QTP: Object Identification

QTP identifies the objects with the following properties:

1. Mandatory properties
2. Assistive properties
3. Smart identification
4. Ordinal identifier
• Location
• Index  

When the objects are added to Object Repository of QTP, by default some of these properties will become Mandatory properties, some Assistive Properties. 

QTP identifies the objects with Mandatory properties, if the object does not contain these properties then it will go ahead with the Assistive properties. If QuickTest is unable to find any object that matches the learned object description, or if it finds more than one object that fits the description or if Mandatory/Assistive properties are absent (not added to Object Repository as they are absent for a particular object) then it uses either smart object identification (if enabled) or Ordinal Identifiers (location or index of an object).

Basically, what happens during test automation is we will add objects of the AUT to the object repository. During the execution of the automated test scripts, QTP will compare the Run time properties of the objects to the one added to the object repository and then continues with the actions to be performed on the AUT.