Categories: USER GUIDE KEYWORDS

Keywords

This section will focus on registering and using already-developed keywords. To learn how to develop a keyword, check the Developer guide overview.

What is a Keyword?

Keywords in Step are the fundamental building blocks of Plans. They encapsulate the automation logic (often called scripts). They can represent fully automated flows or finer-grained actions, such as user interactions or service calls. Employing finer granularity is generally preferred as it enhances reusability across multiple business flows through Plans.

Keywords receive inputs and generate corresponding outputs. These outputs can then serve as input entities for other Keywords, facilitating a seamless transfer of values. By defining data or objects in the input and output fields, Keywords enable fluid data flow, reusability, and assertion functionality.

Keyword types

Step supports many Keyword types. Following types are supportof Keyword available:

Plugin-based Keywords

Step integrates with other products through plugin-based keywords. These keywords enable seamless integration with external tools or frameworks. Depending of the edition of Step used, following keywords types are supported:

  • Cypress: A keyword for running Cypress commands. See the Cypress plugin guide.
  • SoapUI: A keyword for executing a SoapUI project. See our SoapUI plugin guide.
  • JMeter: A keyword used to execute a JMeter Test Plan. See JMeter plugin guide.
  • Grafana K6: Open source tool for Performance testing. See the Grafana K6 guide.
  • QF-Test: A keyword representing the execution of a QF-Test test suite.
  • Oryon: A keyword representing the execution of an Oryon keyword.
  • Astra: Enables fast and intuitive automation of web application using a no-code approach. See the Astra plugin guide.
  • SikuliX: Open source tool for UI automation. See the SikuliX plugin guide.
  • Silk Performer: A Load testing tool by openText. See the Silk Performer guide.
  • PDF Test: A keyword designed for comparing PDF documents. See our PDF and Image compare plugin guide.

To access a comprehensive list of all the supported plugins, please refer to the Plugin section.

Custom Keywords

In addition to the out-of-the-box integration of common automation tools, Step supports the implementation of custom keywords. These language-based keyword types allow specifying the programming language used for developing the routines. Some examples include:

  • Script: These Keywords execute on Java agents, enabling you to write them in:
    • Java using the keyword API.
    • Groovy directly in the Step Web UI. You might find some Groovy code samples that can be wrapped into Keywords in our library.
    • Javascript can be written directly on the Step Web UI.
  • NodeJS: This type of Keywords are executed on NodeJS agents. Check the related plugin documentation for more details.
  • .Net: This type of keywords are C# based functions and are executed on .NET agents. The detailed documentation is available under the corresponding plugin section and is illustrated in the .Net tutorials: AutoIt with step.

Composite Keywords

Composite keywords are essential for creating modular and organized execution suites. They act as logical keywords and contain references to other keywords based on the same functionality as a plan. Some benefits of using composite keywords include:

  • Alias for Keyword Groups: Composite keywords provide an alias for groups of keywords that are frequently executed together. This simplifies the execution process and improves code maintainability.
  • Encapsulation of Specific Cases: Composite keywords allow wrapping a keyword with a specific set of inputs and output checks, isolating a specific case into its own keyword.

Composite keywords also have their own control, called Return, which enables outputting values similar to other keyword types.

Local functions

Step automation includes a set of default local functions that can be used as keywords out of the box. These local functions include:

  • PDF_compare: A generic keyword for comparing PDF documents.
  • EBC_Put, EBC_Peek, and EBC_Get**: Basic Keywords for putting and retrieving events from the Event Broker (available for enterprise users with a dedicated license).
  • InsertMeasurement: A keyword is used for inserting arbitrary transaction measurements from a Plan instead of from the keyword’s code.

These local functions provide convenient and commonly used functionalities that can be utilized within automation Plans.

By leveraging keywords in Step automation, developers can enhance reusability, maintainability, and modularity in their automation projects.

See Also