Capturing Sessions With TestChimp Chrome Extension

Introduction

TestChimp works by capturing the full stack executions during manual test sessions via SDKs installed in the system under test. This approach has the advantages of:

Always-on capture - no need for starting / ending capture sessions and offer tighter integration with user session lifecycle
Captures the entire stack, including backend service layers
Can be enabled in production environment as well for real user sessions troubleshooting & monitoring

However, if you do not have access to the codebase of the system under test (eg: you are a QA services provider doing blackbox testing), the above approach does not work (as it requires installing TestChimp SDKs in the code). For such scenarios, you can utilize our TestChimp Chrome extension to capture manual test sessions, which will be automatically exported to your configured TestChimp account, where your team can collaborate on the captures, and build automation tests from them.

Quick Start With TestChimp Chrome Extension

Step 1: Add the extension from the Chrome Web Store here

Step 2: Configure the extension options

In the options page, enter the details:

Project ID & Recording API key: If you haven’t signed up with TestChimp, you can follow the link from the options page, create an organization, and a project first. Once created, you can go to the Project Settings page to get the Project ID and Session Recording API key.

URL regex to intercept: Enter a regex (eg: .*your-domain.com.*) for capturing request and response payloads.

Tester Email: This will help identify the sessions recorded by you in the TestChimp project workspace.

Step 3: Start Capture

PIn the Extension, then click on it. In the popup, press the “Start Capture” button. Now, the web activity along with API requests to endpoints that match the regex set in the extension options will start getting captured and exported to your TestChimp account workspace.

Step 4: End Capture

Once the manual test session is complete, Click on the extension again, and press the “End Capture” button.

And that's it!. The extension popup will show a direct link for the captured session. Alternatively, you can login to your TestChimp account, and use the sessions tab to find the session just captured.

Note: The full capture will be available after ~2 mins.

Next up: Read on how to create automated tests based on captured manual test sessions.