MS CRM4: Editing read only or hidden fields set by JS on the fly

we had a CRM form with some fields set as read-only by JavaScript, we wanted to edit one of these fields, and the form was published to production

The normal way to edit it is to comment the javascript then edit the field then uncomment it back
We thought of another way, using multi edit feature, created another dummy record, then selected both records, and from more actions select Edit

The form will be opened, nut non of the javascript will be executed, so all fields will be displayed in normal mode, read only and hidden fields can be edited

Then you will be able to update the record without any change in customizations.
Don’t forget to delete the dummy record

jmeter: Reading results from csv or xml files

I run a couple of tests, saved results to CSV/XML  files. later I was trying to open these files by excel or any editor, I was hoping to analyze the results with excel and draw graphs as I need, but it wasn’t very clear to me when  I opened it by excel, what the values represents, as there was no column headers.

I looked online for some tools to do this job, but couldn’t find any simple ones, finally I remembered that there is a browse button inside the Aggregate Graph sampler, so I added one, browsed to the results file, and I was able to display the results and generate graphs also

The good thing also is that I can copy from the table inside jmeter to excel and I know the label from each column from jmeter

The same also can be applied with summary report, add a summary report sampler to your test, open the csv/xml file, and then you can see the results

Creating lots of test data on the DB with the help of excel

It was required for some scenario to create some data, and checking the data that needs to be added, I found that it is all in one table with some id that needs to be different for every record. so the first thing and simplest thing I thought off is to use excel to generate lots of insert statements

First I opened the DB client, and generated one insert statement with valid data

Second I opened excel, pasted the excel statement, divided it into cells, and kept the ID in a separate cell

I made the ID to be incrementing in each row, then copied the rest of the cells to whatever number I needed of records

Last, I took all these rows, pasted it in my DB editor, then executed, all records are created and now I have lots of test data to be used in my testing

Creating set of folders for test data with specific IDs

I have been given 150 ID and was told to create folders matching already existing folders for some other IDs. The IDs are to be used as a test data and the folder must exist for each ID to be valid.
I took some time to think how to do this efficiently and in a smart way saving time and effort, and I thought of something to be done
First I went to the ID folder that I already have, did select all, then copy and past several times at the same location, this will create multiples of this folder depending on how times you do select all, copy, past. No of end folders = 2^n, then I adjusted the number so that I have 150 only

Now I have 150 folder but with incorrect names, Next I should rename to my IDs
Second I opened command prompt, went to that folder that contains the 150 folder, typed dir command and set the output to text file

dir /w >temp.txt

No I have a text file containing the 150 folder name, the temp names
Third, I opened excel, and in blank sheet, first column I entered “ren “, second row I pasted the 150 temp folder names, third column I pasted the IDs, fourth cell I concatenated all the previous cells. Make sure to replace [ , ] with “

No I have 150 rename command from the old temp folder names to the new IDs
Last, I selected  the 150 ren command, copied them, then in the command prompt, I did a right click then selected past. The 150 ren command will be executed

Now, I have my 150 folder for my 150 ID created in a smart and efficient way



Of course there are other ways to do this, like later, I did a small program to create folders just with one click.

Recycling data for performance and automation tests

We had some scripts that performs some functions on our data, mainly change of status. we wanted to repeat the scripts over and over, for the performance testing and automation also.

At the beginning I thought of having a large set of data, and to use from this pool of data, and remove what we use.

Also I thought of having my script steps creating the data at the beginning, and doing the reverse processing at the end of the script, so that it can be used again, this is not always possible with all scripts

Another option I thought of, is to connect to the DB and to get the data on the fly, but this is not always possible and depends on the tool.

Lastly I thought of creating a trigger on the DB, so that when the status changes for example, it is set back as it was.

Al these solutions can be used according to the scenario and the processing that is done on the data.

jmeter: Validate regular expression extractor

I had some extractors in my test, and when I was looking on the request using the extracted values, I noticed that it is not coming correctly. I looked for someway to validate this extractors to see whether I did it correct or not.

First I made sure that I am using the variables correctly in my test

So if the regular expression Reference Name is param1, it should be used as ${param1}

Second, I found that the regular expression can be verified from the “View Results Tree”, so I went to the request, then selected the Response Data tab in the details panel as below

Then at the bottom, I have entered regular expression in the search box, and checked the Regular exp. check box

at first it wasn’t bringing any results, because there is ? in the regular expression that needs to be escaped

when I changed ? to \?, results was found and highlighted in the response

    

Using this method I was able to verify and correct the regular expressions for the regular expression extractor

JMETER: using parameters from csv file

I wanted to parameterize my requests, like the login for example, to be able to use different users
looking for some help from the web I found this useful article
http://ivetetecedor.com/192/how-to-use-a-csv-file-with-jmeter
I followed the article, created users.csv file with user names and password like the below
user1, password
user2, password
etc…
Then added CSV Dataset Config to my requests, set it like below

Next i went to the request and changed the login info to ${user} and ${password}

JMETER: Extracting values using regular expression extractor

We were trying jmeter to do our performance test, one of the issues we faced is that we needed to extract values from pages to be used in next requests

to do so we need to add Regular Expression Extractor to the request, and to set the extractor properties

The most important part is the Regular Expression property

Getting some help from http://jmeter.apache.org/usermanual/regular_expressions.html

I used a general form like the following, to extract readme.txt from name="file" value="readme.txt"

we use Regular Expression

name="file" value="(.+?)"

OR

name="file" value="([^"]+)"

If there is no double quotes  at the end, then it will be like

login?execution=(.+?)$

Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more than one user name, are not allowed. Disconnect all previous connections to the server or shared resource and try again.

I was facing the above error when I was trying to connect to a shared folder, googled it a lot, with no luck, as there are lots of results but are not related. I was able to access this resource before and then suddenly I was receiving this error

“Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more than one user name, are not allowed. Disconnect all previous connections to the server or shared resource and try again”

until I found this post here http://travisepperson.blogspot.com/2007/01/windows-network-folder-specified-is.html

I tried the solution in and it worked

I opened command prompt “cmd”

I entered “net use” command, a list was displayed for me, one of them was on the same server of the shared resource I am trying to access

I entered “net use /delete [resource name]”

Then I was able to access the resource normally

Visual Studio Web Test: Generating Random unique parameters at runtime

I had a scenario that requires several fields to be unique, and I wanted to have a web test for this scenario. I had the problem of generating these unique parameters to be unique

The first naïve solution I used is to create these unique values using excel and then saving in csv file. Then in my scenario, I set the parameter to a data source from this csv file. But this required me every time I run the scenario to remove the values that are used

Second trial for me, I converted the recorded web test to a coded test, this allowed me to to change the parameters programmatically and also gave me lots of flexibility on the test, on the other hand I lost the usability and flexibility of the web test designer, where I can record more to these test, extract parameters easily, etc..

In the coded test, I was looking for the request that has the parameters that needs to be unique, then I created a function to create a 10 digits random number and returns this as string, like below

public string generateRandomId()
{
    Random rand = new Random();
    string[] random = new string[10];
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    {
        random[i] = rand.Next(0, 9).ToString();
    }
    return string.Join("",random);
}

Then at the request parameter setting, I changed from

request8Body.FormPostParameters.Add("Form1:referenceNumberText", "12341212323");

to

request8Body.FormPostParameters.Add("Form1:referenceNumberText", generateRandomId());

Third trial which is the best as believe, I created a web test plugin to set a context parameter at the beginning of the test

First I created a context parameter, by doing right click on the web test, then selecting Add Context Parameter

Then I renamed this parameter to RandomText

Then following the instructions here, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms243191(v=vs.80).aspx  I created a new project in my solution, and added a new class, called it WebTestPlugin.cs

Added reference to Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.WebTestFramework and added the following line at the top

using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTesting;

Then Changed the class name and inherited from WebTestPlugin, the code looked like below

public class webTestPlugin : WebTestPlugin
{
    string randomTxt;
    public override void PreWebTest(object sender, PreWebTestEventArgs e)
    {
        randomTxt = generateRandomId();
        e.WebTest.Context["RandomText"] = randomTxt;
        base.PreWebTest(sender, e);
    }

public string generateRandomId()
{
    Random rand = new Random();
    string[] random = new string[10];
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    {
        random[i] = rand.Next(0, 9).ToString();
    }
    return string.Join("",random);
}

}

Then I went to my web test project, added a reference to my plugin project

Then added the plugin to my web test

by doing the above, I had the flexibility of web test designer, and the flexibility of writing my own code in the web test