Smart Indentification in HP Quicktest Professional

QTP has a unique feature by the name Smart Object Identification or recognition which is used for identifying the objects smartly, whenever the normal identification fails due to the dynamic changes in the properties of the objects.

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 is nothing but an algorithm used by the QTP when it is not able to recognize an object.

A simple generic example as per the QTP manual would be, A photograph of a 8 year old girl and boy and QTP records identification properties of that girl when she was 8, now when both are 10 years old then QTP would not be able to recognize the girl. But there is something that is still the same that is there is only one girl in the photograph. So a kind of PI - Programmed intelligence is needed instead of AI.

Note:
- Smart Identification is not Artificial Intelligence
- SI uses loose/unreliable object recognition
- It’s recommended to disable SI for each and every page/window/control using the Tools->Object Identification dialog (Recording).

Object identification is necessary to recognize the GUI objects on the screen. During automatic recording of a script, the object identifier records various objects present on the screen. The smart identification feature of QTP smartly identifies all the objects irrespective of their being developed using same technology or not, e.g. smart identification shall be able to identify the objects in an application although developed in Java but using some of the Microsoft controls as well.

QTP identifies a particular object by comparing the properties of its test object and the run time object. QTP may not be able to recognize any dynamic objects whose properties or even the description may undergo some changes during the run time. Thus its great option of enabling Smart Identification helps us in identifying the objects even if their properties have undergone changes during the run time.

If QTP is not able to detect any object having description matching with that of the recorded object, or in case it detects more than one object having matching description, then QTP ignores the recorded description, and uses the Smart Identification feature to identify the object. Smart Identification mechanism is a bit complex, but flexible. However, if configured logically, Smart Identification definition can help QTP in detecting an object, of course - if present, in-spite of failure of the recorded description.