Create / Edit Service Test - Web Transaction (Request Simulation Mode - Step)

Name

Enter the name of the step.

The Recorder automatically extracts user specified values and populates them here. A user name is an example of a Nonsensitive Parameter and is not encrypted. Click the icon to add more Nonsensitive Parameters.

The Recorder automatically extracts user specified values and populates them here. A user name is an example of a sensitive value and is encrypted before it is displayed.

For example: If the Sensitive Parameter Name = PWD and Value = ******, PWD will be substituted with the real value in the URL or POST Data fields.

Click the icon to add more Sensitive Parameters.

URL

The URL of the page that the Agent should download when it plays the step.

HTTP Method

The type of HTTP request to be made when requesting the specified URL.

HTTP Header

You can specify additional HTTP headers in each HTTP request in the following format:

name1[nm-val-sep]val1[hdr-sep]name2[nm-val-sep]val2[hdr-sep]name3[nm-val-sep]val3

where:

• [nm-val-sep] (which is the name-value separator for a header) is a ":" (colon)

• [hdr-sep] (which is the separator between headers) is either be a "#" (hash) or a newline carriage return.

This is the original query parameter of the URL that was recorded. This parameter is used by beacons that are 10.2.0.3 or earlier which support regular expression substitution in the URL Encode mode.

Indicate whether the step is a user action (e.g. a click), a frame, or a redirect that is part of a larger page.

Check

Checks a check box.

Closes a browser window. This action is not captured by the Recorder and can be manually entered.

Simulates a click on the Browser Back button. This action is not captured by the Recorder and can be manually entered.

Simulates a click on the Browser Refresh button. This action is not captured by the Recorder and can be manually entered.

Sleeps for a specified number of milliseconds. This action is not captured by the Recorder and can be manually entered.

Authentication Realm

The Authentication Realm is used to verify the login credentials and is found at the top of the Basic Authentication dialog box. If basic authentication is required for the Web transaction, specify the Authentication Realm.

Success and Failure Strings are used to validate the content of the pages downloaded by the beacon. A Success / Failure String can be one of the following:

• Regular Text: The literal string is compared against the content of a page.

• Regular Expression: The string is treated as a regular expression that is matched against the content of a page.

Each Success String must appear at least once within a transaction. Failure Strings should not appear within a transaction or a step. If a Failure String appears within a transaction, or a Success String does not appear within a transaction, it is considered to be unsuccessful. Click the symbol to add more Success and Failure Strings. These strings are used in addition to the Success / Failure Strings specified for the transaction.

Note: Only beacons that are 10.2.0.4 and above support Regular Expression mode.

A list of field names separated by a comma (',') that represents the set of hidden fields on the resulting page.

A list of hidden field names separated by a comma (",") that are to be ignored from the Hidden Input Hint list when playing back this step.

If the Web application uses frames, the Target Frame parameter should indicate the frame for which the step should be set. For example, if you click on a link that refreshes the frame named “F1”, then the step for this action should have “F1” specified as the Target Frame.

Some Web transaction flows include multiple popup windows. This identifies the popup window in which the request should be executed.

If the corresponding step is generated because of a form submission, then this flag should be set to "Yes".

Regular Expression Variables for a step are similar to Regular Expression Variables for a transaction. You can use Regular Expression Variables to alter a step depending on the content of the pages downloaded by the Agent. For example, you can specify that the Agent should always click on the first link in a table, even if that link changes regularly.

When the Agent downloads each page, it will attempt to match each regular expression to the text of the page. If a match is found, then the value parsed for the sub-expression in parentheses will be assigned to the variable.
Each variable consists of a name, value, and a mode, as follows:

paramFor_Link <a[^>]*href="\S*/OA_HTML/OA\.jsp\?(\S*)"[^>]*>ABM Supervisor</a> Raw Text

where

• paramFor_Link is the Name

• <a [^>]*href="\S*/OA_HTML/OA\.jsp\?(\S*)"[^>]*>ABM Supervisor</a> is the Value

• Raw Text is the Mode.

For example, suppose you specify the variable as above, and in a subsequent step you specify that the URL is http://www.mysite.com/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?[paramFor_Link]. When the Agent plays the transaction, it will apply the regular expression to each page.

Suppose the Agent downloads a page that contains the string

<a href="http://www.mysite.com/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?transactionid=1829345234&oas=ABCDEFG”>ABM Supervisor</a>

In this case, the agent will apply the expression to the page and assign the value transactionid=1829345234&oas=ABCDEFG to the variable named paramFor_Link. When the agent gets to the step with the variable reference it will lookup the last known value of paramFor_Link, and it will play the URL "http://www.mysite.com/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?transactionid=1829345234&oas=ABCDEFG"

Regular Expression Variables for a step will only be applied to pages in the step for which they are defined. Thus, it is more efficient to define a regular expression for a step than for a transaction. If a Regular Expression Variable is defined for a step, its value may be referenced in any subsequent step.

For each variable, three forms of encoding modes are available.

• URL Encode: The value obtained when the regular expression is applied should be URL encoded before substituted back into the URL or the Post Data fields. Suppose the HTML fragment <a onclick="submitForm('personId','John{!!1234')"></a> is found, the encoded string John%7B!!1234 must be added.

• Raw Text: The value obtained from applying the regular expression should be substituted directly into the URL or the POST Data fields.

• Character Reference Decode : The value obtained from applying the regular expression should be dereferenced, before it is substituted into the URL or the POST Data fields. For example: <a onclick="document.location='OA.jsp?transactionid=123456&amp;oas=ABCDEFG'">Create</a>