If you’ve used SOAPUI for any length of time, you’ve probably concluded it’s a really useful tool! Automated API testing has been figurative manna from the heavens for the testing crowd at AVIO Consulting. So, since everyone loves a good list, here are 6 tips to make your experience in SOAPUI an even more productive one
The first 3 tips (part 1) center on navigation, ease of use, and best practices; the last 3 (part 2) will be based on lessons learned.
Ready? Here we go!
1. Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right [Click]
2. Maximize Drag-and-Drop
3. [Useful] Titling
1-Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right [Click]
Ok, so we all know that the right mouse button (or its laptop equivalent) is the gateway to some juicy functionality that you’d otherwise have to source from a toolbar or the application menu/sub-menus. Who has time to move their cursor to the top of the application, though? Certainly not us!
Considering that basic controls such as Move, Delete, and Rename are immediately available and recognizable inputs, this alone makes that all-important right mouse button a productivity turbocharger. However, there are other cool abilities at your fingertips as well.
Add Step
Ostensibly simple, yet incredibly rich, this feature allows a user to insert any test step SOAPUI handles in a quick, 2-click operation. Here’s how you can get to all the beefy goodness.
Right-click on an existing test step > Add Step > Select new step
What’s Available from This Menu:
- SOAP Request
- REST Request
- HTTP Request
- AMF Request
- JDBC Request
- Properties
- Property Transfer
- Conditional Goto
- Run TestCase
- Groovy Script
- Delay
- SOAP Mock Response
- Manual TestStep
- Publish using MQTT
- Receive MQTT Message
- Drop MQTT Connection
Clone TestCase
More than a mere copy function, the Clone TestCase ability prompts the user to precisely place their newly-cloned test case. If your test cases are as long/complex as ours have become, you’ll understand just how valuable it is to know your cloned test case is exactly where it needs to be from the moment it’s cloned. SOAPUI manages this by a way of a task dialogue with drop-down menus, and it’s super-useful.
Learn from our mistakes at AVIO — use the Clone TestCase functionality to its fullest advantage. It’s just a right click away!
Export
SmartBear loves to tell you SOAPUI produces sharable.XML files so you can collaborate with testing partners. However, these files can start to get rather large, bogging down the collaboration process. Never fear, though, because you can export individual test cases, too.
This is a great workaround for sharing minor changes with collaborators. All it takes is a Right Click > Export. That’s it — you’re done!
2-Maximize Drag-and-Drop
SOAPUI allows users to drag and drop test steps for easy test case re-arrangement. While certain aspects of a test will always take place in the same position, human tasks can sometimes get shuffled during a sprint due to updated requirements. When that occurs, don’t resign yourself to hours of test case maintenance. Instead, drag-and-drop those test steps into the new order and keep on testing.
3-[Useful] Titling
Test Step 1, Test Step 2, and Test Step 3 might sound like a good name. After all, tests are sequential in nature. Oh, your boss’ boss doesn’t understand how to connect those titles to the test outcome? Time to employ a little more creativity and structure!
At AVIO, we go out of our way to title our test cases and steps in a very granular way. In fact, naming conventions are probably one of the most important details to have ironed out before creating the test architecture in SOAPUI.
For example, knowing the sequence of desired activity outcomes in a given test case can become the basis of the test case titles.
Ex. 2 – CE = APPROVED; SUBMIT, SUBMIT, RETURN, SUBMIT, APPROVE, SUBMIT
When creating the SOAPUI test steps that will comprise this case, I now know how to title each test step because the title of the case reflects the sequence of expected outcomes for each successive test step.
Ex.
As an added bonus, while using the flexible architecture we build into our test steps, the title of the test step also informs on what outcome should be programmed into the test script itself. Convenient and specific — that’s a win-win.
As always, we want to hear from you, our readers. Which of the tips above helped the most or the least? Are you already using these in your daily testing practice? How can the above be improved for greater productivity and usefulness?