OpenText UFT One Primary Use Case

Don Ingerson - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Automation Engineer at Global Fortune 500 Company

QTP is a functional and regression automation tool originally developed and marketed by Mercury Interactive which HP acquired in 2006. In 2012, HP released UFT (Unified Functional Testing) version 11.5, which combined QuickTest Professional and HP Service Test into a single software package along with newly designed IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

Before UFT, QTP and Service Test were two separate downloads. So essentially, UFT has bundled QTP and Service Test into one package along with several other add-ins. It is also important to note that on February 28, 2015 End of Support Life for QTP 11 was reached which meant that a company had to upgrade to UFT to get technical support and access to patches, documentation, etc.

For clarity, I have pasted screenshots of QTP (Figure 1) and UFT (Figure 2) below.

Figure 1 – QTP 11.xx

Figure 2 – UFT 12.xx

Note, UFT came out with a feature called InsightObject that has the ability to identify any object by taking an image of the object. Furthermore, by using the GetVisibleText the user has the ability to get the text off of the InsightObject even though it is essentially an image.

The InsightObject feature is so helpful that I thought it was worthy to dedicate a special section with screenshots along with an explanation of how the InsightObject feature works as shown below.

InsightObject Select learn mode feature shown above

After selecting the object that you want to add to the Object Repository, notice how the perimeter surrounds it.

How the InsightObject appears after being added to the Object Repository.

UFT is on top of the AUT (Application Under Test). Notice the small image in the code of UFT that represents lower left image with text "70 microns."

The actual VBScript Code is pasted below. Note how after the code was executed the text "70 microns" was extracted from image as shown from Print Log.

Browser("Space Images | Circumstellar").InsightObject("InsightObject70_microns").Hover
strGetVisibleText = trim
(Browser("Space Images | Circumstellar").InsightObject("InsightObject70_microns").GetVisibleText())

print "strGetVisibleText = " & strGetVisibleText

Print Log

strGetVisibleText = 70 microns

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Review for UFT 14.00 added here.

In January 2017, HPE released UFT 14.00. The previous version was UFT 12.54, and HPE omitted using number 13 as a version. The most probable reason for not using version 13 is that the number 13 is still perceived by some as a superstitious number.

New Name Changes in UFT 14.00

The new UFT brand includes UFT Ultimate, UFT Enterprise, and UFT Pro (formerly LeanFT). The following are the new License names and the associated products included with them.

Test Combinations Generator

When developing automated test scripts, getting data can be time consuming because almost every company uses data indigenous to its propriety systems. Furthermore, to develop an effective automated script, you need data for both positive test cases, and just as importantly, data that will throw an exception or error (i.e. negative path) so you can build exception handling into your script to prevent it from stopping unexpectedly. The Test Combinations Generator makes this task significantly easier by utilizing a Regular Expression to generate the type of data you want including the specified format. For example, you can now quickly generate dates, URLs, passwords, confirmation numbers, shipping numbers, etc., that would be time consuming to do manually. The data created for a positive test case is labeled “HAPPY PATH” and the data for a negative test case is labeled “ERROR PATH.” Also, this feature can be used to help the whole QA team because you can generate data for the manual testers as well which helps free-up their time that they otherwise would be using to get data. My key take-away of the Test Combinations Generator is that it lowers Opportunity Costs for the whole QA team. By this I mean that the time and cost previously used to generate data is now minimized, so the QA team now has more time to focus on testing versus having to generate data.

Significant Changes

In my opinion UFT Pro is the tool that has the most significant enhancements. With the rising popularity of Selenium, HPE did a good job of making changes and came out with UFT Pro for Selenium. This tool includes a Java Library that extends the WebDriver API and also has additional locators and utilities. UFT Pro also has an Object Identification Center that helps speed up the time to develop a test.

Another significant change is that UFT Pro (i.e. LeanFT) is now supported on a Mac OS and Linux, in addition to Windows. Furthermore, it supports the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome, which was expected.

New changes for UFT 14.03

Screenshot of UFT 14.03 IDE (Integrated Development Environment)

New Object Spy functionality allows UFT's Object Spy to compare two objects.

Suppose we want to compare properties of "MARS" and "EARTH."

Now we can use the Spy Comparison Tool to get properties of both objects and compare at the same time as shown below.

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On September 1, 2017 the HPE testing tools officially became Micro Focus. It is too early to see how the transition to Micro Focus will change things. I am keeping an optimistic view that Micro Focus will continue to invest in R&D and place a priority on customer support. I believe a lot of long-time customers would like to see things run like they were back in the Mercury Interactive days, which was one of the most innovative software companies of its time. If Micro Focus develops the right strategy, they could become the dominant player in the software testing market.

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Author’s comments added 6/07/2016: Here are some interesting actual business cases at companies I worked at where automation (i.e. QTP/UFT) has been used to add productivity other than in a QA capacity.

1)   QTP/UFT can be used to send large volumes of emails to intended customers along with attachments. At a previous company we actually used QTP to automate this process that took an Excel input file with a field for Customer Name, email address, the text verbiage for the body of the email, and an indicator for which specific documents to attach and send using Outlook. We placed the documents in specific directories to be uploaded depending on the indicator in the input file. This automated process was very efficient and time-saving by sending out a large volume of emails with respective attachments with minimal problems. Eventhough at the time QTP was being used, UFT has the same functionality to execute the same process.

2)   At a previous health care company where I worked, when one of the clinical legacy systems was being decommissioned in place of a newer system, we were able to use an automated script to take the data from the legacy system and enter it into the respective fields of the newer system through the GUI (Graphical User Interface). This entailed downloading the data from the legacy system and importing the data into 12 separate Excel input files and running on multiple computers. This is an example of an unconventional but cost effective use of a QA automation tool.

3)   At a mortgage company that I worked at where previously a person or persons would have had to manually enter data into several fields while navigating through several screens, we were very successful in fully automating this process including logic and the specific values to enter into specific fields based on the conditions. For example, if one pre-populated field had a certain code, the script would use logic to programmatically enter the corresponding data into other fields. This saved the company time and resources by not having to hire people to enter the data manually. This one automated process saved the department sixty hours per week or 3,000 man hours per year.

Author’s comments added 12/26/2016: I originally wrote this product review for UFT 12.02. I updated this product review for UFT 12.54 to make the product review current along with the updated versions of technologies UFT 12.54 is compatible with.

Author's comments: This review has been updated to include UFT 14.03

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CT
Test Automaton Architect at Independent Health

We build helper utilities. For example, your particular test is one where when you do the test, you have 30 minutes of setup, but then at the end, you need a real human eye because it is brand new stuff and you don't know what to do. However, if you could have an automation build that 30 minutes worth of stuff and not be worried about it over and over again, thinking about it as your test prerequisite, then we have an awful lot of stuff for that.

The real good stuff is that we have full-blown replacements for manual tasks, whether it would be for desktop applications or hybrid web applications. There are a lot of apps out there, especially in the enterprise space where it is in a web browser, but there is an installer on your computer and the web browser is the view. We have PureWeb, our websites, and others, and we do a lot of mobile testing with UFT One. We do almost all our API testing with it for our web services. We also do a good amount of data testing with it as well.

The use case is really just to add testing efficiencies in any way, shape, or form that we can through a helper for some prerequisites, since we do a lot of data builders with it. In fact, that is a project that I am working on today, building test data where an actual person doesn't have to sit there and build test data because that is boring and unproductive. We have scripts to do full-blown test case replacements. So, any one of our projects or applications can have anywhere between 20 percent and mid-sixties percent automation coverage for the application of automated replacement of manual tests.

It is a development IDE. When you're working with a development IDE, you need to proof it through a bunch of different techniques that you use to make sure that there is no recompiling you need to do. So, we are in the process of getting version 15.0.2, but we are using version 15 across the entire team.

It is all on-premises. So, UFT can encompass a couple of things. There is UFT One, which is like any automation software that you would use. Technically, the most prevalent that people see the marketplace is Sauce Labs working with Eclipse, or something like that. Think of this as is Eclipse (or your favorite IDE) and the automation software all bundled into one. It is only applicable for on a desktop computer of some sorts, whether it is a laptop, desktop, or virtual machine. We use it all on-premises.

Cloud is a little bit iffy for some of the things that we do, being in the healthcare space. We do use some cloud stuff, but for this particular one, I would imagine we use on-prem as long as we can. Now, it is mostly all virtual machines. We have almost no physical desktops left with it because gone are the days of trying to figure out a problem. Because you have templates to base it off of, it's like, "Listen, just rebuild my machine. I'll use it tomorrow."  We are using it on Windows 10 virtual machines.

Our virtual machines are constantly running. It is not like we turn them down and stand them up. If I discuss the side that a block of them are bad for whatever reason, we can destroy them and get new ones built, but they are all pretty standard. I am actually sitting on one right now, which is a dual-core, two and a half gigahertz machine with 8 GB memory. This represents your slightly above average laptop that you would buy at a store. One of the reasons that we shifted to all virtual machines is when you are doing normal office work, you have to open your chat windows, Outlook, browsers for different things, and maybe Word or Excel. All that is just stuff that muddles up the water for your development environment, regardless of what development you are doing. By using VMs, even for scripting, we have our ID and the application you are testing open on that machine, and nothing else. So, that machine gets to just do automation stuff and nothing else. It's not interrupted by Outlook things. If you have 15 Chrome browser tabs open where you are researching something, then the hog of some of those sites aren't impacting you. You just have the application that you are testing and the IDE open. We have had really good success with this. The perfect mix for this is what we have: dual-core 8 GB memory. That is really good enough. We even have that for the machines with an AI engine on them. At this point, the AI engine is local. So, all the stuff that it does to look at the screen, interpret things, read it, tell you where menus are, etc., those are all running on that machine. I haven't really seen a blip on it. We tried to run it with four 4 GB memory once, and it was so-so. Let's face it - Windows 10 on 4 GB of memory isn't good anyway.

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JK
Manager at Capgemini

I am currently providing services for a client in the insurance domain that uses Guidewire applications. Micro Focus UFT One has a plugin that allows us to automate applications, whereas Selenium can only be used to automate web applications. With the Micro Focus UFT One plugin, we can automate any application. We use Micro Focus UFT One script to create policies for the manual team in order to reduce the manual effort required. Once we have the new development, we run the regression suites. To save time and effort, we run these scripts in the evening or night, using multiple machines. This, in turn, provides the manual team with the test data they need.

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OpenText UFT One
March 2024
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Vinod-Parmar - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Technical Services Owner at Insignia

OpenText UFT One is currently used in our company, MLC, which Insignia Financial has recently purchased. Our organization is in the process of migrating our platform to the ones used in Insignia Financial, and as a part of our planning, we aim to standardize the tools in our company.

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Aurobindo Sahoo - PeerSpot reviewer
VP at Deloitte

We use the solution for defect tracking and test automation features.

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TC
India CoE Leader at LyondellBasell

We're primarily using the solution for end-to-end regression and integration testing. We also use it for volume and performance and performance testing. It runs the entire gamut of testing. 

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Robertino Catalin Ionescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Department Manager of Testing Automation Centre at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

We are using Micro Focus UFT One for automating the test cases.

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HT
Senior Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

We use Micro Focus UFT Developer because we had a desktop-based application. To automate it, we used UFT for the automation framework and to run tests, including the regression test, smoke test, and integration test. We use the data from the UFT framework.

We had 10 users. That's where the license challenge comes into the picture because we couldn't afford that many licenses, so we had to reduce the team. We don't have plans to increase the number of users because we have been using UFT One for the past three months.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

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Madhavi Gudipati - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Architect at PACCAR Inc

We use Micro Focus UFT One for testing web pages and the script is in AngularJS.

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BM
Team Lead at T-Systems International GmbH

I personally have experience with UFT One, yet only with the GUI part. I'm not familiar with the AP part. There are projects which work with UFT One and also with the AP part as well.

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HT
Senior Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

This solution is typically used for desktop-based applications where you cannot use Selenium or other web-automation tools.

It's deployed on-premises.

There are five people in our organization who are using the solution.

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VK
Senior Load Performance Consultant at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

The use cases for OpenText UFT One vary from one department to another. We've got so many applications within Dominion Energy, but as of now, most groups are scripting the test cases themselves, even though they're not programmers and they don't have a true understanding of Visual Basic, which is a language used to script QTP. So the groups out there are doing it independently. I think they're doing mostly a record and playback, data-driven approach, which means they parametrize the data. But they're not specifically programmers, they can't make those scripts very sophisticated. And that's what I'm seeing. So it was my suggestion that we develop a framework for them in Selenium.

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RN
Senior Associate at Cognizant

We use it for automation. It helps to automate test scenarios for graphical user use cases.

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PA
Head of Testing - Warehouse Solutions at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

We are currently using it for migration.

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TA
Test Automation Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We primarily use the solution as a front end for testing for our customers, to automate installations, for behavior testing, and for various types of API testing. We mostly use the technology on our websites, and sometimes on older technologies, such as for Oracle Forms applications.

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Michael Kalogerou - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Delivery Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees

We use the solution for API functional testing to analyze user interface, business logic outputs, etc.

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RF
Senior Test Manager at Allianz

We use this product for our functional and automatic testing. I'm a senior test manager and we are customers of Micro Focus.

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RM
Senior Consultant at Tieto Sweden AB

UFT One is great for recording and automating test cases.

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VictorHorescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at iqst

We use this solution to develop the framework for test automation. 

The solution is deployed on-premise.

There are about one hundred people using this solution in my organization. My company is offering services for automation. I have a team of 17 people who are constantly using the solution, and we're delivering the solution to my customers. We are a reseller and partner.

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SM
Associate Manager at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Micro Focus UFT One is an automation tool, that is primarily used to automate web and desktop applications.

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GM
Test Automation Engineer at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I recently took became a QA for our company and was trained on various tools including the solution as part of job orientation. 

We have 100 engineers in our company who use the solution for automation testing. 

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KK
Practice Head - Automation at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

UFT (erstwhile QTP) is a widely popular test automation tool. During my initial days, I used UFT extensively to automate test cases. Now, with the latest version of OpenText UFT One, there are added features that address the new-age testing requirements. In my current position as Practice Head of Test Automation competency at a Tier 1 company, we propose various befitting tools to our existing or new customers. Whenever we work on a particular solution or requirement, we propose automation tools to support the entire environment to support end-to-end automation. If my customer is looking for an automation solution, they will typically ask, "Can you provide a solution to automate my end-to-end scenario?" Every proposal or potential requirement is a new business case for us.

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DG
Senior Staff Software Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

We use UFT One for functional testing of business process automation. It includes all the modules, and there are different kinds of modules.  

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DR
Automation Test Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

I am a consultant in my organization and one of the tasks that I perform is to assist other users with technical issues. Specifically, with UFT One, I am currently evaluating the AI features. I want to experiment with them and find out how it all works so that we can take that information to our customers.

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VR
Team Lead at Accenture

OpenText UFT is a very good tool for testing purposes. We use it primarily for API testing.

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DW
IT Business Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

We use this product for end-to-end testing, from order to cash.

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RR
Senior Software Engineer at Tata Consultancy

We use this solution for database and desktop application testing. We are customers of Micro Focus and I'm a senior software engineer. 

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AJ
Test Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

We are responsible for automation of the regression test cases. We have a standard set of regression test cases, which are comprised of SAP solutions, web-based applications, as well as some Windows-based applications. We have test cases which cater to each of these solutions individually.

In addition, we have test cases to test things from end-to-end. That means the data has to flow from one application to another and it has to be validated. We write reusable pieces of code, which are stitched together to create the end-to-ends.

In SAP, transaction codes are available and they are automated. They are stitched together to form a test case. For example, if a customer places an order on the website, we will get an order number in SAP. We will process that order in SAP to create the delivery with a particular T-code. Once we process that delivery, we will mark it as "good session," which means the order itself will flow out of our warehouse via the transportation. Once the customer receives it, we have the invoicing process. We automate these individual T-codes, and then stitch them together.

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NK
Lead Analyst at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

We are working with a desktop-based application and we use the solution to automate testing of the application.

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JB
Lead Software Test Engineer at Excellus Solutions

Our environment is web-based, with over 2000 pages. There is no such thing as a primary use case since it is such a large and easily modifiable product. We have more than 1700 test cases already.

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DC
Owner at a consultancy with self employed

I have been running UFT scripts also, apart from the laptops and PC's. We primarily use the solution for end-to-end and functional testing and also for web applications and tunnel-based applications in the testing chain. It's one of the positive points of UFT that UFT can handle both.

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it_user809085 - PeerSpot reviewer
AST at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

To build an enterprise framework for functional automation with CI/CD features, automate all the standalone applications, and test applications in the cloud.

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EZ
Test Solution Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

We primarily use the solution for any test completion intended for the system.

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FP
Senior Digital Business Consultant at HNRG
  • Realizing more test automation scenarios and managing the entire DevOps lifecycle.
  • Running test cases along the entire day.
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Buyer's Guide
OpenText UFT One
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about OpenText UFT One. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.