the "sftp://[ipaddress]:[port]" format in the Input/Checkpoints pane.
Network activities	Examples: HTTP Request and SOAP Request. Enable you to test your application's connection with a network or web-based server.
JSON and XML activities	Enable you to test your application's ability to convert XML and JSON data to text and vice versa.
Math and Date/Time activities	Enable you to perform math operations or perform tasks using the system date and time.
Other Miscellaneous activities	Custom Code activities, Run and End program activities, and a Report activity.

Technology-specific activities examples

Activity type	Description
A Call Java Class activity	Enables you to test Java-based processes that run in your application
A Send CoAP Request activity	Enables you to test applications that communicate using the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). This protocol is often used for interacting with applications and objects on the Internet of Things (IoT).
JMS (Java Message Service) activities	Enable you to test your application's ability to communicate, publish, browse, receive, and check messages from a JMS queue. Tip: Secure your JMS configuration. For details, see Configure secured JMS. In a JMS Subscribe or Receive message activity, if you do not define a subscription name, a non-durable subscriber is used, so messages are sent to the subscriber only when it is active.
IBM WebSphere MQ activities	Enable you to test your application's ability to communicate with, publish, browse, receive, and check messages from the IBM WebSphere MQ queue or topic. SAP activities, which enable you to test your application's ability to communicate with an SAP server using IDOCS and RFCs.
Load Testing activities	Enable you to add steps for your test to be run as a load test in LoadRunner Professional.
OpenText Automated Testing Tools activities	Enable you to call a GUI test or action, API test or action, or Virtual User Generator script from OpenText Functional Testing or LoadRunner Professional to use as part of your test.

Custom activity examples, based on your services

Activity type	Description
Web Service activities	Imported from a WSDL file. For details, see Import a WSDL-based Web service.
Web Application activities	Imported from a WADL file. For details, see Import a Web Application service,
REST Service activities	Created in OpenText Functional Testing using the Add REST Service dialog box or by importing a Swagger REST API. For details, see Create a REST service model.
Network Capture activities	Imported from a Network Capture file.

Custom services

If the built-in activities are not sufficient for your needs, you can:

Use custom code activities that seamlessly integrate with OpenText Functional Testing

Using customized code, you can also customize the behavior of existing activities using event handlers.

For details, see Event Handlers for API test steps.

Create custom test activities with the OpenText Functional Testing Activity Wizard

The Activity Wizard (available from the Windows Start menu) enables you to specify the activity type and properties. It then exports the activity to the Toolbox pane for use in future testing sessions.

For details, see API Testing Extensibility.

API testing integration

ALM(ALM).

You can save tests, business component, and test resources on ALM, enabling multiple users to store and access a shared repository of tests and test resources.

You can also use ALM's defect tracking abilities to record and manage application defects when running your tests.

Service Virtualization

In order to mimic services that your application may use, OpenText Functional Testing integrates with OpenText Service Virtualization. After creating your service models in Service Virtualization, you then run them as a service for your test.

Other tools

by using Automated Testing Tools activities you can integrate with additional functional testing products by creating test steps that call a GUI test or action, API test or action, or a LoadRunner Professional script.

These tests or scripts are created in the original application and call from within your test flow.