Getting started with Katalon Studio

You don't have automate an entire website to gain a benefit from automation. Even for yourself, there are plenty of ways Katalon Studio can help you save time. One of the main goals of automation is to perform repetitive tasks and emulate the same functions you do on a daily basis. And on one of the best places to start is filling in forms.

Entering form data is by no means a difficult job, but it's tedious and after a couple of passes, you really don't care what you type as long as the field isn't blank. Plus, it can be a waste of time. If it takes 5 minutes to fill in a form accurately and wait for it to save, that's roughly 10 forms an hour. And that's an hour that can be invested in something more meaningful.

With some simple automation code, filling in the entire form can be reduced to 30 seconds. Plus, it will be filled out correctly each time with predictable data you can search for and confirm exists. So instead of spending 5 minutes for each form, it would be possible to create 10 contacts in 5 minutes, or 10 times the amount of work with 1/10th the effort. And that savings of nearly 45 minutes can be put toward other projects like training, self-study, or for improving the automation code itself.

Filling in form data is one of the easier tasks to accomplish with automation. In most cases, the objects will follow a similar naming pattern such as:

css=input[name="contact_email"]
//div[@id='add-Contact']/form/input[7]

It would be a matter of copy/paste to change the xpath to the correct name, or use a variable for multiple inputfield objects.

The same should be true for entering text:

WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object Location/inputfield-Contact-Contact Email'), 'user@domain.com')

After creating one SetText entry, copy/paste the rest, change the object and entered text and the job is done.

With a little bit of prep work, it would be possible to spend an hour or so and put together a script that will give a return on the time investment after the first couple of runs. And keep giving back time every time it's run.

Running the Test Case to create a new contact is something I run regularly. I can make dozens of entries while working on something else. That is a very big win in my opinion.

The core of the script could be some as simple as:

WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-First Name Last Name'), 'Bob Smith')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Role or Title'), 'Customer Title)
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Contact Phone'), '5552221112')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Contact Mobile'), '5553331113')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Contact Office'), '5554441114')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Contact Email'), 'user@domain')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Address Line'), '12 West Upper Court')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-City'), 'Tempe')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-State'), 'AZ')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Zip Code'), '85281')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Phone Number'), '3335551212')
WebUI.setText(findTestObject('Object/inputfield-Contact-Email Address'), 'user@domain.com')
WebUI.click(findTestObject('Object/btn-Contact-Save Button'))