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Citrix testing

This chapter provides all the necessary information to configure and run Citrix tests.

About Citrix

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are virtualization solutions that give IT control of virtual machines, applications, licensing, and security while providing anywhere access for any device.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops allow:

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops share a unified architecture called FlexCast Management Architecture (FMA). FMA’s key features are the ability to run multiple versions of Citrix Virtual Apps or Citrix Virtual Desktops from a single Site and integrated provisioning.

For more information, visit the page here.

Client/UI based (not protocol based)

Unlike the support of Web technology which is protocol based in NeoLoad, the support of Citrix is based on a Client/UI driven approach. During the recording, NeoLoad captures the UI interaction, from both the keyboard and the mouse. At runtime, NeoLoad replays these same interactions with a Citrix client running for each NeoLoad Virtual User.

Support for ICA /Storefront

Citrix applications can be recorded either in ICA mode, or StoreFront mode:

In This Chapter

Prerequisites

Recording a Citrix application

Editing a Citrix User Path

Replay a Citrix User Path

Citrix Actions description

Connect

ConnectICA

Disconnect

KeyType

MouseClick

MouseMove

ScreenshotGet

ScreenshotWait

TextGet

TextType

TextWait

WindowActivate

WindowWait

See Also

User guides

Best practices

Agile

Design process

Heavy load testing

Mobile testing

Oracle Forms applications testing

Integrate NeoLoad with third-party tools

SAP GUI testing

NeoLoad as-code

VUH

Prerequisites

Before recording a Citrix application with NeoLoad, the following requirements must be fulfilled:

Recording a Citrix application

NeoLoad makes it possible to load test Citrix applications. The recording phase is the first step of the load testing process.

The Citrix application recording is accessible via:

NL-CitrixRecording

Enable Citrix recording: The check box must be ticked to record a Citrix application. It is ticked by default after selecting the Start Citrix Recording in the Record menu.

Connection type: The list box allows selecting the connection type to access the application. It can be StoreFront or ICA. When ICA is selected, the ICA file containing the connection information must be provided.

Screen resolution: The list box allows selecting the remote application screen resolution.

Encryption level: The list box allows selecting the ICA connection encryption level.

OCR data file: The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine default language is English. However, it can be configured in a different language as described in Configure OCR engine language. Once configured, the list box allows selecting the required language file.

A click on OK launches a Web browser to get connected to the Citrix StoreFront.

NL-CitrixSessionOpen

The Citrix application to record can now be selected. Once selected, the application is displayed in the Citrix Receiver where all the actions performed will be recorded.

NL-CitrixscreenCalc

NeoLoad retrieves the ICA file and starts the recording. Also, as the recording starts, all the events are added in the User Path.

For each Citrix Action recorded, a screenshot of the Citrix window is taken.

All the Citrix Actions provided by NeoLoad are available in the NeoLoad Actions panel. For more information about Citrix Actions in NeoLoad, see Citrix Actions description.

NL-Citrixeventsrecorded

Recording bar

As soon as the Recording bar is displayed, the recording starts.

NL-CitrixRecordingbar

The bar includes the following functions:

Post-recording

Once the record is done, the 2nd step of the post-recording wizard adds a "Try catch" logical Action to ensure the Citrix Disconnect Action is played to disconnect your Citrix session.

NL-PostRecordCitrix

Citrix capture tool

During the recording phase of a Citrix application, the Citrix capture tool allows inserting specific Actions to make sure the replay of the scenario is stable and accurate. These specific Actions can help extract text or check a screenshot.

On the NeoLoad recording bar, a click on the Citrix screenshot Action button opens up the Citrix capture tool.

NL-CitrixCaptureTool

Window: The list box allows selecting the window to work on. By default, the active window is selected.

Action: The list box allows selecting the Action to insert:

The Selected area zone allows selecting precisely the screenshot zone to capture.

NL-CaptureToolSelectbutton The selection button allows selecting a specific zone in the screenshot. Once a selection is active, it can be moved through the window by pointing the mouse cursor over the selection.

NL-CitrixcaptuerToolMoveButton The move button allows moving the image inside the window.

A click on the Close button validates the Actions insertion.

Configure OCR engine language

The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine allows extracting text from an image. By default the OCR is based on the English language but it can configured for additional languages.

For the OCR to work with other languages:

  1. Download the file from https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdata_fast, put it into "<yourproject>/custom-resources".
  2. In the Neoload Start Recording dialog, select the OCR data file to use by clicking the OCR data file list box.

Best practices for recording

Below is a list of recommendations to follow when recording a Citrix application:

Editing a Citrix User Path

After the User Path is recorded, you can insert Citrix Actions to fine-tune it to stick to the required behavior.

NL-EditCitrixUserPath

You can insert Citrix Actions to:

As each Citrix Action added is associated with a screenshot, when adding manually an Action, the screenshot of the previous Action is taken.

For more information about Citrix Actions and how to configure them, see Citrix Actions description.

Best practices

Below is a list of recommendations to follow when editing a Citrix Actions based User Path:

Replay a Citrix User Path

Below is a list of recommendations to follow when replaying a Citrix User Path: