ALM – Run EasyRepro in Azure DevOps Pipeline

In my previews articles, you learned about Basic ALM, how to use the Solution Checker in an Azure DevOps pipeline as well as how to use the results of it. In this article you will learn another “Quality Gate” you could add to your ALM process. We look at how to run EasyRepro in Azure DevOps Pipeline.

EasyRepro

EasyRepro is a UI (User Interface) Test Framework for Dynamics 365 and all Model-Driven Apps in the Power Platform. It is developed by Microsoft and an OpenSource project which is accessible both on GitHub and as a NuGet package.

After this article, you will know how to run those tests inside of your Azure DevOps pipeline.

In the GitHub repository, you can find a lot of sample Tests. We will use one of those as a demo test. Our demo test will log in to our environment and create a test contact. The following sequence shows how this will look like when you run it on your device. The same will happen on the build server in Azure, without you seeing it.

EasyRepro Demo Test
Demo Test

Creating the Pipeline

First of all, we have to create an empty pipeline. To do this you open “Pipelines” in the menu on the left and then press the “new pipeline” button. If you already have another pipeline it will be in the upper right corner otherwise it will be in the middle of the screen. In the next screen, you have to choose “use the classic editor”.

EasyRepro Classic Editor
Classic Editor

On the second screen, you can leave the defaults like they are.

EasyRepro Select Source
Select Source

On the third and last screen, you choose “empty Job” at the top of the page.

EasyRepro Empty job
Empty Job

Adding Steps

We have to add 5 Steps to our fresh pipeline.

First, we will add 2 NuGet Steps.

  • Installing the NuGet Tools
  • executing NuGet restore

To do so you press the “+” and search for “NuGet” in the appearing flyout. After that, you first add the step “NuGet tool installer” and secondly the step “NuGet”.

EasyRepro Add NuGet Steps
Adding NuGet steps

Thereafter we have to add 3 Visual Studio steps. This time you search for “visual” and add the following steps in this order:

  • Visual Studio build
  • Visual Studio test platform installer
  • Visual Studio Test
EasyRepro Add VS Steps
Adding VS steps

Now you should have the following steps in the shown order.

EasyRepro All Steps
All steps

Configure Steps

Out of our 5 Steps we only have to configure 2.

Config Build Step

In the build step, we have to define which solution we would like to build, which version and configuration to use.

We only want to build the EasyRepro Solution. In the demo case, we have to add the following in the “Source” field of the step because we do have a separate Solution for UI tests in the “EasyRepro” folder.

**\EasyRepro\*.sln

In the field “Visual Studio Version” you choose “Visual Studio 2017” out of the dropdown.

Finally, you should write “release” in the “Configuration” field.

Overall the configuration of the Build step should look like this.

EasyRepro Config VS Build Step
Configuration of build step

Config Test step

The second step we have to configure is the “Visual Studio Test” step.

Here we have to specify the test files, the search folder, the containment of UI tests and the test platform to use.

In the field “Test files” you should add a pattern that specifies your test files. In the demo case, the following will suit our needs since we use the EasyRepro sample projects.

**\*UIAutomation.Sample*.dll

The “Search folder” should specify where the test runner can find the tests after they were built. This value also depends on your project structure, but the beginning should always we “$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)”. For our demo, I will add the following value.

$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)\EasyRepro\Microsoft.Dynamics365.UIAutomation.Sample\bin\Release

You have to check the checkBox besides “Test mix contains UI tests” as well as selecting the “Version” radio button under “Select test platform using”.

The last configuration should be to select “Installed by Tool installer” from the dropbox for the “Test platform version”.

All the configuration together should look like the following screenshot (with your alterations).

EasyRepro Config VS Test Step
Configuration of Test step

Running the tests

After you have saved & queued the pipeline it should run and execute your UI tests.

In our demo, we just run one test (the one you have seen at the beginning of the article).

In the console output of your pipeline run, you should get a message that 100% of the tests where passed.

EasyRepro Pipeline Result
Pipeline result

When you click on the message (marked with a red rectangle) you will be redirected to the test result page.

EasyRepro Test Results
Test results

Here you can analyze your test run. You see the passing rate, potential errors, run duration and a lot more.

Creating a task group

If you would like to reuse those steps and maybe run them in several pipelines, you could create a task group that contains those 5 steps.

To do this you have to mark all 5 steps, klick with the right mouse button and select “Create task group”.

EasyRepro TaskGroup Create
Create task group

In the upcoming popup, you have to choose a name for your task group. You also should choose the right “Category”. In this case, it should be “Test”.

EasyRepro TaskGroup Name
Naming the task group

After clicking on “create” the pipeline should look like this.

EasyRepro TaskGroup Result
Result of task group

Adding the task group to a pipeline

If you would like to reuse the task group you just add a new step, select the test tab and choose your “UI Test” task group.

EasyRepro Add TaskGroup
Adding the task group

When you now change something in your task group it will be changed in every pipeline that uses your task group. Which reduces manual work and errors that could come with that.

Conclusion

We have, in a few steps, learned the possibility to run EasyRepro in Azure DevOps pipelines. This is another step towards a solution that has higher quality.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Please leave me a comment or contact me in another way if you have any questions or feedback.

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