When you have a test sequence or Test step which takes time and might give the operator
the feeling that the test sequence if not running, provide a dialog with a progress bar(count down or scrolling).
This dialog can be a timed dialog which gets it information from parameters to the calling sequence.
The dialog can be a continuous scrolling progress bars in which the code can be looking at a variable
which is persistent for the duration you need the dialog(FileGlobal.mydialogControlVariable).
This is done in TestStand and LabVIEW using the Sequence Context and TestStand pallete.
TestStand and LabVIEW discussed above are National Instruments products.
Test Engineers Resource 