Maven failsafe does not run tests in submodule

Question

I have a project with a parent directory containing the following in its pom.xml:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.20.1</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <goals>
        <goal>integration-test</goal>
        <goal>verify</goal>
      </goals>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

and

<modules>
  <module>submodule</module>
</modules>

The submodule subdirectory again contains a pom.xml with a reference to its parent artifact. The subdirectory also contains a number of integration tests which run fine if I move the failsafe plugin into the submodule's pom.xml and then invoke mvn verify from the parent directory but this will not work with this current (preferred) setup (There are no errors, the tests are simply not executed).

I've tried adding the submodule artifact to dependenciesToScan in the failsafe plugin's configuration but that did not solve the problem. Do I need to add the submodule as a dependency in the parent pom.xml? Because that results in a "dependency is referencing itself" error while processing the pom.xml.

Help would be appreciated.

EDIT: I have figured it out, someone else working on the project had wrapped the build section in a profile section, I did not realise this at first because the whole file is rather large and unwieldly and I had overlooked the corresponding git commit. By undoing that change and following the instructions in the link posted by Gerald Broser I managed to solve my problem (I suppose just executing the respective profile would have also done it, but that change was uncalled for anyway).

Answer 1

See Maven Failsafe Plugin / Usage / Usage in multi-module projects:

When you are defining a shared definition of the Failsafe Plugin in a parent pom, it is considered best practice to define an execution id in order to allow child projects to override the configuration.