Contents

1.

Executive Summary............................................................................................. 2

2.

About Mobile Automation Tools and Framework...................................................2

3.

Tools Shortlisted................................................................................................... 3

Selendroid......................................................................................................... 3

Appium.............................................................................................................. 3

4.

Proof-Of-Concept Details...................................................................................... 3

Types of Application.......................................................................................... 3

Control Covered................................................................................................ 4

Gestured Covered............................................................................................. 4

Features Covered.............................................................................................. 4

5.

Selendroid............................................................................................................ 5

Architecture...................................................................................................... 5

Key Features..................................................................................................... 5

Limitation.......................................................................................................... 5

Test Devices and Configuration Details.............................................................6

6.

Appium................................................................................................................. 6

Architecture...................................................................................................... 6

Key Features..................................................................................................... 7

Limitations........................................................................................................ 7

Test Devices and Configuration Details.............................................................8

7.

Challenges Faced................................................................................................. 8

8.

Go Forward Plan................................................................................................... 8

9.

Installation Guide................................................................................................. 9

Prerequisites Installation................................................................................... 9

Creating Project for Selendroid/Appium..........................................................10

10.

Change History............................................................................................... 10

1 | Page

1. Executive Summary
There is an urgent need within the organization to build competency on Mobile
Automation. With this objective in mind the team decided to do a come up with an
approach that could help us to bring mobile automation in our list of capabilities and
also identified the areas that we need to focus on keeping the long term goal in
mind which is having all the tools and technique required to keep win projects in
the Mobile Automation platform.
The tools selected and ProofOf -Concepts developed is the first step in this
direction. Currently the tool list is small and the ProofOf Concepts are also limited.
But we are working on increasing this list.
After successfully achieving the first milestone the team is now focusing on the go
forward plan.

2. About Mobile Automation Tools and Framework

There are various commercial and open source tools available in the market to help
us build tests for mobile devices. Depending on OS requirement one can choose the
best suitable tool to automate mobile tests.
Given below is the representation for the two major operating systems and the
corresponding frameworks:

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3. Tools Shortlisted
After studying the Mobile ecosystem the team has shortlisted two tools open source
tools Selendroid and Appium for the near short term.
Both these tools are currently market leaders when it comes to the open source
tools are concerned and together give the right kind of coverage when it comes to
Android and iOS devices.

Selendroid
Selendroid is mobile automation framework that allows you to test multi type
mobile applications on Android. i.e. Native and Hybrid app, mobile web
applications. Selendroid can be used on both, real devices and emulators.

Appium
Appium is an automated testing tool based on selenium that supports tests on
iOS and Android both. Similar to Selendroid, Appium also allows native, hybrid
and web application testing and supports automation test on real devices as well
as on emulator.

4. Proof-Of-Concept Details
The logic behind these Proof-Of-Concepts was to quickly develop small scripts that
help us to understand the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Support for Native and Hybrid applications and browser based applications
Support for various input controls on applications and browsers
Support for devices and Simulators
Identifying limitations

Types of Application
1. Native
2. Hybrid
3. Browser based

3 | Page

 Control Covered

Text Boxes

Buttons

Links

Images

Calendar Controls

Dropdowns

Radio Buttons

Gestured Covered
1. Flick
This action is also known as swipe. We can flick the screen horizontally by
providing offset for X axis and vertically by providing offset for Y axis.
2. Single Tap
Single tap works as Click.
3. Double Tap
DoubleTap is same as Double Click. Function doubleClick() can also be
used to perform this action.
4. Highlight Elements on WEBVIEWs
5. Multi Touch Event
Creating a group of touch events and execute them at same time which
creates a multi touch event. Multi touch events usually performed on
Native Apps.
6. Long press an element
7. Hide Keyboard.

Features Covered
1. Change WEBVIEW
In Hybrid Apps we can change the drivers perspective from native to
WEBVIEV or from one WEBVIEW to another WEBVIEW and vice versa. This
feature help us to automate apps which may change their perspective at
run time like, Payment get-way pages.
2. Selection of a device for execution from multiple devices connected to a
server at same time.
3. Pushing apps in background and resuming them after some time in same
state as it was left.
4. Running an app on multiple devices at same time using thread concept.
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5. Running the Appium/Selendroid server through code.

5. Selendroid
Architecture
Selendroid is based on the Android instrumentation framework, and therefore only
testing one app is supported. Selendroid contains four major components:
1. Selendroid-Client - the java client library (based on the selenium java client).
2. Selendroid-Server - that is running beside your app on the Android device.
3. Android Driver-App - a built in Android driver webview app to test the mobile
web.
4. Selendroid-Standalone - manages different Android devices by installing the
Selendroid-server and the app under test.

Figure 1: Selendroid Architecture

Selendroid-server is the main component responsible for the app automation. Along
with this Android Debug Bridge (adb) is used for the communication between
Selendroid standalone and android device.

Key Features
1. No modification of app under test required in order to automate it
2. Object identification made easy using built-in Inspector
3. Can integrate with selenium grid for parallel testing.
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4.

Interact with multiple devices at the same time.

Limitation
1. Can be used only for ANDROID and we need to look for other tool to test apps
on iOS.
2. Selendroid has multiple Android target API support till API 19. Currently there
is no support for API s > 19.

Test Devices and Configuration Details

Moto G2
Android Version
Native App
(ExpenseManager-2.2.7)

Hybrid App
(BookMyShow-4.1.9)

Mobile Web
( on Chrome)

5.0.2

Asus
Zenphone
450CG
4.4.2

Tablet
Lenevo
.2.2

6. Appium
Architecture
On iOS, Appium sends command to a UIAutomation script running in Mac
Instruments environment. Apple provides this application called instruments which
is used to do lot activities like controlling and building iOS apps but it also has an
automation component where we can write some commands in JavaScript which
uses UIAutomation APIs to interact with the App UI.

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Figure 2: Appium Architecture for IOS

In case of Android where Appium proxies command to a running on the device.

UIAutomator is Androids native UI automation framework which supports running
junit test cases directly in to the device from the command line. It uses java as a
programming language but Appium will make it run from any of the WebDriver
supported languages.

Figure 3: Appium Architecture for Android

Key Features
1. Supports cross platform testing i.e. Android and iOS
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2. Though Appium supports Android API level >16, Appium provides Selendroid
mode to support lower API levels for android.
3. Test can be written in any language.
4. Similar to Selendroid, no modifications required in app under test. It works on
philosophy of testing the same app which is going to be submitted in app
store.

Limitations
1. Setup complexity and third party software dependency.
2. Appium uses an inbuilt tool uiautomatorviewer for object identification
which is not user friendly.

Test Devices and Configuration Details

Nexus 5
Android Version
Native App
(ExpenseManager-2.2.7)

Hybrid App
(BookMyShow-4.1.9)

Mobile Web
( on Chrome)

5.1.1

Asus
Zenphone
450CG
4.4.2

7. Challenges Faced
Apart from the technical challenges the team had to grapple with the following
challenges

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1. White listing of tools and getting administrative privileges on the

workstations. This resulted in considerable delay when it came to installations
and getting the systems ready
2. Non-availability of test devices. The team overcame this by using their
personal devices

8. Go Forward Plan
1. Developing generalized function which can be used during projects for
Selendroid and Appium.
2. Working on features like zoom, drag and drop, grid testing and clip board.
3. Testing under different network conditions.
4. Developing a framework to simplifying script development and maintenance.
5. Test the developed feature on multiple available apps.

9. Installation Guide
Prerequisites Installation
Both the tools require Java and android SDK for working. So following are the steps
to install these prerequisites:
1. Download and install latest JDK
Set below system variables
a. JAVA_HOME : to jdk folder
e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_79
b. PATH : to jdk\bin
e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_79\bin
2. Install Android SDK
Set below system variables
a. ANDROID_HOME : to android SDK folder
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e.g. C:\Users\kamruta\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk
b. PATH : add tools and platform tools path
e.g. % ANDROID_HOME %\tools; % ANDROID_HOME %\platformtools
3. Open command prompt, type \Android and enter. It should open SDK
manager if SDK is installed properly and all system variables are set.
4. Install ADT plugin in eclipse
5. Connect phone and check whether it is detected in eclipse.
6. If phone is not getting detected, Install PDA Net.exe
There is no specific installation requirement for Selendroid but we need to install
Appium server on our local machine (on server machine in case of grid execution)
for testing the app using Appium.
7. Install Appium Server.

Creating Project for Selendroid/Appium

1. Create Java project
2. Add below external jars
a. Selenium Jar
b. Latest Selendroid-client and Latest Selendroid-standalone-withdependencies (For Selendroid only).
c. Latest Appium Client Jar (For Appium only).
3. Start Coding.

10.

Change History
Versi
on
0.1

Created/Modified
by
Amruta Kauthekar

0.2

Amruta Kauthekar

0.3

Susmit Bansod

10 | P a g e

Date

Reviewed By

Aug
28,2015
Aug
31,2015
Sep
29,2015

Deepankar
Bandopadhya