Software system and methods for testing transactional servers

A testing tool records a user session with a transactional server and generates a test for subsequently testing the server. Through a user interface of the testing tool, the user can define verification steps to automatically test for expected server responses during test execution. The test is displayed to the user as a tree having nodes which represent steps of the test. Via the user interface, the user can modify node properties and perform other types of tree edit operations to edit the test, without the need to know a scripting or other programming language. When a user selects a node that corresponds to a particular field or other object of the server screen, the testing tool automatically displays the screen with the object highlighted. The testing tool also allows the test author to use a spreadsheet to conveniently specify data sets for running multiple iterations of a test.