Tricentis Tosca : Working with Tosca Excel Engine And Related Interview Questions

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Welcome to this Post – “Working with Tosca Excel Engine and related interview questions”. This post discusses about the Tosca Excel Engine and its available modules. The discussion will also focus on some frequently asked Tosca Excel Engine interview questions. The complete post is divided into small sections where we are discussing the concepts first and then focusing on the Tosca interview questions. So, go ahead and enjoy reading…

The overall discussion will give you an idea on the following listed points. These points are important for any automation tester who is using Excel Engine or going to use Excel Engine modules in his project. These points also give you an idea on what all areas you need to cover before moving to Excel Engine usage and at the end you should be able to understand why is it necessary for your project, right?

The points in brief are listed below:

1. What is Tosca Excel engine?
2. Do I need to purchase another license for using Tosca Excel engine?
3. Is Tosca Excel engine usage being feasible for my project?
4. What all settings are required or configuration is required for using Tosca Excel engine?
5. Is there any other prerequisite for using Tosca Excel engine?
6. Till which version of MS Excel, is the Tosca Excel Engine support?
7. Do I need administrator privilege always to work with Excel modules?
8. Do I need to consider Classic over TBox modules?

And so on.

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What is Tosca Excel Engine?

Tosca Excel engine is an adapter which works in support with Base Engine or also known Classic Engine. The Excel engine consists of technology specific definition and methods and implementation of all those to successfully communicate with Excel.

By default, as part of a complete Tricentis Tosca installation this Excel Engine is also installed. So, eventually there is no need of purchasing another license to work with it.

There is a prerequisite which is mandatory in case you have not noticed, that is, a licensed version of Microsoft® Excel 2003, Excel 2007 or Higher version must be installed and registered as an automation client.

Now let’s talk about the files and directories related to Excel Engine,

The Tosca Excel Engine consists of the following files.

1. Inside the directory “%TRICENTIS_HOME%\dll”

You will find – XLEngine.dll and XLTosca.dll

2. Similarly inside directory “%TRICENTIS_HOME%\dll\dat\”,

You will find – “ObjectMappings.dat”. Once the installation of Tricentis Tosca is successful you can find the following entries in this file:

[Excel]

handlerClassName=XLEngine.clsXLKWDHandler 
RangeParameterValidationClass=XLEngine.clsRangeParamValidation

[ExcelTable]

paRepresentationClassName=XLEngine.clsXLTable

Lastly if your installation has been done with Admin privileges then you don’t have to think twice on its usage, you can use excel modules without starting the commander in admin mode.

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Modules of Tosca Excel Engine

There are many modules offered by this engine. Let’s have a look on some of these:

1. Open Workbook:

The open workbook module opens the MS Excel workbook. There are few attributes of this module as discussed below:

a) Workbook

 

– Specify the path of workbook, for example;

C:/temp/loginwb.xlsx

 

b) Workbook ID

 

– This is an optional attribute means that you can skip entering the value against it if you do not wish to. But I would recommend please use and specify the ID. ID is just like nickname to your referred workbook, for example “LoginWB”.

A word of caution here:

The ID should be unique across your test module.

 

c) Open workbook read-only

 

– This is a Boolean value attribute so it can be either True or False. By default, this is False. If you want to open your workbook in read-only mode you can specify True here.

 

d) Create new

 

– This indicates whether you want to create a new MS Excel file or want to work with existing one. In case you want to work with existing one set it to False. By default, it is False. You can set it to True in case you want to create a new file.

 

2. Set Active Workbook

This module let you focus on current Workbook on which you want to work with. The module has only one attribute asking you the “WorkBook ID “ with which you want to work at that moment.

 

3. Close Workbook

This module closes the opened workbook. It has 2 attributes:

a) WorkBook ID

 

– Specify the workbook ID or nickname which you have created earlier at the time of opening the file and that same needs to be closed.

 

b) Save WorkBook

 

– This module defines whether the excel file needs to be saved or not while closing the file. This a Boolean attribute and by default it is set to False. You may want to Set it to True in case saving is required.

 

4. Set Active Worksheet

This module allows you to set the desired worksheet as the active worksheet by using its excel worksheet ID or name.

It has 2 attributes:

a) WorkSheet ID

– This attribute indicates the worksheet name of the excel workbook you are going to point to. So you need to specify the worksheet name.

b) Create New

– This allows you to create your new worksheet in case it is not created. So it is a Boolean attribute and by default this is set to False. So if you need to create new set it to True.

Similarly, we have other modules like Set Active Range, Create range, Set header, Range manipulation and Set active excel application.

 

If your project is having use of excel modules or there is need for it to be considered as part of your sprint cycle, then you can follow my course on Udemy.

The course has been discussed below to let you understand what exactly it offers to you and helps you decide whether you should take it or not.

Course Overview:

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This course has been designed to help you gain practical in-depth knowledge on Excel Engine. This course consists of Theory, Practical Examples from simple to advanced, Assignments, Project and Bonus lectures. This course doesn’t talk’s about any UI automation instead it talks about excel automation.

This course consists of about 90% practical examples so that you learn while doing. In your Practical examples you will also utilize most discussed concepts like string operations, libraries, execution lists, buffers, repetition, loops, if-then-else etc and effectively use them in your test case.

Course Curriculum is discussed below:
****************************************************************************************************
In section 2:
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We will discuss some important QnA around post installation activities and settings required for this engine. This will be covered in first 2 lessons. Then in lesson 3, we will discuss excel object model and how Tosca is using it? Once we complete this section and build our base with theory we move onto next section.

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Section 3:
————
In this section, We will go one by one, understanding each of the modules which are available as part of Excel Engine. We discuss their attributes and how we can use them in our test case.

****************************************************************************************************

Section 4 and 5:
—————–
In these section, you will learn How to Create Test Cases With\Without specifying the excel range.

****************************************************************************************************

Section 6 and 7:
—————-
In these section, you will go through advanced examples on the excel engine.

*****************************************************************************************************
In Section 8
————
Here, we will go through some examples on troubleshooting issues or problems which you might be facing when working with excel modules related test cases.

****************************************************************************************************
In section 9:
————-
Here, You will be part of and own the development of a mini Project in which you will solve a real world problem. This problem statement occurs frequently in banking and finance industry. We will first discuss the requirement and then you will build the solution around it.Don’t worry even though if you couldn’t get to the correct solution I will be discussing the solution with you in this section.

****************************************************************************************************
Bonus Lectures:

You have some bonus lectures related to :

Introduction to Tosca IDE,

Tosca Commander Sections,

Creation of new projects,

CALC operations,

String operations module,

Creation of xml module,  and many more.

****************************************************************************************************
In this course curriculum, you have lot of practical examples to learn from and a real world problem to solve as your tiny project. Last but not the least I believe you will enjoy the course.

If you find this interesting and wanna start now you can follow the link shared below:

Tricentis Tosca : Working with Excel Engine (coupon TOSCAXL50)

this link includes a discount and you can buy this for only @50$.

You can also watch the introduction video of the course here:

Introduction to Course Curriculum : Tricentis Tosca – Working with Excel Engine (coupon TOSCAXL50)

 

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Before concluding on this topic of working with Excel engine, I would like to share with you some questions which are advanced in nature and definitely require your Tosca expertise to solve them. To be honest, these questions are not completely part of my course, instead I want you to find solution when you are working in the project.

Few questions for you to think over and analyze :

1. Can you use excel file to import your test cases in Tosca Commander?
2. Can you import HP UFT or HP QTP Test Cases into Tosca Commander?
3. Similarly can you import Selenium test cases into Tosca Commander?
4. Can you use external excel file as your test data to be used in execution?
5. Can you build your own test data in Tosca using external excel file?
6. Can you compare two excel report files using Tosca?

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Conclusion

I believe I should conclude now as I have covered a lot on this post. Let’s compile over the Tosca interview questions once again but as single long list. This list also consists of questions which are not discussed here but have been part of interviews. With this list, you can focus on your pain points and go through other resources to find answers. Take it as your homework! 🙂

1. What is Tosca Excel engine?
2. Do I need to purchase another license for using Tosca Excel engine?
3. Is Tosca Excel engine usage being feasible for my project?
4. What all settings are required or configuration is required for using Tosca Excel engine?
5. Is there any other prerequisite for using Tosca Excel engine?
6. Till which version of MS Excel, is the Tosca Excel Engine support?
7. Do I need administrator privilege always to work with Excel modules?
8. Do I need to consider Classic over TBox modules?
9. Can you simultaneously work on more than one worksheet using Tosca Excel engine?
10. What all modules you have to use in order create an excel and store data in it?
11. Can you copy excel and work with it?
12. Can you create test data using excel modules?
13. Can you use the test data from external excel file in your test cases? Will it be useful?
14. What are the limitations of using Tosca Excel engine or excel modules?

Huff!!! That was really long discussion. You also think same right. Well, this brings me to the end of the discussion where we have discussed some concepts as well as interview questions.I really hope you enjoyed reading the post. If you have any doubt on this please feel free to add your comment below.

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