Running Tests Regularly (Smoke Test)

Setting a frequency of a test automatically schedules that test at the frequency you set. This makes for a great smoke test. Want to make sure your login process works, set the frequency to every hour and we'll email you if it doesn't work. When a test is scheduled automatically it runs with the default settings for that test.

Don't miss the recommendations at the bottom.

When do Tests Run

When you set a test to run regularly, it checks the last test time. If that time was longer than the frequency you set, it will run in the next 5 minutes. Otherwise it will run when the period since the last run has elapsed. This is also true if you change the frequency (it waits for the new frequency time, not the previous).

Example 1: If you have a test which you haven't tested for a while, and you change the frequency to 1 hour, it will run in the next 5 minutes, then it will run an hour after that.

Example 2: If you have a test which you just created and ran - then set the frequency to 1 hour, it will run after 1 hour has passed since it last ran.

Example 3: If you have a test which was set to run every month, it last ran 10 days ago, and you changed the frequency to every week - it will run in the next 5 minutes then a week later.

Change the Frequency of a Test

There are three ways to change the frequency of a test.

Test Details

Go to a test details page - at the top of the page is the test settings bar, to the left hand side - you'll see frequency, click the dropdown to set a frequency.

Bulk Edit

On the All Tests page or on Group pages you can select tests (using the checkbox on the left). This will open Bulk Edit options at the top of page.

You see there is a set frequency option on the left hand side, click dropdown to set a frequency then click the Apply to Selected button.

Recommendations

If you run tests every hour across all of the browsers, you will use your tests much quicker. As great as that is for us, it's not great for you. You don't learn much testing across browsers every hour.

Instead we recommend testing occasionally and when you're deploying new code - to test across browsers then. For smoke tests, use the browser/OS combination your customers mostly use.

If you've had specific issue around browser compatibility changing over time - that's fine. Test for that. Otherwise you're generally ok to test on one browser.