How to Test Mobile Apps in Katalon using Custom Cloud Devices and What is Remote Execution in Reference to Mobile Testing

Remote Execution for Mobile Testing in Katalon Studio

The steps below will walk us through configuring the Capabilities needed for remotely running mobile tests with the local Appium server. It is known as Appium Grid.

Katalon Studio, as of now, only allows testing an iOS application on macOS. With remote execution, users can test iOS applications on a Windows machine and remotely connect to a macOS machine and do iOS application testing.

Prerequisites

There are a few things that are needed before starting:

• We should set up Katalon Studio for Windows mobile testing.
• We should set up Katalon Studio for macOS mobile testing.
• On the remote PC, an Appium server has to be started.
• We should have Android or iOS devices connected.

Steps

Step 1: We will go to Project and Select settings.

Step 2: There, we will Go to Desired Capabilities and click on Remote. This will take us to a form-type window.

Step 3: There, we will enter the Appium server URL in the Remote server URL field. After this, we will select Appium as the Remote server type. 

Step 4: Now, it is time to select the Appium driver. Here we will select Android Driver if we have Android devices or choose iOS Driver for iOS devices.

Step 5: Now, it is time to add our desired capabilities to the table.

• For the Android app: We must add platformName, platformVersion, and deviceName capabilities to our Android app.
• For the iOS app: We must add platformName, platformVersion, deviceName, and udid capabilities to our iOS app.
• For Chrome browser on Android devices: We must add platformName, platformVersion, deviceName, and browserName (The value of this should be chrome) capabilities for Chrome browser on Android devices.
• For Safari browser on iOS devices: We must add platformName, platformVersion, deviceName, udid, and browserName (The value of this should be safari) capabilities for the Safari browser on iOS devices.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Katalon Studio support mobile testing?

Katalon Studio currently only supports native mobile applications. It is the full path to your mobile app's file, which is the ".apk" file for Android and the ".ipa" file for iOS.

Does Katalon support mobile automation, and is it based on Appium?

Yes, Katalon is based on Appium and Selenium. Katalon is a ready-to-use vendor-based tool and test automation platform. It can be used for mobile, web, API, and desktop or Windows applications.

What exactly is mobile cloud testing?

Mobile Cloud Testing, in simple terms, refers to the use of cloud services to create a highly scalable test environment. Actual mobile devices are hosted by this cloud-based test infrastructure—specifically, Android, iOS, and emulators.

Conclusion

In the article, we read about how we can test mobile apps in Katalon using custom cloud devices and what remote execution is in reference to mobile testing. The steps that we can see above only show the minimum capabilities to run a Mobile test. Katalon Studio also supports other capabilities that we might need as well. Refer to our courses and explore Coding Ninjas Studio to find more exciting stuff. You can also look into the interview experiences and solve different problems. Look into our Guided paths, test series, libraries and resources to know more.

Happy Coding!