Release notes for IBM® Rational® Functional Tester

This document contains information about what's new, installation instructions, known problems in and contact information of HCL Customer Support.

Contents

Product description

IBM® Rational® Functional Tester is a GUI test automation tool that is used to accelerate the functional and regression testing. It provides a flexible environment to test the desktop and web applications very efficiently. It is used to test a wide range of applications that includes HTML, web, native and hybrid mobile, SAP, Java, Power Builder, and Windows desktop applications. Rational® Functional Tester is available in two integrated development environments (IDE): Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. The Eclipse integration supports both Java and simplified (non-programming) method of scripting while the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET integration supports Microsoft Visual Basic .NET scripting language. See Product overview.

What's New

  • Enhanced Jenkins plugins to run tests from a Jenkins pipeline project

    The Rational® Functional Tester Jenkins plugins are enhanced so that you can now run Web UI or traditional HTML tests as a job in a Jenkins Pipeline project.

    You can also view the test results by using the Test Results Analyzer feature in Jenkins if you have installed the Test Results Analyzer plugin in Jenkins.

    See Integration with Jenkins.

  • Monitoring the resource usage of mobile tests on Android devices

    You can now use the UI Test Statistical report to monitor the resource usage of mobile tests on Android devices during the playback. The details such as battery consumption, physical memory consumption, and processor usage of both the application level and the device are collected and displayed in the UI Test Statistical report.

    See Running mobile tests for Android mobile applications.

  • Support to run test assets without reusing the workspace in a repository

    When you want to run test assets that are in any source control system such as git and you do not want to reuse the workspace in the repository, you can now run the tests from the command-line interface.

    By using the -workspace argument along with the -import argument on the computer where you have installed Rational® Functional Tester, you can run the Web UI tests in the project without the need to reuse the workspace from the remote repository. This method of running tests does not require the workspace that is committed to the repository or an existing local workspace. See Running a test from a command line.

  • Support to run Web UI tests in the headless mode by using Edge or Firefox

    You can now run Web UI tests in the headless mode by using either Microsoft Edge or Mozilla Firefox browsers. See Running tests in the headless mode.

  • Clearing browser cache

    You can now use an option in Rational® Functional Tester to clear the browser data when you play back Functional tests by using the Web UI extension for browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Mozilla Firefox.

  • Support for pCloudy mobile cloud

    You can now run Web UI and Mobile tests on Android or iOS devices that are connected to the pCloudy cloud testing platform. See Running Web UI tests on the pCloudy cloud or Playing back mobile tests on an Android device connected to the pCloudy Cloud.

    You can also use the command line to run tests on the pCloudy Cloud. See Running mobile tests for Android applications from the command-line.

  • The UI Test Agent runs automatically on the Linux and Mac operating systems

    After you install the product on the Linux and Mac operating systems, the UI Test Agent runs automatically until you stop it manually.

    The UI Test Agent provides the necessary prerequisites to test mobile applications on the Linux and Mac operating systems.

  • Support for Web UI tests in the Edge browser on the Linux operating system

    You can now run Web UI tests and Functional HTML tests in the Edge browser on Linux. You can also record and playback Web UI tests.

  • Support to add labels from Ant

    You can now add labels to test results when you run test assets from Ant by specifying a value for the labels parameter.

  • Bug Fixes

    Fixed customer-reported and internally found defects.

Deprecated capabilities

You can find information about the capabilities that are deprecated in this release and are planned for a removal in a future release.
Note: You can contact the HCL Client Support team if you have any concerns.
  • Support for the following operating systems is deprecated:
    • Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
    • Windows 7 Enterprise
    • Windows 7 Professional
    • Windows 7 Ultimate
    • Android 10
    • iOS 13
  • Support for the following software are deprecated:
    • Microsoft Visual Basic 5
    • SAP GUI 7.5 compilation 2
    • Power Builder 12.5

Removed capabilities

The following features that were announced in previous releases as deprecated are now removed in this release:
  • Support for the following operating systems are removed:
    • macOS Mojave 10.14
    • Android 9
    • iOS 12
  • Support for the following Development Tool is removed:
    • Appium 1.17
  • Support for the following browser version is removed:
    • Microsoft Edge 42 and 44
  • Support for the following software are removed:
    • Adobe Reader 10
    • Power Builder 11 and 11.5
    • .Net Applications 3

Installing the product

For installation instructions, see Installing Rational Functional Tester.

Remember: You cannot upgrade the product to the latest version. You must uninstall the existing version of the product before you install the latest version of the product.

Known issues

You can find information about the known issues identified in this release of HCL OneTest™ UI.

Product Download document Knowledge base

Rational® Functional Tester

Release document

Knowledge articles

Known problems are documented in the download document and in the form of individual tech notes in the Support Knowledge Base. See the Support Knowledge Base.

The knowledge base is continually updated as issues are discovered and resolved. By searching the knowledge base, you can quickly find workarounds or solutions to issues.

Contacting HCL support

  • For technical assistance, contact HCL Customer Support.
  • Before you contact HCL support, you must gather the background information that you might need to describe your problem. When you describe a problem to the HCL support specialist, be as specific as possible and include all relevant background information so that the specialist can help you solve the problem efficiently. To save time, know the answers to these questions:
    • What software versions were you running when the problem occurred?
    • Do you have logs, traces, or messages that are related to the problem?
    • Can you reproduce the problem? If so, what steps do you take to reproduce it?
    • Is there a workaround for the problem? If so, be prepared to describe the workaround.