In this tutorial, we will discuss running the tests parallelly in the Robot Framework. To run the tests parallelly, we need to have pabot installed on the machine. Pabot is a parallel test runner for Robot Framework. It can be used to run tests in parallel on a single machine with multiple processes.
What is Parallel Testing?
Parallel testing is an automated testing process that allows developers and testers to run numerous tests against various real-world device combinations and browser setups at the same time. Parallel testing aims to solve time restrictions by distributing tests across available resources.
For example, if 20 test cases take 100 minutes to complete, 10 parallel execution might run 2 test cases each, reducing overall testing time to 10 minutes.
Prerequisite:
- Install Python
- Install PIP
- Install Robot Framework
- Install Robot framework Selenium Library
- Install PyCharm IDE
Please refer to this tutorial to install Robot Framework – How to install and setup Robot Framework for Python.
Implementation Steps:
Step 1.1 – Open PyCharm and create a new project. Go to File and select New Project from the main menu.
Step 1.2 – Choose the project location. Click the “Browse” button next to the Location field and specify the directory for your project.
Deselect the Create a main.py welcome script checkbox because you will create a new Python file for this tutorial.
Click on the “Create” Button.
Step 1.3 – A new dialog appears asking to open the project using any one of the given options. I have selected New Window as I like to have separate windows for each project.
Below is the image of the new project created in PyCharms.
Step 2 – Download pabot plugin
Go to command prompt and run the below mentioned command to download pabot:
pip install -U robotframework-pabot
Step 3 – Add pabot package to the PyCharms
Go to File->Settings ->Project:RobotFramework_Demo ->Python Interpreter.
Click on the “+” sign and enter pabot in the search bar. It will show a list of packages. Select the “robotframework-pabot” package and click on the “Install Package”.
Once the package is installed, we will see the message that the package is installed successfully.
Once the package is installed, it can be seen under the package list as shown below:
Click the “Apply” and “OK” button.
Step 4 – Create 3 new directories in the new project
Right-Click on the project, select New->Directory, and provide the name as TestCases, Drivers, and Resources
Below is the image of the new directories.
Step 5 – Download ChromeBinaries and place them in the Drivers directory
This directory contains the browser binary in it. As we are using Chrome, will keep chromedriver.exe here.
The tests are going to use the Chrome browser, so we need to download the ChromeBinaries to open a blank browser in Chrome.
https://chromedriver.chromium.org/
I will rename chromedriver.exe to Chrome.
Step 6 – Create Test Files
This directory contains multiple test case files consisting of test steps.
Right-click on the new directory and select New File and provide the name as LoginPageTests.robot and ForgetPasswordTests.robot as shown below:
Below is the code for LoginPageTests.robot
*** Settings ***
Documentation Tests to login to Login Page
Library SeleniumLibrary
Test Setup Open the Browser with URL
Test Teardown Close Browser Session
Resource ../Resources/GenericResources.robot
Resource ../Resources/LoginResources.robot
Resource ../Resources/DashboardResources.robot
*** Test Cases ***
Validate Unsuccessful Login using invalid credentials
LoginResources.Fill the login form ${valid_username} ${invalid_password}
LoginResources.Verify the error message is correct
Validate Unsuccessful Login for blank username
LoginResources.Fill the login form ${blank_username} ${valid_password}
LoginResources.Verify the error message is displayed for username
Validate Unsuccessful Login for blank password
LoginResources.Fill the login form ${valid_username} ${blank_password}
LoginResources.Verify the error message is displayed for password
Validate successful Login
LoginResources.Fill the login form ${valid_username} ${valid_password}
DashboardResources.Verify Dashboard page opens
Below is the code for ForgetPasswordTests.robot
*** Settings ***
Documentation Tests to validate Forgot Your Password Page functionality
Library SeleniumLibrary
Test Setup Open the Browser with URL
Test Teardown Close Browser Session
Resource ../Resources/GenericResources.robot
Resource ../Resources/LoginResources.robot
Resource ../Resources/ForgetPasswordResources.robot
*** Test Cases ***
Validate Reset Password Functionality
LoginResources.Go to Forgot Your Password Page
ForgetPasswordResources.Verify Forgot Your Password Page opens
ForgetPasswordResources.Fill the Forgot Password Page
ForgetPasswordResources.Verify the message
Validate Cancel Functionality
LoginResources.Go to Forgot Your Password Page
ForgetPasswordResources.Verify Forgot Your Password Page opens
ForgetPasswordResources.Cancel the Reset Password
ForgetPasswordResources.Verify that Login Page is displayed
Step 7 – Create Resources file for each page
It maintains the files which contain page elements as well as corresponding keywords.
Right-click on the new directory and select New File and provide the name as LoginResources.robot, DashboardResources.robot, GenericResources.robot, and ForgetPasswordResources.robot as shown below:
GenericResources.robot contains the keywords that are common to all the tests, like the opening of the browser or closing of the browser.
*** Settings ***
Documentation A resource file with reusable keywords and variables.
Library SeleniumLibrary
*** Variables ***
${valid_username} Admin
${valid_password} admin123
${invalid_username} 1234
${invalid_password} 45678
${blank_username}
${blank_password}
${url} https://opensource-demo.orangehrmlive.com/web/index.php/auth/login
${browser_name} Chrome
*** Keywords ***
Open the Browser with URL
Create Webdriver ${browser_name} executable_path=/Vibha_Personal/RobotFramework_Demo/drivers/${browser_name}
Go To ${url}
Maximize Browser Window
Set Selenium Implicit Wait 5
Close Browser Session
Close Browser
Below is the code for LoginResources.robot
*** Settings ***
Documentation All the page objects and keywords of landing page
Library SeleniumLibrary
*** Variables ***
${login_error_message} css:.oxd-alert-content--error
${dashboard_title} css:.oxd-topbar-header-breadcrumb-module
${missing_username_error_message} xpath://*[@class='oxd-form']/div[1]/div/span
${missing_password_error_message} xpath://*[@class='oxd-form']/div[2]/div/span
${forgot_password_link} xpath://div[@class='orangehrm-login-forgot']/p
*** Keywords ***
Fill the login form
[Arguments] ${username} ${password}
Input Text css:input[name=username] ${username}
Input Password css:input[name=password] ${password}
Click Button css:.orangehrm-login-button
Verify the error message is correct
Element Text Should Be ${login_error_message} Invalid credentials
Verify the error message is displayed for username
Element Text Should Be ${missing_username_error_message} Required
Verify the error message is displayed for password
Element Text Should Be ${missing_password_error_message} Required
Go to Forgot Your Password Page
Click Element ${forgot_password_link}
Below is the code for DashboardResources.robot
*** Settings ***
Documentation All the page objects and keywords of Dashboard page
Library SeleniumLibrary
*** Variables ***
${dashboard_title} css:.oxd-topbar-header-breadcrumb-module
*** Keywords ***
Verify Dashboard page opens
Element Text Should Be ${dashboard_title} Dashboard
Below is the code for ForgetPasswordResources.robot
*** Settings ***
Documentation All the page objects and keywords of Forget Password page
Library SeleniumLibrary
*** Variables ***
${forgot_page_title} css:.orangehrm-forgot-password-title
${username} css:.oxd-input--active
${reset_btn} css:.orangehrm-forgot-password-button--reset
${cancel_btn} css:.orangehrm-forgot-password-button--cancel
${reset_message} xpath://div[@class='orangehrm-card-container']/h6
${login_page_title} xpath://*[@class='orangehrm-login-slot']/h5
*** Keywords ***
Verify Forgot Your Password Page opens
Element Text Should Be ${forgot_page_title} Reset Password
Fill the Forgot Password Page
Input Text ${username} abc@gmail.com
Click Button ${reset_btn}
Verify the message
Element Text Should Be ${reset_message} Reset Password link sent successfully
Cancel the Reset Password
Click Button ${cancel_btn}
Verify that Login Page is displayed
Element Text Should Be ${login_page_title} Login
All the below-mentioned keywords are derived from SeleniumLibrary. The functionality of keywords mentioned above:
1. Create Webdriver − The keyword creates an instance of Selenium WebDriver.
2. Go To – This keyword navigates the current browser window to the provided URL.
3. Maximize Browser Window – This keyword maximizes the current browser window.
4. Set Selenium Implicit Wait – This keyword sets the implicit wait value used by Selenium.
5. Input Text − This keyword is used to type the given text in the specified textbox identified by the locator name:username.
6. Input Password – This keyword is used to type the given text in the specified password identified by the locator name:password.
The difference compared to Input Text is that this keyword does not log the given password on the INFO level.
7. Click button – This keyword is used to click the button identified by the locator. In this case, it is “Login” button.
8. Element Text Should Be – This keyword is used to verify that the current page contains the exact text identified by the locator. Here, we are checking the exact text “Invalid Credentials”.
These keywords are present in SeleniumLibrary. To know more about these keywords, please refer to this document – https://robotframework.org/SeleniumLibrary/SeleniumLibrary.htm.
To run this script, go to the command line and go to directory tests.
Step 8 – Split execution to suite files
We need the below command to run the Robot Framework script. This will start all the test suites parallelly. We have 2 test files, so they started parallelly.
pabot .
The output of the above program is
Step 9 – View Report and Log
We have the test case passed. The Robot Framework generates log.html, output.xml, and report.html by default.
Let us now see the report and log details.
Report
Right-click on report.html. Select Open In->Browser->Chrome(any browser of your wish).
The Report generated by the framework is shown below:
Log
Robot Framework has multiple log levels that control what is shown in the automatically generated log file. The default Robot Framework log level is INFO.
Right-click on log.html. Select Open In->Browser->Chrome(any browser of your wish).
Step 10 – Split execution on test level
In this case, the tests present in a test file will be executed parallelly.
pabot --testlevelsplit LoginPageTests.robot
The below image shows that all the tests present in LoginPageTests.robot file started parallelly.
The below report shows that all the tests are started simultaneously.
That’s it! Congratulations on making it through this tutorial and hope you found it useful! Happy Learning!!
QA Automation Expert 