Custom Flow Test

A custom flow test lets you test a defined workflow on your website. For example, you could create a test that opens your website, logs into the site, adds an item to a shopping cart, opens the checkout page, and takes a screenshot at each stage of the process to use as a checkpoint.

Interactive Browser

The interactive browser within Autonomous enables real-time interaction and recording of actions. This feature captures every click, text entry, and scroll action, ensuring a comprehensive test script. When you perform actions in the browser, such as clicking, entering text, or scrolling, Autonomous automatically adds each browser action as a step in the test.

Steps are displayed in simple English in a panel on the left. You can add, delete, or modify steps at any stage by typing a step in English.

You can drag the splitter bar in the middle of the window to adjust the size of the interactive browser.

The interactive browser is a standard Chrome browser window with a viewport of 1920 x 1080. In the bottom-right corner of the browser, you can click and to zoom in or out, or to reposition the screen.

User Action Steps

A user action step is a command written in plain English, for example, "Enter "John Smith" in the Name field" or "Click the OK button". As you type, Autonomous offers suggestions to ensure you use valid commands and corrects the syntax automatically. This feature reduces errors and speeds up the test creation process. For details of possible commands in a manual step, see User Actions.

You can also use the user action steps to validate the test by running a single step or starting the process from a specific step.

UI Validation Steps

UI validation involves capturing a screenshot of the application at a specific test stage. These screenshots serve as baselines and checkpoints in the Results page, helping to identify visual diffs.

If there are no UI validation steps in the test, the test results will not include any validation screens. You can use a test without validation steps to confirm that a process completes successfully. The results will be Passed or Failed without any screens included in the test results.

Creating Custom Flow Tests

To Create a Custom Flow Test

Follow these steps to create a custom flow that tests specific workflows on your website:

  1. In the Navigation bar, select Test management > Tests.

  2. Click Create a new test > Custom flow.

  3. In the Test details area, enter the following information:

    • Test name – The test name will be displayed on the plan settings page and in the list of tests.

    • Start URL – The first URL in the test. The system automatically adds the first step in the test as Go to [Start URL].

    • Description – An optional description of the test.

    • Application – An application that the test should be associated with. Every test must be associated with an application. If you have a full website test or another test that is already associated with an application, you may want to associate this test with the same application. For further information, see Applications.

    • Plan – The plans associated with the test. The plan determines the test schedule, environments, and parameters. A test can belong to multiple plans. The list of available plans is based on the application of the test. For further information, see Plans.

  4. Click to connect the interactive browser to the Internet.

  5. When the browser connects, perform actions in the browser; Autonomous automatically converts actions in the browser to steps.

  6. If required, in the panel on the left, add or modify steps in simple everyday English.

    • To add a new step at the end of the test, click Add user action.

    • To add a step between existing steps, hover the pointer between the steps and click Add step.

    • To add a visual validation step, click Add UI validation. The system adds a Visually check this screen step at the end of the test. You can drag the step to a different position if needed.

  7. Once all steps are complete, click on one of the following:

    • Create (or Update) – Creates or updates the test and adds it to the plans, but does not run the test

    • Create & run > Create & run test – Creates or updates the test and runs it as a single test without running other tests in the plan. You will be prompted to select a plan which determines which environments to run the test on. You can view results of the test in the Results page, the test will be listed as Run without a plan.

    • Create & run > Create test & run plan – Creates or updates the test and runs all plans that the test is associated with, including all tests in those plans. You can view results of the test in the Results page or from the Plans page.

Note that test details are not saved automatically. You need to click Update or Update & run to save your changes.

Modifying Screenshot Settings

You can modify the match level and other details of the screenshot taken in a UI Validation step.

To Modify Screenshot Settings

Click on a "Visually check this screen" step and modify the following:

  • Name – An optional name for the step. This name will be displayed on the Results page. If you do not enter a name, the default name of the step is the step number. The name is useful if you order results by step name.

  • Match level – The match level determines how Autonomous compares the checkpoint image with the baseline image. For details, see Match Level.

  • Ignore vertical shifts – Ignores differences that arise from content whose vertical position on the page has changed. For details, see Ignore Vertical Shifts.

  • Screenshot type – The screenshot type determines what will be included in the screenshot (Full screen, viewport, or region). For details, see Screenshot Type.

To set advanced settings for the screen, click . For details, see Advanced Test Settings.

Debugging a Test

To validate or debug a test, you can set a step to stop when running the test (set the step as a breakpoint), start a test from a specific step, or run a single step.

To Debug or Modify a Test

Next to a step, click and select one of the following:

  • Run next steps – Run the test starting after this step.

  • Set as current step – Move the pointer to this step.

  • Run until here – Run the test from the beginning until after this step.

  • View execution result – Opens a screenshot of the test at that stage in a popup window.

  • Edit step – Allows you to manually edit the text in the step.

  • Duplicate – Copies the step.

To Run the Test From the Beginning

  • Above the list of steps, click Run.

    • Autonomous runs through the steps in the test and takes a screenshot of each step. If the browser is not connected, this button also connects before running the test. This allows you to confirm that all steps are valid and to see the status at each step.

    • indicates that the step passed.

    • indicates that Autonomous was not able to process the test and will not continue with the next step in the test.

While the test is running you can click or to pause or stop the test.

When a test has finished or failed, you can click to run the test again from the beginning.

Previewing a Step

When a test runs inside the interactive browser, you can preview the screen as it appears before and after each step.

To Preview A Step

  1. Click or to connect the browser and run or rerun a test.

  2. Next to a step, hover over to view a thumbnail of the window, or click on the icon to open the preview in a larger window.

    At the top of the window, the step number, the step command, and the status (passed or failed) are displayed.

    Click Action or Outcome to view the screen as it appeared before and after the command was run. The Action window also highlights in pink the element that was selected in the command.