Introducing Locator Profiles (Beta) for Enhanced Locator Control

We’re excited to unveil our latest beta feature, Locator Profiles, designed to give you more control and flexibility in your test automation journey. Locator Profiles put the power in your hands, allowing you to fine-tune how locators are suggested, minimizing manual intervention and potential test failures. Why Locator Profiles are Important:

• Tailored Suggestion – Customize locator suggestions based on known qualifiers that should be avoided when locating elements.
• Customized Control – Craft your unique Locator Profiles for your testing, defining which attributes to ignore when Test Builder suggests locators.
• Streamlined Testing – With Locator Profiles in action, Test Builder intelligently seeks alternative qualifiers, reducing the need for re-work and manual adjustments.

Enabling the Locator Profile (Beta) Feature

To enable Locator Profiles, you’ll need to update the provar.properties file in your Provar home directory using the following flag:

com.provar.locatorprofile.enabled=true

Follow this guide to ensure your firewall allows access to the Provar services. 

Once the feature flag is enabled and Provar has been started, the released standard Locator Profiles will be automatically downloaded into your Provar home directory within a hidden directory named “.locatorProfiles”.

Enable a Locator Profile

To enable Locator Profiles within Test Builder, navigate to the Test Builder toolbar, where you’ll find the Session selection dropdown, the setting icon, and the Locator Profile option. The Locator Profile icon will be gray when disabled. Click on the icon to display the Locator Profile menu. Select the “Enable Locator Profile” toggle to switch on Locator Profiles. Once the Locator Profile is toggled on, you’ll notice that the icon changes from gray to pink to signify that the Locator Profile is currently enabled. 

Locator Profile Menu Explained

Let’s look at the Locator Profile menu in more detail, as shown by the image below:

• Locator Profile toggle: enable or disable the Locator Profile used by Test Builder when performing add to Test Case.
• Profile icon: when Locator Profiles is disabled, the icon will appear in gray. When the Locator Profile is enabled, the icon will appear in pink.
• Selected Profile: the select profile will appear at the top of the menu.
• View profile: view the profile
• Clone profile: clone the profile and create a new profile using its content.
• Add a new profile: create a new custom profile.

When enabled, the Locator Profiles will appear in pink!

Several Locator Profiles may be available to select to apply different locator filters. These will be displayed in the available locator section, and each profile has several actions available:

• Available profiles: displaying all the Locator Profiles available, including custom profiles created by you and standard profiles provided by Provar.
• View profile: view the profile.
• Edit profile: edit the profile.
• Clone profile: clone the profile and create a new profile using its content.
• Delete profile: delete the profile.

Disabling a Locator Profile

Use the toggle at the top of the Locator Profile menu to disable Locator Profiles.

View a Locator Profile

To view the Locator profile in a read-only format, select the view icon to display the Locator Profile, which displays the profile’s name and a list of locator attributes that are ignored when performing an ‘Add to Test Case’.

Clone a Locator Profile

To clone a Locator Profile, select the clone icon to copy the selected Locator Profile, set the profile name, and add/delete attributes to the ignore list so that these attributes are ignored when a locator is suggested by Test Builder.

Edit a Custom Locator Profile

To edit a Locator Profile, select the edit icon to edit the selected Locator Profile, allowing you to add/delete attributes to the ignore list so that these attributes are ignored when a locator is suggested by Test Builder.

Deleting a Custom Locator Profile

Select the delete icon and confirm to delete the selected Custom Locator Profile. If the currently active profile is deleted, then Locator Profiles will be disabled.

Adding a Custom Locator Profile

Select the add icon to add a new Custom Locator Profile. Set the profile name and add/delete attributes to the ignore list so these attributes are ignored when a locator is suggested by Test Builder.

Selecting a Different Locator Profile

Select the Locator Profile from the Locator Profile list to activate it.

Locator Profiles Provar Supports

Provar provides some Standard Locator Profiles created and maintained by Provar but can be cloned and customized to meet your individual testing requirements. Currently, Provar provides support for the Salesforce Locator Profile.