Automate Browser Testing with Robot Framework¶
This document provides details about CumulusCI’s integration with Robot Framework for automating tests using CumulusCI, Salesforce APIs, and Selenium.
Why Robot Framework?¶
Robot Framework provides an abstraction layer for writing automated test scenarios in Python and via text keywords in .robot files. Since Robot Framework is written in Python (like CumulusCI) and has a robust SeleniumLibrary for automated browser testing, it works well with CumulusCI projects.
CumulusCI’s integration with Robot Framework allows building automated test scenarios useful to Salesforce projects:
Browser testing with Selenium.
API-only tests interacting with the Salesforce REST, Bulk, and Tooling APIs.
Complex org automation via CumulusCI.
Combinations of all of the above.
The ability to create rich, single-file integration tests that interact with CumulusCI’s project-specific automation, Salesforce’s APIs, and the Salesforce UI in a browser is the most exciting feature of the integration with Robot Framework. Robot Framework makes it easy to automate even complex regression scenarios and tests for edge-case bugs, just by writing Robot Framework test suites and with no need to change project automation in cumulusci.yml.
Included Libraries¶
CumulusCI comes bundled with additional third-party keyword libraries, in addition to the libraries that come with Robot Framework itself:
SeleniumLibrary for browser testing
RequestsLibrary for testing REST APIs
SeleniumLibrary is automatically imported when you import Salesforce.robot. To use RequestsLibrary you need to explicitly import it in the settings section of your Robot test.
Example Robot Test¶
The following test file placed under robot/ExampleProject/tests/create_contact.robot in your project’s repository automates the testing of creating a Contact through the Salesforce UI in a browser and via the API. As an added convenience, it automatically deletes the created Contacts in the Suite Teardown step:
*** Settings ***
Resource cumulusci/robotframework/Salesforce.robot
Library cumulusci.robotframework.PageObjects
Suite Setup Open Test Browser
Suite Teardown Delete Records and Close Browser
*** Test Cases ***
Via API
${first_name} = Get fake data first_name
${last_name} = Get fake data last_name
${contact_id} = Salesforce Insert Contact
... FirstName=${first_name}
... LastName=${last_name}
&{contact} = Salesforce Get Contact ${contact_id}
Validate Contact ${contact_id} ${first_name} ${last_name}
Via UI
${first_name} = Get fake data first_name
${last_name} = Get fake data last_name
Go to page Home Contact
Click Object Button New
Wait for modal New Contact
Populate Form
... First Name=${first_name}
... Last Name=${last_name}
Click Modal Button Save
Wait Until Modal Is Closed
${contact_id} = Get Current Record Id
Store Session Record Contact ${contact_id}
Validate Contact ${contact_id} ${first_name} ${last_name}
*** Keywords ***
Validate Contact
[Arguments] ${contact_id} ${first_name} ${last_name}
[Documentation]
... Given a contact id, validate that the contact has the
... expected first and last name both through the detail page in
... the UI and via the API.
# Validate via UI
Go to page Detail Contact ${contact_id}
Page Should Contain ${first_name} ${last_name}
# Validate via API
&{contact} = Salesforce Get Contact ${contact_id}
Should Be Equal ${first_name} ${contact}[FirstName]
Should Be Equal ${last_name} ${contact}[LastName]
Settings¶
The Settings section of the .robot file sets up the entire test suite. By including the Resource cumulusci/robotframework/Salesforce.robot, which comes with CumulusCI, we inherit a lot of useful configuration and keywords for Salesforce testing automatically.
The Suite Setup and Suite Teardown are run at the start and end of the entire test suite. In the example test, we’re using the Open Test Browser keyword from the Salesforce.robot file to open a test browser. We’re also using the Delete Records and Close Browser keyword from Salesforce.robot to automatically delete all records created in the org during the session and close the test browser.
Test Cases¶
The two test cases test the same operation done through two different paths: the Salesforce REST API and the Salesforce UI in a browser.
Via API¶
This test case uses the Get fake data keyword to generate a first and last name. It then uses the Salesforce Insert keyword from the Salesforce Library (included via Salesforce.robot) to insert a Contact using the same technique for generating test data. Next, it uses Salesforce Get to retrieve the Contact’s information as a dictionary.
Finally, the test calls the Validate Contact keyword explained in the Keywords section below.
Via UI¶
This test case also uses Get fake data for the first and last name, but instead uses the test browser to create a Contact via the Salesforce UI. Using keywords from the Salesforce Library, it navigates to the Contact home page and clicks the New button to open a modal form. It then uses Populate Form to fill in the First Name and Last Name fields (selected by field label) and uses Click Modal Button to click the Save button and Wait Until Modal Is Closed to wait for the modal to close.
At this point, we should be on the record view for the new Contact. We use the Get Current Record Id keyword to parse the Contact’s ID from the URL in the browser and the Store Session Record keyword to register the Contact in the session records list. The session records list stores the type and Id of all records created in the session, which is used by the Delete Records and Close Browser keyword on Suite Teardown to delete all the records created during the test. In the Via API test, we didn’t have to register the record since the Salesforce Insert keyword does that for us automatically. In the Via UI test, we created the Contact in the browser and thus need to store its ID manually for it to be deleted.
Keywords¶
The Keywords section allows you to define keywords useful in the context of the current test suite. This allows you to encapsulate logic you want to reuse in multiple tests. In this case, we’ve defined the Validate Contact keyword which accepts the Contact id, first, and last names as argument and validates the Contact via the UI in a browser and via the API via Salesforce Get. By abstracting out this keyword, we avoid duplication of logic in the test file and ensure that we’re validating the same thing in both test scenarios.
Running the Test Suite¶
This simple test file can be run via the robot task in CumulusCI:
$ cci task run robot -o suites robot/MyProject/tests/create_contact.robot -o vars BROWSER:firefox
2019-04-26 09:47:24: Getting scratch org info from Salesforce DX
2019-04-26 09:47:28: Beginning task: Robot
2019-04-26 09:47:28: As user: test-leiuvggcviyi@example.com
2019-04-26 09:47:28: In org: 00DS0000003ORti
2019-04-26 09:47:28:
==============================================================================
Create Contact
==============================================================================
Via API | PASS |
[ WARN ] Retrying call to method _wait_until_modal_is_closed
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Via UI | PASS |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Create Contact | PASS |
2 critical tests, 2 passed, 0 failed
2 tests total, 2 passed, 0 failed
==============================================================================
Output: /Users/boakley/dev/MyProject/robot/MyProject/results/output.xml
Log: /Users/boakley/dev/MyProject/robot/MyProject/results/log.html
Report: /Users/boakley/dev/MyProject/robot/MyProject/results/report.html
Note
In the example output, the WARN line shows functionality from the Salesforce Library which helps handle retry scenarios common to testing against Salesforce’s Lightning UI. In this case, it automatically retried the wait for the modal window to close after creating a contact in a browser.
If you put all of your tests inside that robot/<project name>/tests folder you don’t have to use the suite option. By default the robot task will run all tests in the folder and all subfolders. For example, to run all tests and use the default browser you just have to issue the command cci task run robot.
Salesforce.robot¶
Keywords can be defined in a test suite file, but they can also be defined in libraries and resource files. Libraries are written in Python, and resource files are written in the Robot syntax. Resource files are almost identical to a test file, except that they have no tests and can be imported into other test files. In addition to containing keywords, resource files can also define variables and can import other libraries.
The file cumulusci/robotframework/Salesforce.robot was designed to be the way to import all of the keywords and variables provided by CumulusCI. It should be the first item imported in a test file. It will import the Salesforce Library and CumulusCI Library, as well as the most commonly used robot libraries
(Collections,
OperatingSystem,
String, and
XML)
Variables defined in resource files are accessible to all tests in a suite which imports the resource file. They can be set in your cumulusci.yml file, or specified with the vars option to the robot task. When doing so, the variables need to be referenced without the dollar sign and curly braces. Variable names are case-insensitive.
For example, here is how to set the browser to Firefox and the default timeout to 20 seconds in a cumulusci.yml file:
tasks:
robot:
options:
vars:
- BROWSER:firefox
- TIMEOUT:20 seconds
The same variables can be set from the command line to override the config file for a single test run. This example shows that you can use the lowercase name for convenience:
$ cci task run robot -o vars browser:firefox,timeout:20
Supported Variables¶
The following variables defined in Salesforce.robot are all used by the Open Test Browser keyword:
|
Defines the browser to be used for testing. Supported values are
|
|
This sets the preferred size of the browser. It is specified in the form of widthxheight, and
the values are passed to the Set window size keyword.
Default: |
|
This is automatically passed to the Set Selenium Implicit Wait keyword.
Default: |
|
This defines a delay added after every Selenium command. It is
automatically passed to the Set Selenium Speed keyword.
Default: |
|
This sets the default amount of time Selenium commands will wait before timing out. It is
automatically passed to the Set Selenium Timeout keyword.
Default: |
Full Documentation¶
To see the full list of keywords and their descriptions for this library, see the section titled Salesforce.robot in the keyword documentation.
CumulusCI Library¶
The CumulusCI Library for Robot Framework provides access to CumulusCI’s functionality from inside a Robot test. It is mostly used to get credentials to a Salesforce org and to run more complex automation to set up the test environment in the org.
Logging Into An Org¶
The ``Login Url``* keyword returns a url with an updated OAuth access token to automatically log into the CumulusCI org from CumulusCI’s project keychain.
Run Task¶
The Run Task keyword is used to run named CumulusCI tasks configured for the project. These can be any of CumulusCI’s built in tasks as well as project specific custom tasks from the project’s cumulusci.yml file.
Run Task accepts a single argument, the task name. It optionally accepts task options in the format option_name=value.
Run Task Class¶
The Run Task Class keyword is for use cases where you want to use one of CumulusCI’s Python task classes to automate part of a test scenario but don’t want to have to map a custom named task at the project level.
Run Task Class accepts a single argument, the class_path, as it would be entered into cumulusci.yml, such as cumulusci.tasks.salesforce.Deploy. Like Run Task, you can also optionally pass task options in the format option_name=value.
Set Test Elapsed Time¶
This Set Test Elapsed Time keyword captures a computed rather than measured elapsed time for performance-tests.
For example, if you were performance testing a Salesforce batch process, you might want to store the Salesforce-measured elapsed time of the batch process instead of the time measured in the CCI client process.
The keyword takes a single optional argument which is either a number of seconds or a Robot time string (https://robotframework.org/robotframework/latest/libraries/DateTime.html#Time%20formats).
Using this keyword will automatically add the tag cci_metric_elapsed_time to the test case.
Performance test times are output in the CCI logs and are captured in MetaCI instead of the “total elapsed time” measured by Robot Framework.
Start and End Perf Time¶
As a convenience, there are keywords to handle the common case where you want to start
a timer and then store the result with Set Test Elapsed Time. These are Start Performance Timer
and Stop Performance Timer.
Set Test Metric¶
This keyword captures any metric for performance monitoring.
For example: number of queries, rows processed, CPU usage, etc.
Elapsed Time For Last Record¶
The Elapsed Time For Last Record queries Salesforce for a value that
is Salesforce’s recorded log of a job. For example, to query an Apex bulk
job:
${time_in_seconds} = Elapsed Time For Last Record
... obj_name=AsyncApexJob
... where=ApexClass.Name='BlahBlah'
... start_field=CreatedDate
... end_field=CompletedDate
... order_by=CompletedDate
Salesforce Library¶
The Salesforce Library provides a set of useful keywords for interacting with Salesforce’s Lightning UI and Salesforce’s APIs to test Salesforce applications. In addition to keywords, the library defines some custom locator strategies to aid in locating elements on a page.
UI Keywords¶
The goal of the UI keywords in the Salesforce Library is to abstract out common interactions with Salesforce from interactions with your application’s UI. The Salesforce Library itself has an extensive suite of Robot tests which are regularly run to alert us to any changes in the base Salesforce UI. By centralizing these interactions and regularly testing them, the Salesforce Library provides a more stable framework on which to build your product tests.
There are too many keywords relating to UI interactions to cover here. Please reference the full Salesforce Library documentation below.
Waiting for Lightning UI¶
A common challenge when writing end-to-end UI tests is the need to wait for asynchronous actions to complete before proceeding to run the next interaction. The Salesforce Library is aware of the Lightning UI and can handle this waiting automatically. After each click, it will wait for any pending requests to the server to complete. (Manually waiting using a “sleep” or waiting for a particular element to appear may still be necessary after other kinds of interactions and when interacting with pages that don’t use the Lightning UI.)
API Keywords¶
In addition to browser interactions, the Salesforce Library also provides the following keywords for interacting with the Salesforce REST API:
Salesforce Collection Insert: used for bulk creation of objects based on a template.Salesforce Collection Update: used for the bulk updating of objects.Salesforce Delete: Deletes a record using its type and ID.Salesforce Get: Gets a dictionary of a record from its ID.Salesforce Insert: Inserts a record using its type and field values. Returns the ID.Salesforce Query: Runs a simple query using the object type and field=value syntax. Returns a list of matching record dictionaries.Salesforce Update: Updates a record using its type, ID, and field=value syntax.SOQL Query: Runs a SOQL query and returns a REST API result dictionary.
Locator Strategies¶
SeleniumLibrary provides many locator strategies for finding elements on a page. For example, you can specify an element via an xpath, an id, a css selector, or several others. These are documented in the SeleniumLibrary documentation under a section titled Locating elements.
In addition to the predefined locator strategies, the Salesforce library defines the following locator strategies, all of which use keywords in the Salesforce library to find web elements. For detailed explanations of the locator strategies, see the documentation for each keyword.
|
This uses the Salesforce library keyword |
|
This uses the Salesforce library keyword |
|
This uses the Salesforce library keyword |
Full Documentation¶
To see the full list of keywords and their descriptions for this library, see the section titled Salesforce in the keyword documentation.
PageObjects Library¶
The PageObjects library provides support for page objects,
Robot Framework-style. Even though Robot is a keyword-driven framework,
we’ve implemented a way to dynamically load in keywords that are
unique to a page or an object on the page.
With this library, you can define classes which represent page objects. Each class provides keywords that are unique to a page or a component. These classes can be imported on demand only for tests which use these pages or components.
The pageobject Decorator¶
Page objects are normal Python classes which use the pageobject
decorator provided by CumulusCI. Unlike traditional Robot Framework
keyword libraries, you may define multiple sets of keywords in a
single file.
When you create a page object class, you start by inheriting from one of the provided base classes. No matter which class you inherit from, your class gets the following predefined properties:
self.object_nameis the name of the object related to the class. This is defined via theobject_nameparameter to thepageobjectdecorator. You should not add the namespace prefix in the decorator. This attribute will automatically add the prefix fromcumulusci.ymlwhen necessary.self.builtinis a reference to the robot frameworkBuiltInlibrary, and can be used to directly call built-in keywords. Any built-in keyword can be called by converting the name to all lowercase, and replacing all spaces with underscores (eg:self.builtin.log,self.builtin.get_variable_value, etc).self.cumulusciis a reference to the CumulusCI keyword library. You can call any keyword in this library by converting the name to all lowercase, and replacing all spaces with underscores (eg:self.cumulusci.get_org_info, etc).self.salesforceis a reference to the Salesforce keyword library. You can call any keyword in this library by converting the name to all lowercase, and replacing all spaces with underscores (eg:self.salesforce.wait_until_loading_is_complete, etc).self.seleniumis a reference to SeleniumLibrary. You can call any keyword in this library by converting the name to all lowercase, and replacing all spaces with underscores (eg:self.selenim.wait_until_page_contains_element, etc)
Page Object Base Classes¶
Presently, CumulusCI provides the following base classes,
which should be used for all classes that use the pageobject decorator:
cumulusci.robotframework.pageobjects.BasePage- a generic base class used by the other base classes. It can be used when creating custom page objects when none of the other base classes make sense.cumulusci.robotframework.pageobjects.DetailPage- a class for a page object which represents a detail page.cumulusci.robotframework.pageobjects.HomePage- a class for a page object which represents a home page.cumulusci.robotframework.pageobjects.ListingPage- a class for a page object which represents a listing page.cumulusci.robotframework.pageobject.NewModal- a class for a page object which represents the “new object” modal.cumulusci.robotframework.pageobject.ObjectManagerPage- a class for interacting with the object manager.
The BasePage class adds the following keyword to every page object:
Log current page object- this keyword is mostly useful while debugging tests. It will add to the log information about the currently loaded page object.
Example Page Object¶
The following example shows the definition of a page
object for the listing page of a custom object named MyObject__c. It adds a new
keyword named Click on the row with name:
from cumulusci.robotframework.pageobjects import pageobject, ListingPage
@pageobject(page_type="Listing", object_name="MyObject__c")
class MyObjectListingPage(ListingPage):
def click_on_the_row_with_name(self, name):
self.selenium.click_link('xpath://a[@title="{}"]'.format(name))
self.salesforce.wait_until_loading_is_complete()
The pageobject decorator takes two arguments: page_type and
object_name. These two arguments are used to identify the page
object (eg: Go To Page Listing Contact). The values can be
any arbitrary string, but ordinarily should represent standard page
types (“Detail”, “Home”, “Listing”, “New”), and standard object names.
Importing the library into a test¶
The PageObjects library is somewhat unique in that it is not only a
keyword library, but also the mechanism by which you can import files
which contain page object classes. This is done by providing the paths
to one or more Python files which implement page objects. You may also
import PageObjects without passing any files to it in order to take
advantage of some general purpose page objects.
For example, consider the case where you’ve created two files that
each have one or more page object definitions. For example, lets say
in robot/MyProject/resources you have the files PageObjects.py and
MorePageObjects.py. You can import these page objects into a test
suite like so:
*** Settings ***
Library cumulusci.robotframework.PageObjects
... robot/MyProject/resources/PageObjects.py
... robot/MyProject/resources/MorePageObjects.py
Using Page Objects¶
There are two things that must be done in order to use the keywords in
a page object. The first has already been covered, and that is to
import the PageObjects library and any custom page object files you
wish to use.
The second thing you must do is either explicitly load the keywords
for a page object, or reference a page object with one of the generic
keywords provided by the PageObjects library.
To explicitly load the keywords for a page object you can use the
load page object keyword provided by the PageObjects
library. Other keywords provided by that library will automatically
import the keywords if they are successful. For example, you can call
Go To Page followed by a page object reference, and if that page is
able to be navigated to, its keywords will automatically be loaded.
Page Object Keywords¶
The PageObjects library provides the following keywords:
Current Page Should Be
Get Page Object
Go To Page Object
Load Page Object
Log Page Object Keywords
Wait For Modal
Wait For Page Object
Current Page Should Be¶
Example: Current Page Should Be Listing Contact
This keyword will attempt to validate that the given page object
represents the current page. Each page object may use its own method
for making the determination, but the built-in page objects all
compare the page location to an expected pattern
(eg: .../lightning/o/...). If the assertion passes, the keywords for
that page object will automatically be loaded.
This keyword is useful if you get to a page via a button or some other form of navigation, in that it allows you to both assert that you are on the page you think you should be on, and load the keywords for that page, all with a single statement.
Get Page Object¶
Example: Get page object Listing Contact
This keyword is rarely used in a test. It is mostly useful to get the reference to a other keyword from another keyword. It is similar in function to robot’s built-in Get library instance keyword.
Go To Page¶
Example: Go to page Listing Contact
This will attempt to go to the listing page for the Contact object, and then load the keywords for that page.
Log Page Object Keywords¶
Example: Log Page Object Keywords
This keyword is primarily a debugging tool. When called it will log each of the keywords for the current page object.
Load Page Object¶
Example: Load page object Listing Contact
This will load the page object for the given page_type and
object_name_. It is useful when you want to use the keywords from a
page object without first navigating to that page (i.e. when you are
already on the page and don’t want to navigate away).
Wait For Modal¶
Example: Wait for modal New Contact
This keyword can be used to wait for a modal, such as the one that pops up when creating a new object. The keyword will return once a modal appears, and has a title of “New _object_” (eg: “New Contact”).
Wait For Page Object¶
Example: Wait for page object Popup ActivityManager
Page objects don’t necessarily have to represent entire pages. You can use Wait for page object to wait for a page object representing a single element on a page such as a popup window.
Generic Page Objects¶
You do not need to create a page object in order to take advantage of
the new page object keywords. If you use one of the page object
keywords for a page that does not have its own page object, the
PageObjects library will try to find a generic page.
For example, if you use Current page should be Home Event and
there is no page object by that name, a generic Home page object
will be loaded, and its object name will be set to Event.
Let’s say your project has created a custom object named
Island. You don’t have a home page, but the object does have a
standard listing page. Without creating any page objects, this test
should work by using generic implementations of the Home and Listing
page objects:
*** Test Cases ***
Example test which uses generic page objects
# Go to the custom object home page, which should
# redirect to the listing page
Go To Page Home Islands
# Verify that the redirect happened
Current Page Should Be Listing Islands
CumulusCI provides the following generic page objects:
Detail(eg:Go to page Detail Contact ${contact id}) Detail pages refer to pages with a URL that matches the pattern “<host>/lightning/r/<object name>/<object id>/view”Home(eg:Go to page Home Contact) Home pages refer to pages with a URL that matches the pattern “<host>/lightning/o/<object name>/home”Listing(eg:Go to page Listing Contact) Listing pages refer to pages with a URL that matches the pattern “<host>b/lightning/o/<object name>/list”New(eg:Wait for modal New Contact) The New page object refers to the modal that pops up when creating a new object.
Of course, the real power comes when you create your own page object class which implements keywords which can be used with your custom objects.
Full Documentation¶
To see the full list of keywords and their descriptions for page objects, see the following sections in the keyword documentation:
CumulusCI Robot Tasks¶
CumulusCI includes several tasks for working with Robot Framework tests and keyword libraries:
robot: Runs Robot test suites. By default, recursively runs all tests located under the folderrobot/<project name>/tests/. Test suites can be overridden via thesuiteskeyword and variables inside robot files can be overridden using thevarsoption with the syntaxVAR:value(ex:BROWSER:firefox).robot_testdoc: Generates html documentation of your whole robot test suite and writes torobot/<project name>/doc/<project_name>.html.robot_lint: Performs static analysis of robot files (files with .robot and .resource), flagging issues that may reduce the quality of the code.robot_libdoc: This task can be wired up to generate library documentation if you choose to create a library of robot keywords for your project.
Configuring the robot task¶
The Robot Framework command-line test runner supports more than 50
command line options.
To make the robot task simpler to use, we’ve only exposed a few of the
command-line options at the task level. For example, the robot task
options include, exclude, and skip directly map to the Robot CLI
options --include, --exclude, and --skip. These options
are specified the same way as task options elsewhere in the CumulusCI framework,
using either command-line options as shown above or by including them in the options
section of a task configuration in cumulusci.yml:
tasks:
robot:
options:
include: <value>
Other Robot CLI
options, such as tagstatlink, expandkeywords, and
many others, have no direct task option counterpart.
There may be times when you want to use some of the Robot CLI
options which haven’t been exposed as task options. We support that through
an additional options section nested inside the typical task options in
cumulusci.yml.
For example, one of the most common uses of this inner options section is to
use the Robot CLI option --outputdir to specify where Robot should
write its report and log files. To configure this option
for the task, you must remove the leading dashes from the option name
and then place that option
and value in a nested options section.
tasks:
robot:
options:
options:
outputdir: robot/my_project/results
Any Robot CLI option which takes a value can be specified
this way. For example, to use the Robot CLI option --name along with
--outputdir, your cumulusci.yml file should look like
this:
tasks:
robot:
options:
options:
outputdir: robot/my_project/results
name: Salesforce Robot Tests
Configuring the libdoc task¶
If you have defined a Robot resource file named MyProject.resource and
placed it in the resources folder, you can add the following
configuration to your cumulusci.yml file in order to enable the
robot_libdoc task to generate documentation:
tasks:
robot_libdoc:
description: Generates HTML documentation for the MyProject Robot Framework Keywords
options:
path: robot/MyProject/resources/MyProject.resource
output: robot/MyProject/doc/MyProject_Library.html
You can generate documentation for more than one keyword file or
library by giving a comma-separated list of files for the path
option, or by defining path as a list in cumulusci.yml. In the
following example, documentation will be generated for MyLibrary.py
and MyLibrary.resource:
tasks:
robot_libdoc:
description: Generates HTML documentation for the MyProject Robot Framework Keywords
options:
path:
- robot/MyProject/resources/MyProject.resource
- robot/MyProject/resources/MyProject.py
output: robot/MyProject/doc/MyProject_Library.html
You can also use basic filesystem wildcards. For example,
to document all Robot files in robot/MyProject/resources you could
configure your YAML file like this:
tasks:
robot_libdoc:
description: Generates HTML documentation for the MyProject Robot Framework Keywords
options:
path: robot/MyProject/resources/*.resource
output: robot/MyProject/doc/MyProject_Library.html
Robot Directory Structure¶
When you use cci project init, it creates a folder named robot at the root of your repository. Immediately under that is a folder for your project Robot files. If your project depends on keywords from other projects, they would also be in the robot folder under their own project name.
MyProject/
├── robot
│ └── MyProject
│ ├── doc
│ ├── resources
│ ├── results
│ └── tests
With the project folder inside the robot folder are the following additional folders:
doc: the location where generated documentation will be placed.resources: this folder is where you can put your own keyword files. You can create robot keyword files (.resource or .robot) as well as keyword libraries (.py). For keyword files we recommend using the.resourcesuffix.results: this folder isn’t created by cci project init. Instead, it will automatically be created the first time you run your tests. It will contain all of the generated logs and screenshots.tests: this is where you should put your test suites. You are free to organize this however you wish, including adding subfolders.
Creating Project Tests¶
Like in the example above, all project tests live in .robot files stored under the robot/<project name>/tests/ directory in the project. You can choose how you want to structure the .robot files into directories by just moving the files around. Directories are treated by Robot as a parent test suite, so a directory named “standard_objects” would become the “Standard Objects” test suite.
The following document is recommended reading:
https://github.com/robotframework/HowToWriteGoodTestCases/blob/master/HowToWriteGoodTestCases.rst
Using Keywords and Tests from a Different Project¶
Much like you can use tasks and flows from a different
project, you can also use keywords and tests from other
projects. The keywords are brought into your repository the same way
as with tasks and flows, via the sources configuration option in
cumulusci.yml. However, they require a little extra configuration
before they can be used.
Note
This feature should not be used for general purpose sharing of keywords between multiple projects. This feature was designed specifically for the case where a product is being built on top of another project and needs access to product-specific keywords.
Using keywords¶
In order to use the resources from another project you must first
configure the robot task to use one of the sources that have been
defined for the project. To do this, add a sources option in
the robot task, and add to it the name of one of the imported sources.
For example, if your project is built on top of NPSP and you want to
use keywords from the NPSP project, you must first add the NPSP
repository as a source in the project’s cumulusci.yml:
sources:
npsp:
github: https://github.com/SalesforceFoundation/NPSP
release: latest_beta
You must then add npsp under the sources option for
the robot task. This is because the project as a whole may use tasks
or flows from multiple projects, but robot only needs keywords from a
single project.
tasks:
robot:
options:
sources:
- npsp
When the robot task runs, it adds the directory which contains the
code for the other repository to PYTHONPATH, which Robot uses when
resolving references to libraries and keyword files.
Once this configuration has been saved, you can import the resources
just as if you were in the NPSP repository. For example, in a project
which has been configured to use NPSP as a source, the following
example shows how NPSP.robot can be imported into a test suite:
*** Settings ***
Resource robot/Cumulus/resources/NPSP.robot
Note
Even with proper configuration, some keywords or keyword libraries might not be usable. You must be careful to not try to use files that have the exact same name in multiple repositories.
Running Tests¶
Running a test from another project requires prefixing the path to the test with the source name. The path needs to be relative to the root of the other repo.
For example, starting from the previous example, to run the
create_organization.robot test suite from NPSP, you would do it
with something like this:
$ cci task run robot -o suites npsp:robot/Cumulus/tests/browser/contacts_accounts/create_organization.robot