Version 2.8.2

Executive summary

We’re happy to announce the latest updates to Provar Automation with the release of version 2.8.2. This latest release is now available in the Provar Success Portal. While this release is an optional update, we recommend updating to get the latest product features and enhancements.

2.8.2 at a glance:

Integration of test steps, test step executions, plus direct contextual links and reporting from Provar Automation to Provar Manager.
OAuth 2.0 support for Microsoft Exchange in Email connections.
Enhanced text-matching options on Assertion step in Test Builder.
Improved support for Einstein Search and Dynamic Forms.
Namespace substitutions on SOQL queries.
New auto-retry feature. Override the auto-retry properties in a single place using a global variable rather than updating Test Steps separately,
Enhanced support for the related record component when used in custom flexipages.
Rename of Test Manager to Provar Manager and new application icon.
Two brand new beta features from ProvarLabs for generating default data driven test cases and cleaning up unused elements in page objects. Be sure to give these a try and share your inputs and feedback!
A public Jenkins Provar plugin to simplify configuring and maintaining test execution as part of your Jenkins release pipelines.
Chrome v107 and v108 compatibility, keeping you up-to-date with the latest versions for Chrome for test authoring and execution.

Access world-class customer support at the Provar Success Portal

Providing ongoing support is a part of our promise to help you deliver robust, scalable and repeatable testing to achieve release agility, drive down system errors and get the maximum return on your Salesforce investment. If you have any questions regarding v2.8.2, please get in touch with us and we would be happy to help. To raise a case, simply log on to the Provar Success Portal and click Raise a Case.

Advance Notice of Changes to Provar Releases from Jan 2023

With the increased number of products from Provar, and with additional cloud first products planned for release in the new year, we have decided to change our release names starting 1st January, 2023. This change will impact the release notes and our product listings within the Provar Success Portal.

As you will find in this release note, we have a combination of Provar Automation, Provar Manager, Jenkins Plugin and experimental features. To ease clarity around product compatibility we will be using the following release name format:

<Salesforce Release> Release <Release Number>

For example, our releases for 2023 are currently planned to be:

Spring ‘23 Release 1 – Consisting of Automation v2.9.0 plus related product announcements on January 6th
Spring ‘23 Release 2 – February 10th, 2023
Spring ‘23 Release 3 – Mid-March , including Automation v2.9.1 with Java 11
Spring ‘23 Release 4 – Mid-April 2023
Summer ‘23 Release 1 – May 5th, 2023 including Automation v3.0.0
Summer ‘23 Release 2 – June 9th, 2023
And so on through to Winter ‘23 Release 3 in November 2023. There will be no planned December releases.

The contents of each release may vary by product, but all Release 1s will contain updates to Automation in line with our ongoing promise to support major Salesforce releases. We hope to be sharing some exciting new products with you early next year in addition to ongoing enhancements to our Automation.

Product Roadmap now Available in Success Portal

As part of this change we have also started to share our upcoming release roadmaps in advance via the Provar Success Portal. Using the Planned/In Progress list view on the Release page you can now get earlier insight into the upcoming releases:

Please note! Advance release information is subject to change in scope and release date. Click within each release to see more detailed information about the planned release scope as per the sample below, check back regularly for updates:

We will also be sharing our longer term product vision and plans via the Provar Success Community and upcoming webinars, stay tuned for exciting news.

Useful Information

If you are on a version less than 2.7.2, then delete the .configuration folder; install version 2.8.2 and start with a new workspace.

Quick recap of changes since Winter’ 23

If you haven’t updated your Provar since 2.8.0, we highly recommend you update to the latest version to take advantage of our recent updates and to stay compliant with any patch releases. OAuth 2.0 support for Microsoft Exchange is now supported in Provar Automation. For more information, please see OAuth 2.0 in Email connection (MS Exchange)

Provar Manager v2.13.1 Release Updates

Stay updated with the latest information from Provar Manager. To take advantage of the existing customer early bird discount before it ends on the 31st December 2022, please contact your Customer Service representative. The latest release updates from Provar Manager are available:

New assistant to configure Test Plan Schedule records.
Defects can easily be raised from Test Execution and Test Step Execution records.
Added support for weekly and on-demand Coverage Reporting Schedule executions.
Added support for one-off Test Plan Schedule executions.
Added support to schedule Code Scans using 3rd-party plugins.
Upgraded pages to use dynamic forms and dynamic related lists.
Increased timeout limit for Salesforce and Generic API callouts to 120 seconds.

New Innovations from ProvarLabs

ProvarLabs is the incubation center for innovation at Provar. and came into existence to help us reach our customers where they need us and automate the full stack of testing. Join us as we explore the possibilities beyond the current and existing systems. ProvaLabs is always testing out exciting prototypes and would honor your input. You can connect with the ProvarLabs team directly and give feedback.

We have added two new prototype features in ProvarAutomation v2.8.2 that originated in ProvarLabs – Generate Test Case and Page Object Cleaner.

Both utilities are available in Test Palette under a new ProvarLabs section, making it super simple to create single step tests using Generate Test Case and Page Object Cleaner.

Note: The use of Provar Labs prototypes is at your own risk. Provar Labs prototypes should only be used on your non-production instance to test their functionality, if you accept the risk of doing so. These prototypes have not completed the beta testing phase and might pose a higher-than-normal risk for bugs. We may enhance, withdraw or replace prototype features based on extended testing and feedback gathered. Do not rely on these features as part of your test automation.

Generate Test Case

Generate Test Case automatically generates test cases for any standard or custom Salesforce object selected by the user. It also creates an excel file pre-populated with data for each of the fields in the object (with a setting to populate only the required fields). This is an accelerator for brand new users and anyone who wants to rapidly create a set of tests and test data. For more information, please see, How to Generate Test Case and reach out to our Customer Success Team and we would be glad to help!

Page Object Cleaner

Page Object Cleaner scans a project’s page objects and identifies all of the elements in the page object that aren’t used in any test case. Page Object Cleaner can be set up to identify and log or delete the unused elements or, if a box is checked, identify and delete the unused elements.

If elements are deleted, Page Object Cleaner will generate a text file with the list of elements and a date time stamp for each deleted element.

This utility is a very easy way for testers to clean up Page Object clutter, making Page Objects easier to use, and can improve performance. For more information, please see How to use Page Object Cleaner and reach out to our Customer Success Team and we would be glad to help!

Provar Jenkins Plugin for ease of configuration and maintenance

A public Jenkins plugin to simplify configuring and maintaining test execution as part of your release pipelines. For more information, please see Provar Jenkins Plugin.

Browsers

Chrome 107 and 108 compatibility

As part of our pre-release testing, we are happy to confirm that Chrome 107 and Chrome 108 are compatible with Provar version 2.8.2.

Who does this impact?

Provar customers who are currently using or would like to upgrade to Chrome 107 and 108.

Why is this important?

Ensuring that ChromeDriver 107 is compatible with Provar version 2.8.2 eliminates the risk of incompatibility issues which can prevent Provar from working as expected.

How can I use this?

If you would like to upgrade to Chrome 107 or 108 we recommend that you upgrade to Provar version 2.8.2, which will use ChromeDriver 107 out of the box.

In general, Provar will automatically attempt to download the correct ChromeDriver if it detects a driver exception. If your organization’s security protocols block the automatic download, you can override the ChromeDriver manually.

To downgrade or revert the ChromeDriver you can refer to this support article that explains how to use a ChromeDriver that is different from the one provided by default in your Provar installation.

What are the browser and driver combinations that you recommend for Provar 2.8.2?

Please refer to the Browser and Driver Recommendations support article for a comprehensive guide.

Packaged ChromeDriver for 2.8.2

Provar version 2.8.2 is packaged with ChromeDriver 107.

Provar Automation

Enhanced integration with Provar Manager v2.13.1

We now provide enhanced integration with Provar Manager. Some major highlights of this integration are:

Application name change; Provar Automation now displays Provar Manager instead of Test Manager.

Above: Snapshot of Provar Manager context menu in Provar Automation.

When uploading test cases to Provar Manager, the test steps are now uploaded as well. Note that whatever test steps existed previously in Provar Manager for that Test Case are overwritten.
When executing test cases, test step results are now also reported to the Provar Manager.
Screenshots taken during the execution are now also sent to Provar Manager if the option ‘Send Screenshots’ was enabled on the Provar Manager connection in Provar Automation.
In the Provar Automation context menu, if you right- click on any test folder, test case, test plan folder, test plan, or test project you can launch Provar Manager and be sent directly to the selected record. Executions can now be reported when using ProvarDX. If the option to report to Provar Manager is enabled in the ProvarDX JSON settings, ProvarDX will report the test executions to Provar Manager as expected.
- Test executions (test cycles, test executions, etc) are reported by ProvarDX to Provar Manager when the option is enabled or missing in the ProvarDX JSON settings.
- Test executions (test cycles, test executions, etc…) are NOT reported by ProvarDX to Provar Manager when the option is disabled in the ProvarDX JSON settings.

For information on how to use this integration, you can see updated information in the support article Integration with Provar Manager.

OAuth 2.0 for MS Exchange in Email connections

Provar Automation now supports OAuth 2.0 for MS Exchange in Email connections. This was made available via our interim release Provar Automation 2.8.1. For more information, please see OAuth2.0 for MS Exchange in Email connections.

Note: The basic authentication (username/password) is deprecated in this release and will be removed in a future release.

Above: Snapshot of OAuth 2.0 for MS Exchange in Email connections.

Global variable to override auto-retry properties for every test step

Provar users can now override the auto-retry properties in a single place using a global variable rather than updating Test Steps individually, So, when executing a Test Case the global variable(s) overrides the Test Step auto-retry configuration.

Provar users can now use a variable like a global variable or a system environment variable or a command line variable where they can simply put the timeout value and enable or disable the auto-retry for each and every step in the test case. So that they need not go through each and every step manually to change the values.

Who does this impact?

All Provar users who may want to use a variable like a global variable or a system environment variable or a command line variable where they can simply put the timeout value and enable or disable the auto-retry for each and every step in the test case. So that they need not go through each and every step manually to change the values.

Why is this important?

Users can now override the auto-retry value at test step through different modes like using command line arguments, using system environment variables and using Provar global variables.

So, the test step auto-retry configuration can be overridden using the override with this order of precedence.

Command line variable
System environment variable
Provar global variable

How can I use this?

We have put together a support article on how you can use Auto Retry Timeout and Auto Retry Override. For more information, please see Auto-retry properties Global Variable override

Added SOQL column alias (namespace prefix)

When creating a column alias for the SOQL query to substitute the result list item, the object variable names must be consistent. User-defined fields in the list item object limit the namespace prefixes override changes to the SOQL Test API and do not impact subsequent test steps i.e. Set Value.

Added text matching options for configuring the Assertion step in Test Builder

Provar users can now select the following text matching options when configuring an Assertion step in Test Builder (included assertions: Label, Value, Message).

Equals
Contains
Starts with
Ends with

Above: Snapshot of text matching options on Assertion step in Test Builder.

Einstein Search interaction support in Search Result

We’re continuously improving the support for Einstein search, in this release you will be able to test the results page that Einstein search loads when a search suggestion is selected. Test steps can locate and recognise each individual search result on the page, assert values and interact with buttons.