The Robot Framework performs test execution sequentially, handling tests within a single test suite or across multiple test suites. Conversely, Pabot, a tool designed for the Robot Framework, enables parallel test execution. It achieves parallelization at both the individual test and entire test suite levels. By default, Pabot conducts parallelization at the test suite level, employing separate processes to handle each test suite independently.

Within a test suite, tests are executed in sequence, while multiple test suites (such as test1.robot, test2.robot, etc.) run concurrently.

Insights into how to implement parallel test automation effectively using Robot framework,

1. Parallel Execution with Pabot at Suite level
2. Parallel Execution with Pabot at Test Level
3. Customize the processes

Pre-requisite:

• Python
• PIP
• Robot Framework
• Robot Framework selenium library.
• PyCharm IDE

Framework structure and Interpreter settings:

Create new project in PyCharm IDE with following structure,

Framework Structure

Set Project Interpreter:

In PyCharm system interpreter or virtual environment for project interpreter can be used

Interpreter setting

Install libraries from terminal:

1. robotframework
2. robotframework-selenium2library
3. robotframework-datadriver

Install Plugins in PyCharm:

1. Robot Framework Language Server
2. IntelliBot @SeleniumLibrary Patched

Note – Pabot, like other Python packages, provides the option for installation either globally or within a virtual environment. Its current version is 2.16.0.

For those already equipped with Python version 3.6 or higher and have pip installed, Pabot can be installed by executing the following command in the terminal

pip install robotframework-pabot

Resource file:

A resource file typically comprises reusable components such as customized wrapper keywords invoked within test case modules, necessary variables for dependent test cases, essential libraries facilitating test execution and interaction, and frequently used settings across various tests and test suites.

As we have tired data driven test automation using Robot framework in our last article Data Driven Test Automation using Robot Framework

Let’s use the same robot files to perform parallel test automation.

Pabot, by default, divides the test execution at the suite level, with each process handling a single suite. User have the flexibility to adjust the number of parallel processes using the ‘–processes‘ option.

1. Parallel Execution with Pabot at Suite level

Below command is used to perform parallel test execution of all test cases within the testcases directory at the suite level.

Command : Pabot [path to Test]

Here we have three robot files to be executed parallelly at suite level. The command initiates three processes, each handling its suite.

Process Id’s are generated automatically for 3 different test suites as below;

Process ID’s_1

Test Report_1

2. Parallel Execution with Pabot at Test Level

Below command is used to perform parallel test execution of all test cases within the testcases directory at the test level.

Command : pabot --testlevelsplit [path to test]

Here we are trying to execute test cases from one test suite parallel. Below command initiates simultaneous execution of all processes, each with its own unique process ID.

Parallel Execution at Test level

There are 4 test cases in test execution1 script. Pabot automatically identify 4 test cases inside test execution1 script and execute them simultaneously with their process ID’s shown below.

Process ID’s_2

Test Report_2

Test Report_3

3. Customize the number of processes

As mentioned earlier, parallel execution can be achieved using the ‘–processes’ option, where the user specifies the desired number of processes for simultaneous execution.

For instance, below command restricts the execution to 2 processes.

command : pabot --processes 2 [test to path]

The execution below demonstrates the Robot Framework running 2 processes concurrently, each identified by its process ID

Customize the processes

1. In this example we have executed commands at suite level and restricted the number of processes with two.
2. Here we have 3 test script(test execution 1, test execution 2 and test execution3) with process limitation of two in this case pabot will execute two processes simultaneously with their process ID’s generated in runtime and further processes will initiate after completion of any one process.
3. After execution of command pabot simultaneously run two processes with their process ID as shown below,

Process ID’s_3

4. After completion of [PID:6976] pabot initiated next process as below,

Process ID’s_4

Test Report_4

• Test execution log report of TestExecution1.robot file

Test Report_5

• Test execution log report of TestExecution2.robot file

Test Report_6

• Test execution log report of TestExecution3.robot file

Test Report_7

By referring the log reports, we can say test execution of suites TestExecution1 and TestExecution2 started at the same time

Ref link: https://docs.robotframework.org/docs/parallel