PowerBuilder Testing

PowerBuilder is a popular rapid application development framework used to build Windows-based desktop applications. Several client-server applications used in critical business processes as well as ERPs use PowerBuilder to display complex datasets in an intuitive GUI form. A key component of a PowerBuilder is an object called DataWindow, which provides developers a standard way of creating, editing and displaying data form a database.  

PowerBuilder applications are highly customizable with rich user interfaces, which makes automation very difficult. TestComplete, however, provides out-of-the-box native support for PowerBuilder applications making it easy to automate end to end workflows.  

The TestComplete object recognition engine can uniquely identify every object in the PowerBuilder UI for both Class and .NET PowerBuilder applications, including buttons, input fields, combo boxes, tabs, grids, lists, radio buttons, and check boxes. When an object is dynamic - for example, its identification criteria changes each time the application is launched - TestComplete automatically leverages a built-in self-healing capability that finds the correct object using a powerful mix of Artificial Intelligence and image recognition. Customers also see value in using our OCR capability to find text-based objects on the screen. TestComplete also stores each object in a repository that is independent of your test. This further helps you maintain your framework effectively as your test suite scales. For more technical information on how we work with PowerBuilder Classic or .NET applications, please click here.

Automating any workflow in a PowerBuilder application using TestComplete is simple! You simply navigate through the application as a real user would and TestComplete will automatically record all actions in a keyword test. No coding is required! Data driving your tests is essential to ensure that you have adequate test coverage; TestComplete enables you to easily link your tests to excel sheets or csv files through simple drag and drop interfaces. If you are comfortable writing scripts, you can use JavaScript, Python or VBScript, for more complex use cases. Once your testing is complete, you will receive detailed reports with screenshots of every test run. 

TestComplete enables you to easily reuse components across different modules. This helps create an efficient testing process that can scale across the enterprise. You can define modules based on functionality, categories, or business workflows and then reuse those tests to create a robust automation framework.   

TestComplete integrates fully with Azure Test Plans so you can easily link your manual test cases to your automation suite with just a couple of clicks. Further, you can run your tests in Azure Pipelines to enable a Continuous Integration workflow. You can foster teamwork by integrating with Git source control from right within TestComplete.