The Visual plan editor is the most basic and straight-forward way to create a Plan in Step. When using the Visual interface, you create your Plan in a code-free intuitive editor that gives instant access to the libraries of available Keywords and Controls. Using the Visual interface makes it possible to create a Plan in an intuitive manner without technical skills and prior knowledge of Step. It is also well-suited for complex automation plans which require a visual representation of the Plan. Alternatives to the Visual plan editor are listed here.

Creation

To create a new Plan using the Visual editor, log into the web interface of Step, navigate to Plans, then click on the “New Plan” button in the Plan view:

On the New Plan dialog, you need to select the Plan type of for the root node of your Plan. By default, Sequence is selected which is suitable in most cases. For classical automation scenarios, Step comes along with specific controls that add some specific features when used as root node of the Plan. Depending on your scenario, the following Plan types might be selected as root:

• Functional test case: TestCase
• Functional test set (a set of test cases): TestSet
• Load test scenario: TestScenario
• Monitoring test case: TestCase

Please refer to the plans page for a comprehensive list of available controls

Edition

When creating a new Plan or opening an existing Plan, you will be redirected to the Plan editor. The Plan editor is structured as follow:

Plan tree

On the left side of the editor the Plan tree is displayed. There you can interact with the nodes of the tree either using the top buttons, drag and drop gesture, “right-click” context menu or keyboard shortcuts.

The available operations are:

• select (left click): displays the details of the node in the middle part of the editor
• move: reorganizes the structure of your tree
  • Drag & Drop: Move nodes to any other node. Hint: Drag your node over another node you want it to be on the same level
  • Move up/down (ctrl + up/down): Moved the selected node one up or down. Note: When the node is the first or last child and is moved one further it will go one level left
  • Move left/right (ctrl + left/right): Moves the selected node one level left/right. When moving left the node is placed under the current parent, when moving right it is placed into the node over it
  • Move into (ctrl + shift + up/down): Same as Move right, but you can select if the node should be placed in the one over or under it
• copy-paste (ctrl + c / v): Copies a node. You may paste the copied node into another plan given that you stay on the same browser tab
• delete (delete): removes the selected node from the plan
• rename (F2): renames the node
• open (ctrl + o): opens corresponding editor if any (i.e. for called plans and composite). Can also be triggered via double click
• disable/enable (ctrl + e): disables the execution of this specific node and its children

These operations can also be applied on multiple nodes at the same time. To select multiple nodes, hold the control (Ctrl) key down to select the nodes one by one or use the shift key for a range selection.

Node edition

When selecting a node in the plan tree, the details of the node are displayed in the middle part of the editor.

Component library

On the right side of the editor, access is given to the three types of libraries, which are:

• Controls: listing the available Controls
• Keywords: listing the registered Keywords
• Other Plans: listing all Plans, can be referenced to build modular Plans

You can add nodes by clicking the + buttons of the components shown in the different library tabs. They will then be added to the currently selected insert node (white icon background with blue circle) of the plan tree. Then, using the drag and drop function, or the ctrl+arrow button shortcuts, you can reorganize nodes and place them in the order that you want.

Select multiple keywords or plans by clicking the bulk-selection checkboxes in the library tabs and add them with the + button directly under the tab-bar.

Node common properties

All nodes share the following common properties:

• Name (1): used to define the name of the node.
  • This name is used by the tree view and for the generation of report nodes during the test executions
  • This name can be set dynamically using the groovy “lightning” toggle
• Description (2): optional field used to described the current node
• Instrument (3): If a node is instrumented its execution time will be measured and a performance measurement will be produced after each execution of the node. The resulting performance measurements can be visualized on the performance tab of the execution view. The node name is used as the measurement name.
• Skip node execution (4): toggle to disable the execution of this specific node (and its child)
• Continue execution of parent element on error (5): defines if the execution of the parent sequence should continue if the node fails. Per default, the execution of the sequence will stop in case of any error

Undo, redo, and discard your changes

Using the top-level buttons on the visual Plan editor or plain text plan editor, it is possible to undo or redo a single modification that you performed while working on a Plan:

It is also possible to discard all the changes you performed on a Plan to retrieve its “initial” state by clicking on the “Discard all” button:

Execution

To execute your plan, click on the play button located on the top of the editor. You will then be prompted for the start parameters. Per default there’s only one start parameter configured: Environment. The list of available start parameters can be extended and fully customized. Once the start parameters are selected you have to choose the execution mode. Three execution modes are available as shown in the following screenshot.

• Simulation: When running a Plan in the simulation mode, the plan is executed normally up to Keywords. In this mode Keywords aren’t executed but only “simulated” which means that they will be reported as PASSED with an empty output. This mode can be used to check the global execution flow of the Plan before executing it.
• Execution: This is the normal execution mode. In this mode both the plan and the keywords are executed.
• Scheduling: With this button you can schedule your plan to run it later or regularly.

Debugging (interactive session)

You can debug a Plan and run it step by step using the interactive session of the visual plan editor. To start an interactive session click on the button Start interactive session located next to the Export button.

Once the interactive session is active, you can run each node by selecting it and clicking on the “Run interactively” button.

Export

You can export and download a Plan from the Visual Plan Editor using the button Export located on the top of the editor. The plan is exported as a Step archive (sta) file which can be reimported in the same instance or another instance of Step. To import a Plan, navigate to Plans, click the import button on the top of the table, drag & drop the export file (artefact_export.json) and click the OK button. You should find the freshly imported Plan in the Plan list.

More details can be found on the dedicated page for Import and Export