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The Task Maintenance window is a very powerful component of Qualibrate that allows the user to adapt/maintain the flows for smooth execution. This is done by configuring the actions and managing the properties of the used objects.

The Task Maintenance window can be opened:

• During recording
• During execution

In the first situation, the Task Maintenance window is opened only by user’s choice, while for the second situation this is done also automatically if the flow is in maintenance mode once an error or a failed action is encountered. These 2 windows have a few differences that we will discuss below.

How to open the Task Maintenance Window

During Recording

The user can open the Task Maintenance Window while the Recorder is started by clicking on the “Show Technical Details” button attached to the recorder.

During Execution

The user can open the Task Maintenance Window during execution with the Manual Tester tool by clicking the Task Maintenance button. 

In case of an error or failure, the Task Maintenance Window will be displayed automatically if the flow is in maintenance mode.

How to use the functionalities of the Task Maintenance Window

The main components of the Task Maintenance Window are:

• Task Overview area
• General Tab
• Object Properties Tab
• Configuration Tab

Task Overview

The Task Overview displays a list of the actions from the current task. The user can select any user action from the task and view its details in the General, Object properties and Configuration tabs, but can only make modifications on the current user action.

The current user action is displayed using a blue highlight.

General Tab

The General Tab allows the user to change the following:

• User action name
• User action Type
• Recorded Value
• Parameter name

Also, this tab contains that Error Message Area that will display any error or success messages that occur during the identification process.

Errors handling

You can open the Task Maintenance window:

• From the Manual Tester tool by clicking on the gear icon on the right top of the Manual Tester 
• During execution, if a failure occurs

Task Maintenance window has the following options:

• Execute Step (Enter)
• Skip Action - ability to skip the step if it's not relevant for current execution.
• Fail Action
• New Defect - ability to create a defect from the Maintenance window. 
• End Execution

Object Properties Tab

The Object Properties Tab allows the user to view and change the Object properties.

Each property has a name, a value and two checkboxes. The name and values are those that were added during the recording process or added from the web interface.

The Mandatory checkbox option marks the property to be used in the process of identification for that element. If a property is not checked as mandatory, it will not be used, and the identification will be done based on the remaining properties. As an exception from this rule there are some custom properties.

 The Regex checkbox is used mainly for handling dynamic properties.

The user can also add some custom properties in order to improve the identification process. Normally this is only needed in special cases.

Custom properties that can be added:

• index
• getfirst
• selector
• xpath

Index property can be used when multiple elements are identified with the same properties. In order to choose which is the right element, the user can use index and specify a numeric value. This will indicate the instance of the element found that will be used.

Getfirst property does not have a value and functions like an index property with value 0. It indicates that will always use the first instance of the element.

Selector and Xpath are 2 advanced properties that help improve the performance of the execution.  They improve the execution time, especially when testing web applications that have a large number of elements without ids.

CSS selector

Add a property to that element named "selector" in the web GUI or during execution in the task maintenance window. This property, if present, will be used with priority in the identification process.

The value of the property can be built manually or copied from the console of the browser.

Xpath

Add a property to that element named "xpath" in the web GUI or during execution in the task maintenance window.

The value of the property can be built manually or copied from the console of the browser.

The selector and xpath properties are used with higher priority than the other properties during execution. If the xpath or selector is checked, the identification will only use them. If they are not checked, the identification will use first the xpath, then the selector and then the other properties.

Highlighting Elements:

In the Object properties tab, the user can use the Highlight button in order to check if the object is identified in the current page. The button will activate the tested application and will automatically scroll to the element, then it will flash a border around the identified element. In order for this to work, the application under test should be opened accordingly so that the page containing the element is displayed.

Inspecting elements:

In the Object properties tab, the user can use the Highlight button to refresh the object from the tested application. This will not re-record the entire action, but only the element and its properties. This is useful when the wrong object was recorded in the initial process.

Configuration tab

The Configuration tab is only available for some specific action types. Two such action types are Verify and Store.

The Configuration tab has 2 components: The Basic Configuration and the Advanced Configuration.

The Basic Configuration Tab allows the user to configure the user action visually, while the Advanced configuration does the same using .Net code.

The user can configure the following in the Basic configuration tab:

• change the object property that is used in the selected action from the “Select Control Property” list
• change the value that is verified or stored from the “Verification Value” list
• change how the verification is done on the selected property from the “Verification Operator” list (only available for Verify action).

The Advanced Configuration Tab does not have any restrictions on the code that the user can use, allowing him to perform advanced custom verifications.