Using Keyword Tests in Manual Tests

Applies to TestComplete 12.60, last modified on September 17, 2018
The manual testing functionality is deprecated. Do not use it for creating new tests. It will be removed in a future TestComplete release.

Besides displaying detailed instructions on performing manual actions over the tested application, TestComplete gives users an opportunity to run keyword tests from manual tests. This allows users to perform automatically some keyword test operations during the test run. If you need to perform some proved or helper actions that are not necessary to be done manually, you can run a keyword test that will automatically perform these actions.

A keyword test can be run as a manual test step. In this case, TestComplete does not display the Step Description dialog when such a step is being performed during the test run. Instead of displaying instructions to be performed manually, TestComplete runs the specified keyword test.

To run a keyword test from a manual test, you need to add a step to the manual test and specify its content type as Keyword Test. To learn how to add test steps to a manual test, see Working With the Manual Test Editor. To specify the content type of a manual test step, use the Content type combo box displayed on the right side of the Manual Test Editor window. In this box, you need to choose Keyword Test.

After you specify Keyword Test as the test step’s content type, you can select the needed keyword test to be performed during the manual test run. You can specify an existing keyword test’s name in the Keyword Test edit box of the Manual Test editor by clicking the ellipsis button of this edit box and selecting the needed test in the ensuing Select Test dialog. The dialog displays the list of all keyword tests included in the project. If no keyword tests are included in the project, TestComplete shows an appropriate message and does not display the Select Test dialog when you click the ellipsis button. Your TestComplete project must have the KeywordTests project item and at least one keyword test in order to specify an existing keyword test in the Keyword Test edit box of the needed manual test step. If no KeywordTests project item is included in your project, the ellipsis button is unavailable, and you cannot specify a keyword test for a manual test step.

Instead of using an existing keyword test as a manual test step, you can convert an existing manual test step with instructions in the HTML or XML+XSL format to a keyword test that will perform these instructions automatically during the test run. You can also convert the entire manual test (that is, all steps with the HTML or XML+XSL content in the manual test) to a collection of keyword tests that will perform actions of the manual test. For detailed information on converting test steps to keyword tests, see Converting Manual Tests to Keyword Tests.

See Also

Manual Testing
Keyword Tests
Converting Manual Tests to Keyword Tests
About Manual Test Editor

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