Test Automation - User Guide PUBLIC

SAP Solution Manager 7.2

2018-12-03

Object SPY – Troubleshooting Tool

CBTA 3.0 SP11
1 Table of Contents
2 Object Spy........................................................................................................................5

3 Spying SAP GUI Transactions ...........................................................................................6

3.1 Selecting a SAP GUI Session ........................................................................................................................6
3.2 Spying Embedded HTML Content................................................................................................................8

4 Spying Web Sessions...................................................................................................... 12

4.1 Selecting an Internet Explorer Session ......................................................................................................12
4.2 Spying the HTML Content .........................................................................................................................13
4.3 Spying Table UI Element ...........................................................................................................................15
4.4 Delayed Activation of the Spy Mode.........................................................................................................16

5 Troubleshooting URI Issues............................................................................................18

5.1 URI Alternatives ........................................................................................................................................18
5.2 URI Verification.........................................................................................................................................19
5.3 URI Resolution Details ..............................................................................................................................20
5.4 Troubleshooting URI Issues.......................................................................................................................21
5.5 Regular Expressions ..................................................................................................................................23

6 References..................................................................................................................... 25
6.1 Documentations........................................................................................................................................25
6.2 List of SAP Notes .......................................................................................................................................25

7 Table of Figures .............................................................................................................26

2 Object Spy
The Object Spy is a tool that CBTA delivers to troubleshoot test execution issues.

It can be launched with the button “Get Technical UI Information”, which is visible when a component is selected in
the Test Script tab of TCE.

Figure 1: TCE - Get Technical UI Information

The main purpose of the tool is to determine the URI of a UI control (or element) in the hierarchy of UI containers.

It can access to:

· SAP GUI sessions

· Browser sessions

It lets you spy the UI controls of the application being tested and generates the URI for you. The test engineers can
then copy the generated URI and paste it as input parameter, when using components that target a control.

For complex scenarios, the URI determined automatically might be ambiguous. The tool also provides the ability to
troubleshoot the situation by checking URI alternatives.

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3 Spying SAP GUI Transactions
3.1 Selecting a SAP GUI Session
Object Spy lets you select the UI technology of the application being tested. There is a tab for SAP GUI and one for the
Web Applications running inside Internet Explorer.

Figure 2: Object Spy - UI Technologies

When testing SAP GUI applications, the combo box lets you select the SAP logon session, and you can then spy on the
SAP GUI window by pressing the Spy button.

You can then move the mouse over the SAP GUI controls, to highlight one. A red box surrounds the control that is
pointed to by the cursor. You can click on it to display the control attributes in the properties panel of the Object Spy.

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Example of the selection of a GuiToolbarControl control

You can, for instance, select a tool bar, as shown in the screenshot below.

Figure 3: SAP GUI Transaction - GuiToolbarControl example

Spying is only possible when scripting is enabled on the SAP GUI

Control Properties in the Object Spy

The properties of the selected control are displayed in a tree. The URI shown below identifies the toolbar.

Figure 4: Object Spy - URI Example

For composite controls (containers with child controls) the tree may also include additional information about the
child controls. In our example, the toolbar includes several buttons.
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3.2 Spying Embedded HTML Content
SAP GUI Transactions have the capacity to include the content of external Web applications via the GuiHTMLViewer
control.

From a test automation perspective this kind of composition is quite challenging because the native SAP GuiScripting
recorder does not record the actions performed against the embedded HTML content.

Embedded HTML Content Example

Figure 5: SAP GUI Transaction - Embedding HTML Content

Recording the Embedded HTML Content

With CBTA 3.0 SP08, the test recorder detects automatically whether the transaction includes an GuiHTMLViewer
container but it does not record it automatically. In such situation, a new button is shown in the test recorder
toolbar.

Figure 6: Test Recorder Toolbar - Attach to HTML Viewer

The test engineer must explicitly click the “Attach to HTML Viewer” button and select the GuiHTMLViewer control that
he/she wants to start recording.

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Default Component CBTA_GUI_HV_StartWebController

The component CBTA_GUI_HV_StartWebController is the one used at runtime to get access to the HTML content.

This component provides the ability to attach the test player to the embedded Internet Explorer session and perform
actions against the embedded HTML content.

Test Script Example

The screenshot below shows a typical example where the new component is used to get access to the HTML content.
As shown here the test script can include components for testing SAP GUI applications (CBTA_GUI_*) but also
components to perform actions on HTML elements (CBTA_WEB_*).

Figure 7: TCE - Start Web Controller Example

Actions are implicitly performed against the embedded HTML content when using WEB Components. In this example
a screenshot of the HTML content is capture using the CBTA_WEB_A_CAPTURESCREEN component. While the
previous using the CBTA_GUI_A_CAPTURE screen was capturing the whole SAP GUI window.

Input Parameters

The component expects as input the URI of the GuiHTMLViewer control which can be determined using the Object Spy
feature.

Figure 8: TCE - Start Web Controller Parameters

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Determining the URI of an Embedded HTML Element

Starting with SP5 the object spy provides the ability to also spy the embedded HTML content. A new item is available
in the contextual menu when a GuiHTMLViewer control is selected.

Figure 9: Object Spy - Spying HTML Content

This new menu item lets you jump to a different spy mode where the session of the embedded content is automatically
selected (like shown below).

Figure 10: Object Spy - Embedded HTML Content

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UI elements of the embedded HTML content can be selected and regular spying capabilities are then available. The
collected information is displayed as usually in the tree.

Figure 11: Object Spy - HTML Content Properties

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4 Spying Web Sessions
4.1 Selecting an Internet Explorer Session
The approach is the same for Web applications. The tool lets you select the Internet Explorer session displaying the
HTML content of the application being tested.

The filtering of Internet Explorer sessions makes it easy to select the ones that are compliant with test automation
requirements. These requirements might be different depending on the UI technology used by the application being
tested.

· For CRM Web UIs the so-called Test Mode must be enabled.
· For Web Application based on the Unified Rendering Light Speed framework, the Stable ID is a pre-requisite.

Figure 12: Object Spy - Web Sessions with Test Mode

Note:

· Applications started manually are not shown by default.

· Applications must have been started from TCE (Test Composition Environment) – This to make sure the tool
can generate consistent URI(s).
· With Internet Explorer 11, the IE5 (Quirks) mode is not supported
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4.2 Spying the HTML Content
Click the Spy button to start spying the application. You can move the mouse over the HTML content and the HTML
element located under the mouse pointer gets highlighted like shown in the screenshot below.

Figure 13: Object Spy - Highlighting UI Elements

You can then click on it to get information about the HTML element and get its properties and attributes displayed in
a tree and computes the value of the URI property. The URI is typically the information that the test script should use
to identify the element at runtime. The test engineer may copy its value and paste it as input of one of the steps of a
test script.

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 Figure 14: Object Spy - URI for a Web Dynpro UI Element

UI Technology-specific Attributes

The tool also tries to determine the underlying UI technology used by the application and may display attributes that
are specific to that UI technology.

In the screenshot below the application being tested is a Web Dynpro Application based on the Unified Rendering
Light Speed framework. The tool has been able to retrieve additional information and makes it visible in dedicated
nodes such as the Light Speed Data node.

Figure 15: Object Spy - Light Speed Attributes

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4.3 Spying Table UI Element
Some of the default components like CBTA_LS_T_FindRow expect as input parameter the URI of a table container.
While spying, the selection of a table UI control is always a bit challenging because, most of the time, it has no border
and the corresponding UI element cannot be selected.

In order to make it possible to spy for containers, one mode have been introduced with CBTA 3.0 SP09.

When the mode “relevant control” is checked, the controls only relevant for UI technology are highlighted using a
different color. (only SAPUI5 and ABAP We Dynpro are supported)

· You may resume to the regular mode by uncheck special highlighting.

Here is an example.

Figure 16: Object Spy - TABLE Mode

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Note that for some SAP UI technologies, the same information is also shown in a dedicated node. Here is an example
with a Web Dynpro TABLE:

Figure 17: Object Spy – URI of the Parent Web Dynpro Table

4.4 Delayed Activation of the Spy Mode

Some HTML elements like contextual menu items or combobox items could not be spied because their container gets
collapsed as soon as the browser loses the focus. The object spy has now the ability to postpone the activation of the
spy mode thanks to a delay.

Example

The delay gives the test engineer the opportunity to do something just before spying the HTML content. In this example
the delay was necessary to let us open the combobox and thus spy its child items.

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The result is then displayed and the
innerText property confirms that the child
element could be spied properly.

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5 Troubleshooting URI Issues
5.1 URI Alternatives
Most of the generated URI(s) do rely on the ID attribute when searching for a UI element. Unfortunately, there is no
guarantee that this information is stable at runtime. In other words, the value of the ID could be bound to the session
and change each time the scenario is executed.

To troubleshoot such situation, the Object Spy includes a URI Helper tab where it is possible to check several URIs and
search for alternative to using the ID.

Figure 18: Object Spy - URI Alternatives

Three alternatives are proposed by the tool:

· By innerText è URI relies on the value of the innerText property (if any)
· By title è URI relies on title HTML attribute (if any) This corresponds to the tooltip
· By parentId è URI relies on the ID of the parent element (if any)

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5.2 URI Verification
It may happen that the URI matches several HTML elements. The “Locate” buttons let you verify whether the URI is
consistent and matches the latest HTML element that has been spied.

Wiki Page Example

Figure 19: Object Spy - Wiki Page Example

With this example the URI relying on the parent ID is ambiguous. It does not provide enough information to identify
the expected element.

Pressing the locate button detects such situation and notifies the user with a clear feedback in the “Last Operation
Result” status bar.

Figure 20: Object Spy - URI Alternatives

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5.3 URI Resolution Details
One may need to get additional information when the resolution does not find the expected element. The “Details”
link let you open a dialog showing technical information about the HTML element that has been found.

Figure 21: Object Spy - URI Resolution Details

Resolution Details:

· The HTML attributes and properties are shown to let you understand which element has been found.
· The HTML content of the element is being displayed.
· The toolbar lets you navigate in the HTML document hierarchy to clarify what can be the root cause of the
resolution problem.

Figure 22: Object Spy - URI Resolution Feedback

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5.4 Troubleshooting URI Issues
The purpose of the URI Helper is to assist test engineers when there is a need to use advanced capabilities of the URI
syntax.

The URI syntax is quite flexible; it is for instance possible to:

· Search for a particular UI element using several HTML attributes

· Search using regular expressions (instead of providing the exact attribute value)

Note
For more details on the URI syntax, refer to the documentation:
CBTA Runtime Library & Default Components

The Object Spy lets you generate a URI and check it to make sure the syntax is correct.

Example

In this example, we want to search for the link below using part of its href attribute.

Figure 23: Object Spy - Link with HREF Attribute Example

Once the element spied, the URI Helper table shows the HTML attributes and properties:

· One or several HTML attributes can be selected

· The appropriate regular expression is generated based on the operator selected
o Equals
o Contains
o Starts
o Ends
· The value of the attribute can be modified

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Each selection or modification triggers the generation of a new URI like shown below:

Figure 24: Object Spy - URI Generation using a Regular Expression

Once the URI is generated, the “Locate” button let you check whether the generated URI is correct or not.

Explanations

With this example the URI resolver will search for an Anchor HTML element having its href attribute ending with
/support.

· Note that the usage of the “html.” prefix here

· ~= è informs the URI resolver that the value specified is a regular expression
· /Support$ è Regular Expression to check that the actual href value ends with /Support
· The tag property is selected by default – this is recommended to avoid ambiguities and to improve
performance at runtime.

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5.5 Regular Expressions
The URI Syntax is quite complex on its own; as you may know some characters have to be escaped using the token
syntax (e.g.: %space% can be used to escape a space character). The situation is even more complex when using regular
expressions because they have their own escaping logic. It is therefore recommended to first verify the regular
expression syntax itself before trying to use it inside a Uri.

Recommendation
Regular expressions can be checked online; a lot of websites provides this feature.

Example

Here is an example showing a concrete use case where we search for a particular text ending with a number in
parenthesis.

Figure 25: Object Spy - URI Challenging Example

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As shown in the previous screenshot the Object Spy provides several Uri alternatives. However, in some situation,
none of the Uris are not stable enough to be used in a test script. This is a typical use-case where regular expressions
are necessary.

Our goal is to search for the link using its innerText property knowing the number is not stable overtime.

Which of the following syntax is the correct one?

innerText~=^All Test Configurations ([0-9]+)$; tag=A

innerText~=^All Test Configurations \([0-9]+\)$; tag=A

As you may know, parenthesis have a specific semantic when used in a regular expression. In this example they have
to be escaped (using the backslash character) because they are part of the value that is to be checked. The correct
syntax of the regular expression can be verified online as show below:

Figure 26: Online Tools to check Regular Expression Syntax

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6 References
6.1 Documentations
Some additional documents have to be considered to take benefit of the CBTA capabilities.

Documents

CBTA – User Guide

CBTA – Runtime Library and Default Components

CBTA – Test Recorder

6.2 List of SAP Notes

The following table list the SAP Notes mentioned in this document.

SAP Note Title

2133396 CBTA - Test Automation Tool - Object Spy - Session not compliant with test
automation requirements

1666201 WebCUIF - Collective Note to enable the Test Mode for CRM Web UIs

2177107 Test Automation of Web Dynpro scenarios - Stable ID Mode not propagated to child
windows

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7 Table of Figures
Figure 1: TCE - Get Technical UI Information ................................................................................................................................ 5
Figure 2: Object Spy - UI Technologies ......................................................................................................................................... 6
Figure 3: SAP GUI Transaction - GuiToolbarControl example ........................................................................................................ 7
Figure 4: Object Spy - URI Example .............................................................................................................................................. 7
Figure 5: SAP GUI Transaction - Embedding HTML Content .......................................................................................................... 8
Figure 6: Test Recorder Toolbar - Attach to HTML Viewer ............................................................................................................ 8
Figure 7: TCE - Start Web Controller Example............................................................................................................................... 9
Figure 8: TCE - Start Web Controller Parameters.......................................................................................................................... 9
Figure 9: Object Spy - Spying HTML Content............................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 10: Object Spy - Embedded HTML Content....................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 11: Object Spy - HTML Content Properties ..................................................................................................................... 11
Figure 12: Object Spy - Web Sessions with Test Mode ................................................................................................................ 12
Figure 13: Object Spy - Highlighting UI Elements........................................................................................................................ 13
Figure 14: Object Spy - URI for a Web Dynpro UI Element........................................................................................................... 14
Figure 15: Object Spy - Light Speed Attributes............................................................................................................................ 14
Figure 16: Object Spy - TABLE Mode .......................................................................................................................................... 15
Figure 17: Object Spy – URI of the Parent Web Dynpro Table ..................................................................................................... 16
Figure 18: Object Spy - URI Alternatives..................................................................................................................................... 18
Figure 19: Object Spy - Wiki Page Example ................................................................................................................................ 19
Figure 20: Object Spy - URI Alternatives..................................................................................................................................... 19
Figure 21: Object Spy - URI Resolution Details............................................................................................................................ 20
Figure 22: Object Spy - URI Resolution Feedback ....................................................................................................................... 20
Figure 23: Object Spy - Link with HREF Attribute Example .......................................................................................................... 21
Figure 24: Object Spy - URI Generation using a Regular Expression ............................................................................................ 22
Figure 25: Object Spy - URI Challenging Example ....................................................................................................................... 23
Figure 26: Online Tools to check Regular Expression Syntax ....................................................................................................... 24

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