Generating data from history of a Data definition

You can generate data from the history of a Data definition using the Data fabrication feature of HCL OneTest™ Server to regenerate test data by using the already created Data definitions. This feature also enhances collaboration and sharing when multiple project members work with a single test data at different times.

Before you begin

You must have completed the following tasks:

Ensured that you are assigned a role as a Project Owner or Tester in the project. See Managing access to the server projects.
Created a Data definition. See Creating a Data definition.
Generated test data by using a Data definition. See Generating data from a Data definition.

Note: If a project member has generated a test data from a Data definition, then the other project members can view the generated test data only when the changes are pushed to the repository.

Procedure

Log in to HCL OneTest™ Server.

The team space that contains your project is displayed.
Click Active projects > My projects > project_name to open the project that contains the test assets.

The Overview page of the project is displayed.
Click Author > Data.

The Data page and the Data navigator are displayed.
Select the branch from the Branch list.
The navigation panel displays all the existing projects in the selected branch.
Find the Data definition that you want to use for regenerating test data, and then click it.

Note: You can either enter the name of the Data definition in the Search field or expand the project and manually search in the Data navigator.

The selected Data definition opens in the Data page.
Click the History tab.
A list of all the previously generated test data are displayed, along with the following information:
- The month, date, and year of the generated test data.
- The status of the download action that indicates whether the data generation was successful or failed.
- The number of rows in the generated test data.
- The initials of the project member who downloaded the generated test data.
Perform the following actions in the History tab:
1. Find the required test data.
2. Optional: Click the Preview icon to preview the test data before regeneration.
  
  The test data is generated in the preview dialog.
  
  Note: You can preview the previosuly generated test data to ensure whether the data is in the expected format. You can thereby have a glimpse of the regenerated test data that can help you to identify any potential issues, inconsistencies, or errors in the Data definitions.
3. Click the Generate icon .
  
  The Generate data dialog is displayed.
  
  Note: If you are in an edit branch, then you can access the Generate icon from the preview dialog only if the Data definition is saved.
Perform the following actions in the Generate data dialog:
1. Enter a name in the Name field to identify the test data when generated.
2. Enter the number of rows that you want to generate in the Number of Rows field.
3. Optional: Enter the seed value in the Seed field.
  
  Whenever you generate test data to perform application testing, the generated data is different. You can produce the same set of data multiple times by setting the seed value.
  
  For example, assume that you have used the seed value as 1 to generate test data from a data definition. When you want to create another test data with the same set of values, then you can provide the seed value as 1 during the creation of the test data.
4. Clear the Include headers option if you do not want to include headers in the generated test data.
5. Click the Download option to initiate the generation of the test data.

Results

The generated test data is downloaded into your local file system as a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file.

Note: You can use other applications that support viewing or editing of the CSV files. You must ensure to apply the relevant formats to the fields to view the correct format of the generated test data.