Roadmap 2024

SaaS

• Auto-scaling of Step Agents
• Single Sign-on for Step SaaS

DevOps and CI/CD

• Support of all Keyword types in Automation Packages
• Support more Automation Package types (i.e. archives, exploded folders…)
• Dedicated CLI for Automation Packages in addition to the maven plugin
• Improved support of Automation Package’s YAML descriptor in IDE
• Native reporting in CI/CD pipelines

Analytics & reporting

• Full redesign of the execution report views
• Automatic report generation
• Further development of the analytics dashboards

UI / UX

• Redesign of the visual plan editor
• Support mobile form factor for relevant views
• Customization of tables

Core

• Streaming of Keyword’s output and attachments
• WebSocket communication between controller and agents
• Controller and Agent Logs downloader
• Custom execution parameters per plan
• Replacement of the notification module

Plugins

• Embedded Playwright trace viewer
• Cypress video and multi browsers support
• Playwright keyword library
• Support of Selenide
• .NET agent upgrade to .NET 8

Roadmap 2023

SaaS

• Implement Single Sign-on for the Step SaaS and Enterprise [Postponed]
• Implement auto-scaling of Step Agents (required agents will start when initializing an execution) [Postponed]
• Add a Step wizard to easily create common scenarios [Completed]

DevOps and CI/CD

• Native integration with CI/CD pipelines (GitLab, etc) by providing a Maven plugin for Step. It will support following goals:
  • Automatically deploy keyword packages to a Step instance [Completed]
  • Trigger executions on a Step instance for Automation Packages available on an artifact repository [Postponed]
  • Directly deploy and run an Automation Packages on a Step instance [Completed]
• Native Git integration in Step: more details to come :) [Postponed]
• Support the definition of scheduled execution in Automation Packages [Completed]

Analytics & reporting

• Support full analytics based on RAW measurements and customs attributes [Completed]
• Automatic report generation with minimal customizations [Postponed]

Plugins / Community

• Implement plugin and keywords marketplace [Postponed]
• Extend and make our main keyword libraries available on the marketplace (Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, API automation…) [Postponed]

UI

• Refactoring of the execution view [Postponed]
• Improve Step UX (support multiple units for durations inputs, date picker for execution scheduling…) [Partially Completed]

Core

• Release the Step license server [Declined]
• Out of the box video recording on agents [Declined]

Documentation

• Better document the general features and key concepts (everything as code, CI/CD integration, etc…) [Completed]
• Add more tutorials, e.g. How to perform continuous performance testing with Step,… [Completed]

Roadmap 2022

Reached state as of Step 21 on 13/02/2023

Main 2022 features which were not part of the initial road map

• Access management: OpenID Connect integration added and LDAP integrations enhanced
• DevOps and CI/CD: Enhanced support for execution bundles (keywords and plans as code) for the Step Junit runner and CI/CD integration with the artefact repository
• Plugins automation: New integration plugin for Astra enabling no-code automation and for SikuliX for GUI-based automation

You will find an exhaustive list in the release notes

SaaS

• Add new type[s] of agents [Completed]
• Support main Step plugins (Azure DevOps, PDF and Image compare, JMeter, SoapUI and LogicFlow) [Postponed]
• Implement auto-scaling of Step Agents (required agents will start when initializing an execution) [Postponed]

Dashboarding & analytics

• Extension of reporting functionalities (e.g. generation of reports, comparison of executions) [Completed]
• Rework of embedded visualization and analytics framework [Completed]
• Implement anomalies detection and alerting for continuous performance testing & synthetic monitoring [On-hold]

Plugins / Community

• Implement plugin and keywords market place [Postponed]
• Integrate with Jira X-Ray [Completed]
• Improve cypress plugin [Completed]

UI

• Improve usability of the visual plan editor [Completed]
  • More intuitive keyword call form (customizable form, provide available inputs with default values…)
  • Enhance UX to design plans
  • Improve controls to simplify the plans
• Rework of the execution view [In progress]
• Improve Step UX (support multiple units for durations inputs, date picker for execution scheduling…) [Postponed]
• Migration to angular; overall redesign of the UI [In progress]

Core

• Support versioning of Step entities such as plans and parameters [Completed]
• Support additional JSON databases [Completed]
• Enhance the Step keyword API [Completed]

Administration

• Move relevant configuration items from file to the UI [Postponed]
• Add Possibility to retrieve settings and logs from the UI [Postponed]

Documentation

• Tutorials:
• How to setup large scale on-demand test automation project with Step [Completed]
• How to perform continuous performance testing with Step [In progress]
• How to perform synthetic availability & performance monitoring with Step [Completed]

Roadmap 2021

Reached state as of Step 3.18

Cloud

• New cloud offering of Step as Kubernetes app on Google Cloud Market place [Declined]
• Auto-scaling of Step Agents in Kubernetes [Declined]
• Public Helm chart for Step OS [Declined]

Dashboarding & analytics

• Deep rework of existing dashboards (improved configurability, user-friendliness and look&feel) [Completed]
• Extension of reporting functionalities (e.g. generation of reports, better exporting) [Postponned]
• Integration with Grafana and Grafana Dashboards on central repository [Completed]
• Integration with Prometheus and TimescaleDB [Completed]
• Integration with JDBC and log ingestion pipelines (logstash, splunk, etc) [Completed]

UI

• Further improvements of the visual plan editor [Completed]
• Plan refactoring features (find Keyword usage, batch operations, etc) [Completed]
• Bi-directionality between plain text plan and visual plan editors [Partially completed]
• Improvement of tables (filtering, multi-selection, etc) [Completed]
• Design and prototyping of STEP 4.0 with complete redesign of the UI [Completed]

Core

• Redesign of the controller for enhanced scalability [Completed]
• Support and documentation of REST APIs [Completed]
• Protection (encryption) of sensitive business parameters (SUT passwords, etc) [Completed]

Documentation

• Tutorials:
• How to setup large scale on-demand test automation project with Step [Completed]
• How to perform end-to-end load & performance testing with Step and Selenium [Completed]
• How to perform continuous performance testing with Step [Postponed]
• How to perform synthetic availability & performance monitoring with Step [Completed]

Roadmap 2020

Reached state as of Step 3.15

Step Core

• Deep improving ergonomy and out-of-the-box end-user, dev & admin support [Completed]
• Redesign of the execution reporting views [Partially completed]
• Change tracking of entities in STEP UI [Completed]
• Additional analytics capability and new dashboards [Completed]
• REST API enhancement [Completed]

CI/CD

• Managed executions and stateless controller [Completed]
• Deep exports/imports of entity bundles [Completed]
• Testing SDK [Completed]

Performance testing

• Performance testing specific assertions [Completed]
• Continuous performance testing support [Completed]
• New performance testing controls [Completed]
• Extended performance test dashboards [Completed]
• API for automatic performance test reporting [Dropped]

Integration plugins

• Azure devops integration [Completed]
• Extension of the Jira Zephyr support [Completed]

Step Libraries & Samples

• Extension of the Step Library [Completed]

Roadmap 2019

Reached state as of Step 3.12

Step Core

• Project overview dashboard + labeling and/or coloring of executions in executions list [Completed]
• Cloud-ready interface (resource upload via drag & drop and resource manager) [Completed]
• Artefacts publication in Maven, NuGet, npm [Completed]
• Batch keyword import via Annotation detection (@Keyword) [Completed]
• Improved bundling (export & import of all Step objects, including keywords) [Completed]
• Keyword API decoupling / externalization [Completed]
• New documentation in the form of a modern knowledge base + case studies, white papers, etc [Completed]
• New error visualization tab in execution view [Completed]
• Applicative Logout feature [Completed]
• Google Sheets as dataset [Completed]

Ops & Administration

• Business-aware housekeeping (deletion of specific executions & related objects, drop all except..) [Completed]
• Admin view improvements [Completed]
• Self-monitoring (first via add-on tutorial, then built-in directly) [Completed]
• Moving config files to db [Partially completed]
• Placeholder support in remaining config files [Declined]

Monitoring

• Scheduler-based monitoring view: provides an overview of the execution status of each job [Completed]
• User-customizable dashboarding [Completed]
• Notifications plugin [Completed]
• Cron presets for common use cases [Completed]

Performance testing

• Performance report & dashboard with throughput, error rate, avg response times table, response time overview & error breakdown [Completed]
• Better RTM integration & dashboarding capability [Completed]

Plugins

• Major refactoring of .NET agent with library transfer support, logging, PDB’s, timeouts and improved exceptions management [Completed]
• Monitoring view for Event Broker [Completed]
• Improved PDF file transfer in PDF comparison plugin [Completed]
• On-the-fly report synchronization with ALM [Completed]

Downloadable Bundles

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 keywords package & tutorial [Completed]
• Android & Appium keywords package & tutorial [Completed]
• AutoIt & Office integration keywords & tutorial [Completed]
• exense’s internal Selenium toolkit [Completed]

Roadmap 2018

Evaluation

Evaluation done as of March 31st

Goal	Completion %	Comment/Reason	EE only
Devops/CI/CD
Common test plan format	80	Step Natural Language + PlanBuilder released. Only missing code or at least unit test generation for local debugging
New classes for client-side triggers	100	“STEPClient” released	X
Mobile
Ability to test Android apps & browser	100	Accomplished Java agent + Appium, also offered as a Cloud service
Appium integration	100	Tested and now officially supported. No need for a dedicated plugin though.
HTTP
HAR Replay	30	Achieved at a client, not officially integrated or supported yet. Official HTTP keywords offered as an alternative
Custom script generation	0	Abandoned for now. If anything happens in this department, it’ll be through the HAR replay(er).
OOTB support of SSL contexts	90	Provided via our official HTTP keyword package. Just not officially released/OS’ed yet, but in use at clients.
Gatling & co	0	Not a high priority at this point.
Keyword dev
Helper classes	60	In use internally and at some clients, not officially released yet.
API Refactoring	70	Major improvements have been done. Inputs & Outputs still expected to change. API has now be desync’d from STEP for easier maintenance
Starter kits	100	Sample projects implemented
Javadocs	100
Plans dev
Generic keywords	80	Mecanism implemented. Done in EE for broker, in progress for HTTP	X
Plan templates	100	Available for import under Libraries in our docs
Refactoring of artefacts & new artefacts	100
Previous KW output reference	100
Init hooks	0	Can be handled in other ways, low prio
Ops
Export/Import	100	Done for Plans
Data retention strategy	100	Done but can be improved
Admin view improvements	0	Could not do in time.
Self-Monitoring	50	Not published yet but new features in use as beta version at key clients.
Misc
Doc refactoring & migration	60	Should be released by May
Github status & widget	0	Low prio.
Artefact publication in Maven	0	Low prio.
Not in roadmap but done anyways
Resource manager	100
Notifications	100
Pupeteer	100
Async support	100
& much more (see release notes)…

Initial Roadmap

Additional DevOps-oriented functionality

• Introduction of a common format for test plans (with translation between Java code and persisted plans in the web app) to enable wider cross-practice collaboration
• Introduction of new client classes providing client-side triggers, remote test plan execution and remote keyword execution to provide developers with more flexibility, facilitate integration with build processes and allow developers to commit test plans as part of their projects

Mobile testing support

• Support of both native mobile applications and mobile-based browsers (as a simulation and on real devices)
• Integration with popular mobile testing frameworks, preferably based on the WebDriver API such as Appium (Selendroid a possibility)

Avanced HTTP Plugins

• Support of HAR replays
• Custom script generation
• Out of the box support of SSL contexts
• Possible integration with additional HTTP frameworks such as Gatling (to complete the existing library: JMeter, Grinder and SoapUI)

Easier keyword development

• Exposure of frequently used Helper classes for keyword input / output management and error handling
• API refactoring (including the replacement the javax json library)
• Publication of starter kits and examples of best practices for the most common types of projects
• Publication of detailed Javadocs and source jars

Easier test plan development

• Introduction of generic keywords for the most common technical use cases and out-of-the-box support of standard protocols (htttp/s, ftp/s, etc) without having to use any plugins (grinder, jmeter, etc)
• Introduction of test plan templates for the most common use cases (data-driven, load and monitoring scenarios)
• Refactoring of key artefacts such as “Set”, “Composite” KWs or “CallFunction” and introduction of new artefacts in order to enhance test plan modularity and reusability
• Automatic access to previous keyword outputs for finer linkage
• Addition of various Init/Pre and Exit/Post hooks, destined to be used primarily in parallel artefacts (For, ForEach, ThreadGroup), as a first step toward the support of a jointpoint-style Test plan API

New operational features

• Introduction of one-click import and export for most objects (in particular Test plans and Executions)
• Introduction of data retention strategies
• Enhancements in the admin view to publish all of the internal technical information (controller + agents)
• Self-monitoring (at system, middleware and client code levels)

Misc.

• Migration, refactoring and update of the documentation
• Improved project status on github (nightly buildwidget)
• Direct artefact publication to the Maven Central repo

Roadmap 2017

Evaluation

No thorough evaluation of the 2017 roadmap took place but most of the features have been shipped in v3.5 and v3.6. Roadmap was still very much subject to major changes and pretty volatile as of early 2017.

Initial Roadmap

• Plan export & import
• NodeJS agent
• New artefacts: While, Assert, Synchronized
• JSON schemas for keyword input validation and input keys autofill
• Add “previous” object reference to access the output of the last completed Keyword call
• Interactive Test Plan Sessions
• Autoclose on Session end and test end