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Add attachments to ALM # Automation Challenge

Avatar photo Sivakumar Ganesan
July 24, 2022
405 views
4 min read

Micro Focus ALM (previously HP ALM) has been around for a long time, and attaching an artifact to an entity (test, test run, or defect) is not new. But my automation team had difficulties recently in attaching the word document reports generated from test automation to ALM. They weren’t able to find clearly documented steps on how to do this., Here is how I did it.

Background

Some of the manual QA teams that I work with still use Micro Focus ALM for their test management. Hence, the automated test results are also posted to ALM so they all remain within the same tool and reports can be generated. The ALM version used is also outdated, still at 12.5x and it’s high time that it is upgraded to Octane.

The custom in-house-built test automation framework (Selenium/Java) creates an optional .docx report with test steps and screenshots. For audit purposes, the request came in to attach these documents to automated test runs along with their PASS/FAIL status.

add attachments

Solution

ALM API is well-documented and widely used but some of the nuances need to be understood and tried out to effectively use it. Most of the documentation and suggestions included were to use multipart/form-data, but sending a .docx with text and images in binary form had its own problems to handle. As a result, I had to switch to octet-stream. Once it is done, it is pretty straightforward.

  • The framework was using Unirest for all API interactions. So it simplified the request.
  • Request type should be POST
  • The test result should have already been posted, and a test run created
  • Endpoint should include domain, project, and required test run id
  • Headers set for Content type, Accept and Slug
  • Slug should be the display name of the file
  • Request body should contain the file contents. It should be a stream to ensure that the entire file is uploaded
HttpResponse<string> responseXML = Unirest.post(ALM_ENDPOINT + "/rest/domains/" + DOMAIN_NAME + "/projects/" + PROJECT_NAME + "/runs/" + testRunId + "/attachments")
.header("Content-Type", "application/octet-stream")
.header("Accept", "application/xml")
.header("Slug", reportFile.getName())
.body(Files.newInputStream(reportFile.getPath()))
.asString();

Additional References

https://admhelp.microfocus.com/alm/api_refs/REST/Content/REST_API/attachments.htm

https://community.microfocus.com/adtd/sws-qc/f/itrc-895/403766/alm-rest-api-add-attachment

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