Switching on external execution mode for an execution plan enables you to execute test suites in an external third-party system while maintaining the corresponding automated tests and results in Silk Central.
The external execution environment obtains test data and pushes back test results to Silk Central by using a REST API, for which an interactive documentation is available from host:port[/inst]/Services1.0/swagger-ui.html.
Using REST API calls, clients can get pending execution plan runs and test details like keywords, attributes, and parameters. Additionally, clients can push results and result files to Silk Central after running these tests.
In external execution mode, no execution server is necessary to execute tests, unless there is an automated setup or cleanup test. A setup test for an external execution plan run is a custom script that prepares the external execution environment and that initiates the external execution of the test suite. A cleanup test for an external execution plan run can be used to keep the execution server and execution environment reserved until the execution is finished. Automated setup and cleanup tests are always executed on a Silk Central execution server. You can use the environment variable #sctm_regular_execdef_run_id within a setup test to directly access the associated external execution plan run in your API requests.
Using a setup test increases the efficiency of your external execution plan runs. Without using a setup test, the external system can either frequently poll for pending execution plan runs, or directly start an execution plan through the API.
You can enable the external execution mode in the Execution Deployment Page.