Automation Architecture using QTP

For last few months, I have been working on QTP. In these months I have automated few applications with QTP and now I think the time has come to share my learning on QTP with others.  From now on, I will write the blog posts on QTP on regular basis.

Today, I am starting with Automation Architecture (framework) using QTP. Automation Architecture can be well understood by the following diagram:

AUT: AUT means “Application under Test” i.e. the application which is being automated in this case.

Object Repository: As name suggests it is repository of the objects from AUT. QTP recognizes the objects in the application through this object Repository. We will see how QTP recognizes the objects in the next blog post.

General User Library: General User Library aka “GUL” is the function library which has the common functions written in it. These functions can be used with any AUT.

Business User Library: Business User Library aka “BUL” is the function library which has Application specific functions.

Test Data: Test Data is the data required for testing. It could be anything like data table, excel, XML or CSV file.

Environment Variables: The global variables which are used by the Driver Script.

Recovery Scenarios: Recovery Scenarios are written to manage the unexpected error during execution.

Driver Scripts: This is main script which drives the automation. This is where the whole logic is written.

Test Execution Report: This report displays the script execution result either pass or fail.

I hope the above description will help you to understand the Automation Architecture using QTP. Let me know if there is any question on the same.
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Update on 12-06-2012: The title of the post and image is updated after getting the review from Lakshminarasimha M. and Sadhanandhan B. Thanks for their valuable feedback.