I have now been working with Siebel apps on and off for about 6 months now and I feel that even though there is a great wealth of information available on other technologies, there was very little information available for automating Siebel apps with QTP. I don’t consider myself an expert nor do I feel that the techniques in this and coming articles are ‘best practices’; but, my goal is to share what I did and as always, if you have more efficient ways of performing tasks outlined in any articles here, then I would surely like to hear them!

Introduction

• See QTP Reference for:
  • Siebel Test Automation-> AutoOn Token
  • Siebel Test Automation-> Setting Siebel Record and Run Options
  • Siebel Test Automation-> SiebAutomationAccessCode property (optional)
  • Siebel Test Automation-> SiebAutomationRequestTimeout property (optional)
• See the ‘SetTimeOut’ property of the SiebApplication object (Configure the advanced timeout and access settings specific for the Siebel 7.7 application)
• See the ReadMe file for known limitations. Adding to the list of limitations:
  • With SiebList, sorting does not work for columns not displayed on the screen. This affects all columns that are accessed using the horizontal slider.
  • With SiebList, the columns displayed by the horizontal slider cannot be accessed directly.
• Siebel Test Automation data-sheet at Oracle.com contains the latest information on Siebel objects (optional).
• Do not load the Web Add-in with the Siebel add-in loaded. The Siebel Add-in accounts for both.

Unlike some other environments, we cannot bypass the parent to reach the child in the object hierarchy. We must create descriptions for each object in the hierarchy if we are using DP. If you record, you will automatically see the entire object hierarchy. Please see the code below for explanation (the page object was not included in the object hierarchy):

''''Web 

'Correct:
1. Browser("title:=Google").Page("title:=Google").WebEdit("name:=q").Set "AdvancedQTP"
'Correct (without the page object defined in the hierarchy):
2. Browser("title:=Google").WebEdit("name:=q").Set "AdvancedQTP"

With Siebel, if an action is to be performed on the SiebList (which is an immediate child of SiebApplet):

''''Siebel

'Correct:
1. SiebApplication("").SiebScreen("").SiebView("").SiebApplet("").SiebList("").Event
 
'Incorrect:
2. SiebApplication("").SiebList("").Event
3a. SiebApplication("").SiebScreen("").SiebApplet("").SiebList("").Event
3b. SiebApplication("").CurrentSiebScreen.SiebApplet("").SiebList("").Event
4a. SiebApplication("").SiebView("").SiebApplet("").SiebList("").Event
4b. SiebApplication("").CurrentSiebView.SiebApplet("").SiebList("").Event

StrictSync
By default, the default wait time for performing an action on any Sieb object is 2 seconds. This is controlled by StrictSync. You can read more about it at HP’s KB, and to increase performance, also set it to 0. Below is how you set the value of StrictSync to 0:

Setting.Packages.WebPackage.Settings("StrictSync") = 0

AutoOn Token
The user must append ‘SWECmd=AutoOn’ to the URL for the Siebel Web Engine to to generate test automation information for the Siebel application. Please see below:

The following URL:
   ->   http://yourHostName/start.swe?{someLongString}

must be:
  ->   http://yourHostName/start.swe?SWECmd=AutoOn

Server Configuration
The following 2 entities must be set to ‘True’:

• EnableAutomation = TRUE
• AllowAnonUsers = TRUE

Siebel Test Automation Overview and Resolutions
[Update Feb 19, 2010: Reported by and Credits to Todd Mescher]: This post at Oracle Blogs also provides numerous resolutions to issues dealt in the Siebel environment.

References

1. Object Identification Issue with Siebel 8.1

This post is updated often so be sure to check back at a later date.

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section. If your query is confidential, please use the Contact Form to send me an e-mail instead.

Tagged as: AllowAnonUsers, Automating Siebel With QTP, AutoOn Token, EnableWebClientAutomation, QTP, QTP Siebel, Siebel, Siebel Addin, Siebel Automation, Siebel AutoOn, Siebel Introduction, StrictSync