Spotlight on Rapise 7.0 - New Spira Dashboard

June 28th, 2021 by Adam Sandman

Two of the major features in our most recent release of Rapise are the completely overhauled Spira Dashboard and the new support for handling the bane of test automation engineers everywhere - flaky tests! In this article we shed some light on the new dashboard in Rapise 7.0.

Understanding the New Spira Dashboard

Before we look at the new Spira Dashboard and how it works, first lets take a trip back in time to the original Spira Dashboard:

The original dashboard let you connect Rapise to Spira and display a list of the test cases and test sets in the current project that were either assigned to the current user or were assigned to the automation host that Rapise was running on. However, it was a bit cumbersome to use and had lots of separate boxes and sections. In addition, it used the older Spira SOAP API and was relatively slow to navigate and display content. With those limitations in mind, with the launch of Rapise 7.0 we now have a completely new Spira dashboard:

The new Spira Dashboard has a completely new user interface and style that more closely mirrors the 6.x version of Spira.

The new Spira Dashboard has a fast, easy to use navigation bar that lets you change Spira product as well as access the different parts of the dashboard in one click.

The dashboard contains top level menu to switch between views and a dropdown to switch between products/projects. There is also a button to refresh data and search field to filter data in the current view. Filtering is applied to a column with orange caption (usually Name).

Data Tables

In many cases first column of a data table contains ID of an item in Spira. You may click an ID to open the corresponding item in a browser window.

Each data table has a menu opener (hamburger) located in the top right corner. The menu contains some predefined filters and also allows you to display the filter row and choose which columns to show. Clicking a column caption turns on sorting.

Hierarchical Tables

The Plus icon in a table row means that it can be expanded. Click the icon to reveal the row details. It may contain more data tables.

Tree View

Test cases and test sets may be placed into folders in Spira. The dashboard will load and display the folder hierarchy. To navigate it click on the folder icons.

Actions

Some tables include an Action column. It allows the user to perform certain actions on an item displayed in the row when the Action menu is expanded.

Specific Dashboard Features

Here is the list of tasks you may accomplish with the new Spira Dashboard:

Connect To Spira

If you did not connect Rapise to Spira yet, you will be prompted to enter the connection info.

Assign Automation Host Token

If you did not assign an automation host token to the machine where Rapise is running you may do it in Automation Hosts view. You may even create a new host there.

Dashboard View

Browse Framework Tests

The dashboard view shows tests included in the currently opened test framework (parent test and it's sub-tests).

View Test Runs in Progress

View test runs that are in progress right now.

View Pending Test Runs for This Host

View tests that are scheduled to run on the local host for the next 24 hours.

Setup Custom Properties

Some features of the dashboard require aditional custom properties to exist in Test Cases, Test Sets and Test Runs. Click Create Custom Properties for Rapise button to add the following custom properties in the selected project:

Test Cases
- Flaky (boolean, default is false)
Test Runs
- Flaky (boolean, default is false)
- Run attempt (integer, default is 1)
Test Sets
- Max rerun attempts (integer, default is 0)
- Do not rerun if N tests failed (integer, default is 0)
- Record videos (boolean, default is false)
- Verbose level (integer, default is 1)
- GitUrl, GitUser, GitPassword (string, empty by default)

Clicking the button more than once is safe. If a custom property exists - Rapise won't create a duplicate. To create the custom properties you will need to enter administrator credentials (user name and API Key).

Perform Test Actions

Action menu for a test allows to

Open the test in Rapise
Link the test to a test case in Spira

Pending Test Runs View

This view displays scheduled test runs that must be executed within next 24 hours.

Test Cases View

Browse Test Cases

In the test cases view one may see the tree of test cases for a project, discover when a test case was last executed and status of execution.

View Test Case Details

Expanding a test case reveals last 10 runs of it. The details pane also shows test case parameters and custom properties (editable).

Perform Test Case Actions

Action menu for a test case allows to

Immediately Execute the test case on the local host.
Execute the test case on a selected Automation Host. It will run as soon as RapiseLauncher on that host is ready.
Mark the test case as Flaky or remove the flag.
Add default parameters to the test case. The list of default parameters includes:
- g_verboseLevel = 1
- g_enableVideoRecording = false

Note

For execution of a test case on a selected automation host (#2) - Rapise will use a special test set with the name of the automation host.

Create New Test Case

If you want to create a test case in a specific folder - select corresponding row in the table, otherwise the test case will be created in the root folder. Click the New Test Case button at the bottom of the view and provide necessary details in the opened modal dialog.

Test Sets View

Browse Test Sets

In the test sets view one may see the tree of test sets for a project, discover when a test set was last executed and status of execution.

View Test Set Details

Expanding a test set reveals the list of included test cases. The details pane also shows test set parameters and custom properties (editable).

Add Test Cases

Press Add Test Cases to open the test cases tree, select test cases and append them to the test set.

Reorder Test Cases

Using hamburger icon next to a test case ID one may reorder test cases in a test set.

Perform Test Set Actions

Action menu for a test set allows to

Immediately Execute the test set on the local host.
Execute the test set on a selected Automation Host. It will run as soon as RapiseLauncher on that host is ready.
Rerun just failed test cases on a selected Automation Host.

Note

For execution of a test set on a selected automation host (#2,#3) Rapise will use a special test set with the name of the automation host.

Create New Test Set

If you want to create a test set in a specific folder - select corresponding row in the table, otherwise the test set will be created in the root folder. Click the New Test Set button at the bottom of the view and provide necessary details in the opened modal dialog.

Test Runs View

Browse Test Runs

This view shows most recent test run reports. One may see test run status and execution time and duration. If a test run is failed - Details column displays the first error message.

View Test Run Details

Expanding a test run reveals the report with execution status for every test step. The details pane also contains links to download test run attachments and execution log.