One of the main benefits of creating a Test Suite is that it can be scheduled to run one or more times at pre-defined intervals. Examine makes use of the fantastic Quartz open-source scheduler to schedule jobs and run them at the user-set time intervals. There are two types of schedules that can be created for each Test Suite:

  • Simple schedule

  • Cron-based schedule

To create a new schedule switch to the Schedules tab and click on the Add New Schedule link. The Schedules tab displays all the schedules created for this Test Suite in a table as shown below:


When a test schedule is running, clicking on the Refresh button reloads the available result data for the schedule until that point and updates the execution state of the schedule.

The Auto Refresh checkbox when checked automatically refreshes the schedule state and the execution result data every 2 seconds.

A running schedule can be paused and resumed during the Pause and Resume buttons. A paused schedule will stop any more executions of the Test Suite until it is resumed again.

A cron-based schedule is an alternate way to schedule Test Suites. It makes use of a "cron" expression to specify the frequency and time-constraints of the execution of the Test Suite.

Tip

"cron" is an unix program that is used to schedule jobs (command and shell scripts) to run periodically at certain dates and times. It is generally used to automate some administration tasks like backing up data or checking email etc.

The cron-based scheduling feature of Examine leverages the powerful cron-like functionality provided by the Quartz scheduler. Quartz provides a CronTrigger that is used by Examine to schedule Test Suite executions.

The options for this type of schedule are as shown below:


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