TFS CodedUI Test Workflow with a separate UI Test solution?

Question

I would like to know the typical workflow for a coded ui test on a Team Foundation Server.

Our current workflow is:

• UI Build Definition will trigger the Main Build Definition
• this Main Build Definition will build the Main Solution and the UI Test Solution
• then the UI Build Definition will deploy the result and start testing it on a virtual machine.

Now I would like to skip building of the main solution, and just use the latest build, because for a small UI test fix this workflow always requires to build the whole thing again, but I haven't figured out yet how to be able to create a workflow like:

• Select the last build of the Main Solution
• build a new UI Test Solution
• deploy both onto the VM and start testing

is this even possible?

I would like to be able to select on which build the main solution should be based on (e.g. use latest build), but I could not figure out how to also tell TFS to also build a new UI Solution :(

Thanks for your input.

Answer 1

Sounds like you want to use two different drop locations for binaries to deploy: location A for "productive" binaries and location B for test binaries.

I suppose you are using Build-Deploy-Test workflow.

The only way I can imagine is to customize Build-Deploy-Test workflow:

• create a new parameter that should be used for telling the workflow which build definition is building productive binaries (your "Main Build Definition")
• use this parameter in the workflow in order to find out what is drop locations of the last successful build of this build definition
• use this drop location for deploying "productive" binaries to the test environment
• let the Build-Deploy-Test workflow build your "UI Test Solution" and it will be deploy the test binaries from this drop folder automatically

Please check this article: Customization to specify test binaries location other then build drop location.
This article describes an easier static approach expecting test binaries in a particular static place but it will help you when implementing your scenario.

Answer 2

I've encountered a similar problem on a project i worked on. We've decided to solve it in a different way - I'm not sure it's what you want but maybe it will help you:

Instead of the auto tests build be dependent on the main dev build - we've created a scheduled build which runs the tests. In our tests we've included a Prerequisites class that goes to the TFS drop location and selects the latest build (or any other build we desire), deploys it to the auto test environment and starts running the tests on it.

That way we control the version we run on independent from the main build but not unrelated to it.