OpenText Functional Testing Reviews

The ability to customize automation using code is the most valuable feature. With the release of 12.5, UFT now includes a LeanFT license which will plug in to Visual Studio and allow usage with C#.

A close second would be the Object Spy, i.e. how UFT identifies objects. Although you can code with CodedUI and Selenium, the object identification tool in UFT is far superior.

Due to cost, my current employer doesn’t use UFT. However, I’ve used it at many different locations in the past. Automation in general will always provide value in test coverage. UFT bridges the coding gap by using VBScript, which is easier for less technical personnel to pick up. This greatly increases the number those people who can use the tool. The competition will require a developer-level skill set to get the same functional benefits.

There are some command-line and other crude methods to integrate UFT into non-HP software suites. This area could be improved, but overall there is little incentive for HP to do so.

I’ve used UFT for just over 12 years. In comparison, I’ve used CodedUI for about six months, and Selenium for only two months. As you may imagine, I have a significant grasp on UFT and what it can do. An argument could be made that with the same experience in the other two competitors, these tools may be on more equal footing.

As with any code base, well-designed and implemented automation code will make for easy maintenance, and a stable code base that will scale very well as the complexity of the suite grows. Nothing will save you from poor coding practices.

I’ve had little direct support from HP. I’ve instead used HP partners to get licensing and support. Specifically Orasi, they have been very helpful in the few support areas I’ve needed. I would rate them 9/10. As an advanced user, there are issues I’ve come across that Orasi wasn’t able to find a solution for. However, they did their due diligence and escalated to HP as appropriate.

It is very straightforward in its install and setup. An extra layer of complexity exists when trying to integrate it with Quality Center, but this is done via some settings and an add-in. The nice thing about UFT is that it’s a mature tool that has massive user-forum support on the internet. Although there is a lot of support for C# (Coded UI) and Java (Selenium), there isn’t as much in regards to the testing side of those languages.

Cost is the biggest issue with UFT. It is not cheap. However, when evaluating the full cost (not just the licensing), I believe UFT is actually a cheaper solution in the end. That being said, seat licenses that are tied to a specific machine (can be moved via support) run approximately $10,000 with tax and associated annual maintenance agreement. A concurrent license runs approximately 17K with tax and maintenance agreement.

From an ROI standpoint, you need to look at the automation effort in comparison to the manual work it would reduce, as well as increased code coverage and a consistent level of testing. In most cases, it will take 2-3 years before the automation suite is significant enough to start seeing its cost even out. Any organization contemplating automation should have that type of commitment to see the automation effort become successful.

I’ve evaluated a few different automation products. Only Selenium and CodedUI come close to the functionality and adaptability that UFT provides. I support UFT as the best solution due to the skill set needed to operate the tool. VBScript is verbose, but otherwise very easy for a non-coder to pick up. Selenium and CodedUI both require OOP languages that are more complex for the tester to pick up.

Overall my main concern, is with resources. There aren’t as many Selenium/CodedUI professionals in the marketplace therefore when it’s time to deal with turnover, it’s very difficult to find experienced automation personnel. That is not the case with UFT. An added plus for UFT is how it handles poorly designed and implemented web applications. I didn’t fully see this until I began to use CodedUI and Selenium.

If this is the first time implementing a solution, I would say make sure to read up on what it will take to implement. Get as much knowledge ahead of time to make it smoother. To hit the ground running, it is best to organize your manual tests so that automation can begin as soon as possible. What test cases are for Smoke tests? What test cases are for Regression? Starting automation without defining the work to be completed will waste precious time -- time you are paying for idle licensing.

The core application that we're using in our company is a bit special and resistant to automation. To properly to automate, it needs a plug-in from the software's vendor. The only technology for automation that is supported is UFT, so we're sort of locked into UFT for our core application.

UFT is the only technology that enabled us to actually automate our core application.

It's fine, but we've had to do workarounds for some things.

We've had no issues with deployment.

For us, we started with version 9 of UFT when it was called QTP, QuickTest Pro. For us it worked, though, like the average software, there are issues, but we always had a good ability to provide work arounds. Regardless, it's been pretty stable.

We've had no issues with scalability.

We haven't needed much technical support as we can sort it out ourselves.

Some parts of it were pretty easy to set up. Most of the issues we had were related to organizational stuff, such as managing licenses, etc.

Make sure you take a good look at your approach, such as whether it's keyword driven automation, etc. Make sure you organize things that you're headed in the right direction because once you implement in a certain way, changing direction may be pretty hard. Determine also how you deal with object repositories, how you deal with sharing information, and how important the reusability of scripts is in your project.

It allows us to track projects from a defect management perspective so that we can learn from each project. A lot of our projects are repeatable, so using it with ALM, we can learn from the previous projects and determine which changes need to made for subsequent ones. Each time we have such a project, it goes faster than the previous. There are less issues with them each time because we've tracked the previous defects.

We've improved deploying in large environments on the client side. Desktop security has also improved as the feature functionalities of the installed client comes back to the the environment. Because we've improved the deployment, security has then also improved.

The amount of space it utilizes on the client side is quite excessive. A lot of users are offshore and they use VMs. The VM footprint is small, as opposed to a laptop or desktop used by someone onshore. But while the VM is small, the amount of space required for a standard install of UFT is 1.5GB. That's quite a lot and something that should be reduced when considering not all users have the additional amount of space for the install, particularly if they're on a VM.

UFT/QTP has been in place for probably about 10 years.

Once installed, it deploys without any issue.

UFT is extremely stable. We've never had any issues with it.

There's no block of scalability as it's a client application. It's managed centrally from a license-server perspective. Scalability can be as many installs as you want. From our perspective, the actual number of people that can use it concurrently is controlled by the license server, so there's no issues of scalability on that side.

We have the higher level, premium support. Technical support tends to be quick and reactive to issues and we don't have any major issues with it.

It was straightforward, but there were typical issues, such as the normal configuration issues that you can predict, or you have to configure it to talk to the license server.

My advice would be to research the full system requirements you need for the initial install. In corporate environments, once you've got it up and running, it's more difficult to get off of it. Also, plan to scale up based on projected CPU and space that you'll need to get.

The most valuable feature for me is API Tests for SOAP automation testing.

With HP UFT, we're able to synchronize with HP Quality Center, and API automation tests can be placed into test suites and run automatically through the HP Quality Center scheduler. Results for the tests are set and HP Quality Center is able to report on the test results. Emails can then be sent to notify anyone of the results in real time.

There are scenarios where the tool freezes and locks the user out. Re-opening the tool puts test results in a locked state, making the test read-only. The only way to unlock the test is to have an administrator force close the user’s last login.

Calling GUI tests within an API test or vice versa results in difficult, confusing scenarios on how to update tests properly when it comes to parameters and actions. Most of the time, it is easier to close the tests, open them one at a time, and perform the actions needed before calling the tests together.

I've used it for two years.

The only time I encountered tool issues was when the servers to our ALM database was down.

I personally have never had to deal with customer service or technical support. We have an administrator assigned to that task.

SOAPUI Pro and ReadyAPI were used for API testing. HP UFT was used in conjunction when automation needed to be set up. With the synchronization with HP Quality Center, HP UFT saved time.

I was not a part of the initial set up. Installing the tool on my machine was straightforward based on my company’s instructions.

My company is very firefighting friendly, so the ROI was immense when it came to automation and the amount of time it took to get test suites and regression set up. The amount of test cases a user can create in a short amount of time is incredible.

The ROI is variable depending on the size of the team, the amount of usage they plan on using the tool, and the budget they have on tools, training, and support.

I do not know the exact numbers my company paid for the licenses, but from what I heard on the grapevine, only seat licenses were bought when absolutely necessary and floating licenses were bought for everything else.

It's allowed us to perform functional testing (to verify a specific action or function of code) for each product update.

We can use HP UFT not only in testing for each product update(s), but also to improve the productivity for some repeatable routine tasks.

We would like to see smart identification (captures a unique object during testing) work more reliably.

I've used it for two years.

Our initial deployment was complex and there was a Java conflict we had to resolve.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no scalability issues.

We don't use HP technical support.

The setup was complex as we were required to have Windows updated. Also, there was apparently a Java conflict that had to be resolved first.

The most valuable features to me are--

• Business process components (can be dropped into test flow)
• Keyword-driven test cases (one of several automated testing frameworks)

It's allowed business analysts to work with automation scripts without requiring them to have programming knowledge.

I'd like to see a scanning feature that shows the changes that happened in an application and the auto updates them. This would help reduce the time in maintaining scripts.

I've used it for six years.

I did not encounter any issues with deployment.

Yes, there were stability issues sometimes.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

Customer service is excellent.

Technical support is good.

We didn't use any previous solutions.

Initial setup was straightforward.

We used an in-house team for implementation.

It's expensive, but it's worth the money.

We didn't evaluate any other options.

HP UFT is a popular tool used by many organizations, hence there are many forums out there to help us in case we face any challenges.

The most valuable feature to me are the high-end automation frameworks -- linear, hybrid, data-driven, keyword-driven, BPT, and functional decomposition.

It works with both desktop and web-based applications.

It also provides us with service testing, API testing, GUI testing and business process testing.

It needs better compatibility with Chrome and Safari, which would lead to this being a better product.

I've used it for six years.

I had no issues with deployment.

I've had no stability issues.

We've scaled without issue.

Customer service is excellent.

Technical support is excellent.

We didn't use a previous solution.

The installation process of this software is very well organized. Here, all the prerequisites/supporting software are part of setup and it automatically configures your system for the best use during the installation. If in one or more parameters are missing the latest updates, it performs those updates automatically.

We did it in-house, and I was a part of this team. You need to make sure to demonstrate to team members the proper tools for installation so they can follow the various concepts and then arrange for proper training to be given to all users for the best use of it. I believe that a well-trained person/team can solve issues with HP UFT by themselves.

It's fast, reliable, and accurate, and should provide ROI.

I am aware of other tools on the market, but I found HP UFT best suited to my needs. We, therefore, adopted it.

If one is looking for a software testing tool for functional parameters with an automation approach, they can go for it without any more thinking and discussion. Where there are a few up and coming open source solutions, they have limitations that HP UFT doesn't have.

The features I've found most valuable are--

• API
• GUI

We have performed 3500 test case automations, and we are able to execute them in just five days. If we were to do this manually, it would take 30 days.

Cross-browser testing feature should be improved.

They should also develop a generic framework so everyone can use it who purchases it.

Also, the browser shrinks while running GUI test cases, and UFT hangs while debugging.

I've been using it for a year.

HP UFT consumes too much RAM, so the system gets hung.

It's 90%.

Initially, we started doing automation using Selenium, but we could not succeed with it, so we migrated from Selenium to HP UFT. We now have a successful solution.

We faced a lot of problems during implementations, such as objection identification and cross-browser functionalities.

We implemented with our in-house team.

The ROI is good.

The cost of the HP UFT license is more.