Setup and Cleanup Tests

The pre-test setup and post-test cleanup functionality of Silk Central enables you to define a setup test and a cleanup test for each execution plan. Setup tests are typically built upon scripts or manual procedures that prepare testing environments in anticipation of tests. Cleanup tests typically include scripts or manual procedures that restore test environments to their original state following tests. When setup tests are aborted, regular tests do not execute, however cleanup tests do execute to restore the testing environment to its original state.

You must create your setup and cleanup tests before you can assign them to execution plans. Any test can serve as a setup or cleanup test, except parent tests of multiple data-driven test instances. They require no special configuration and can be either automated or manual. The only requirement is that they perform the required setup and cleanup processes within your test environment. In the case of automated tests these are scripts that perform required setup and cleanup tasks. In the case of manual tests, these are manual setup and cleanup tasks.

Note: The challenge in executing setup and cleanup tests is preventing their results from being aggregated with the results of the regular tests that they support. Silk Central addresses this concern by running setup and cleanup tests, both automated and manual, in independent execution plans, thereby isolating actual test results from incidental performance fluctuations that may be caused by setup and cleanup tests.