What is smart Identification in QTP?

Smart identification mechanism is one of the most important and effective mechanisms of the quick test professional. Usually for the identification of an object the quick test professional goes around the usual i.e., the normal identification process.

But what the quick test professional is supposed to do when this usual object identification routine fails? At this point the smart identification mechanism of the quick test professional comes to the rescue of the testers.

Smart Identification in QTP

- The smart identification mechanism has got many positive attributes.

- It is more flexible and works with more efficiency for the identification of the difficult objects present in the application that cannot be found with the normal identification mechanism. 

- But for the smart identification to work, it is required that you enable this option in the object identification settings. 

- Smart identification mechanism works up on two types of properties as mentioned below:

1. Base filter properties and
2. Optional filter properties.

- The first category of the properties i.e., the base filter properties constitute of the most fundamental properties pertaining to a particular class of test object. 
- The values of the properties falling in this category cannot be changed or altered without changing the same properties in the original object.
- The second category of the properties i.e., the optional filter properties consists of the other properties that contribute in the identification process of the objects. 
- In the process of smart identification of an object, the quick test professional first erases from its memory the learnt description or the description that was entered by the user in to the physical description field of the object. 
- Instead of this single object, a list of matching objects (in this case such objects are called candidates) is created by the quick test professional called the candidate list. 
- This list is created based up on the properties that have been defined in the category of base filter properties and thus all the objects match a little or lot (i.e., to say one or more properties) with the base filter properties. 
- Base filter properties as the name suggests are the major properties that help cut down or reduce the number of objects in the candidate so that an exact match can be found or we can say that the area of search is reduced. 
- The idea is to be left with only one object matching with most or all of the properties mentioned in the saved description. 
- In some cases it may happen that it may be required to invoke smart identification mechanism during the run session. 
- In such cases a warning message is generated by the test results tree which indicates about the invocation of the smart identification and insertion of a smart identification process. 
- It is said that the smart identification is applicable only for the web based applications. 
- The object is recorded from the AUT or application under testing and its properties are identified accordingly and finally the scripts are executed. 
- Some times you may receive a warning alert in the results of the tests. 
- You just need to navigate over this message in the file which stores the messages and read what it says and follow accordingly. 
- Usually the normal identification routine fails whenever there occurs a dynamic change in the properties of the object to be identified. 
- Because of such dynamic changes the value of the object properties keep on changing thus making it difficult for the quick test professional to track that particular object. 
- These dynamic changes are shown only in the result and are not stored in the local object repository and are accessible only for the run  time.