QTP - Smart Identification

Sometimes back, I was in a QTP interview panel. Most of the candidates do not know about smart identification. That's why, I thought to write to this post.

Need of Smart Identification
Smart identification is a technique in QuickTest Professional. It is used to identify the objects, even though few mandatory properties are changed at run time.

Smart Identification Overview
The Smart Identification dialog box enables you to create and modify the Smart Identification definition that QuickTest Professional uses for a selected test object class. When the recorded definition for an object does not enable QTP to identify an option, QuickTest Professional uses the smart identification definition (if defined and enabled) to identify the object.

Smart Identification uses two types of properties:

1. Base filter properties: The most fundamental properties of a particular test object class; those whose values cannot be changed without changing the essence of the original object. For example, if a Web link's tag was changed from <A> to any other value, you could no longer call it the same object.


2. Optional filter properties: Other properties that can help identify objects of a particular class as they are unlikely to change on a regular basis, but which can be ignored if they are no longer applicable.

To know more about Smart Identification, You can see the QuickTest Professional Help for following topics:

1. About Configuring Smart Identification


2. Understanding the Smart Identification Process


3. Reviewing Smart Identification Information in the Test Results


4. Walking Through a Smart Identification Example


5. Step-by-Step Instructions for Configuring a Smart Identification Definition