Playback in AI Recorder

The Playback feature in ACCELQ's Logic Recorder is an essential tool for testing and validating your automation scripts in real-time. This feature allows you to execute a set of statements from your automation logic and receive instant feedback on their execution, ensuring the correctness and efficiency of your automation scripts.

The Playback feature is supported for all web app automation logic and non-UI statements such as Database, API, etc, making it a versatile tool for testing and validating your automation scripts.

Selecting what to Playback

You can access the Playback feature either by clicking the Playback button in the Logic Editor toolbar, or from the context menu in the Logic Editor.

You may either Playback all statements in an Action or Scenario Design Studio, or only a select set of statements.

When working with the selected statement playback option, you have 3 possibilities:

• Playback selected statements
• Playback from the selected statement till the end of logic.
• Playback from the beginning of the logic up to the selected statement.

Playback operates on the Recorder Browser

It is important to ensure that the browser in the Recorder is in the correct state for the selected statements to execute. For example, if the selected statements are about signing in to QBank, then the Recorder must be on the Login page where such statements are relevant.

As the statements are played back, the console log in the bottom panel provides access to detailed execution information.

Auto Playback

Auto Playback is a convenient feature that automatically executes statements in real-time as you create them. This is applicable whether you are recording the statements from the Recorder browser or typing them directly into the Logic Editor. By default, this feature is turned on.

You can turn this flag on/off from the Playback Console toolbar.

Playback Queue

As you record automation logic, playback requests for the statements are centrally queued, allowing you to keep requesting playback without waiting for previous requests to complete.

Manually triggered playback requests also enter this queue.

When a statement is picked for execution, an icon in the statement editor margin area changes from "pending" to "in-progress," and finally to "success" or "fail."

You can review the current playback queue by clicking the "Playback Progress" indicator in the console log toolbar.

You can also stop the playback requests from the current queue using this toolbar. Note that stopping playback removes all pending statements from the queue immediately, but the currently running statement will continue to completion.

Playback Configuration

Playback configuration allows you to configure the Playback preferences and other settings. You can access these settings from the console log toolbar.

General

• Enable Auto Playback: Automatically execute statements and provide instant feedback as you type or record in Action logic.
• Pause on Element Errors (Web Automation): Pause playback when element identification fails for troubleshooting.
• Enable Self-Healing (Smart-Locators): Automatically attempt to recover if an element is not detected during playback. Applicable only for smart locators.
• Application Environment: Select which app environment to use for the global properties in the Action logic.

Timeout Values

• Timeout for Auto Playback:
  • Element/Page Timeout (sec): Maximum time to wait for an element to load during auto playback (default: 5 seconds). Shorter times are recommended for stable states.
  • Since auto playback occurs in real-time as statements are typed, the timeout value can be kept relatively short. This is because the application is already expected to be in the expected state during auto playback.
• Timeout for Manual Playback:
  • Element Timeout (sec): Maximum wait time for an element to load during manual playback (default: 30 seconds).
  • Page Timeout (sec): Maximum wait time for a page to load during manual playback (default: 60 seconds).

Startup Preferences

• Start Playback Job on Login: Automatically start the playback job upon ACCELQ login. Ensure the agent is running on the local machine.
• Use Custom Profile for Recorder Browser: Configure the Recorder browser to open using a custom driver profile.
• Playback Job Inactivity Timeout (minutes): Set the inactive period after which the playback job will be terminated (default: 120 minutes).

Execution Parameters

• If the Project includes any Execution Parameters, you can configure the values to be used for Playback.

Playback vs. Independent Job Executions

Playback is a valuable execution tool primarily used for validating test logic as you build, troubleshooting issues, and performing dry runs of Scenarios on your local desktop. It provides a quick and efficient way to obtain results for these purposes.

For formal testing of the application, use independent executions of Scenarios. This approach is ideal for configuring jobs, sharing results, or storing outcomes.

Playback always runs on your local desktop using the Chrome browser. In contrast, independent runs can be extensively configured for all job parameters.

Note: "Local Executions" for individual Actions are still supported. This feature runs the Action alone as a standalone execution, allowing for full configuration options such as selecting a remote Agent, choosing the browser type, and more. You can trigger Local Execution for an Action from the "Playback" button in the Logic Editor.