#automated erp testing

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How to conduct ERP application testing

Enterprises are realizing the need to leverage the SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud) model to accelerate growth. However, overhauling core processes administered by legacy ERP applications is equally critical. ERP applications help enterprises manage various functions, departments, and processes, including the data generated therein.

These applications help enterprises to run as one single unit and, in the process, generate outcomes such as improved productivity, better efficiency, reduced waste, enhanced customer experience, and increased ROI. In view of the criticality of ERP applications for organizations, they should be tested and validated. Testing ERP applications can ensure the smooth functioning of multiple tasks within organizations. These may include tracking inventory and customer transactions, managing finances and human resources, among many others.

 Why is ERP software testing needed?

ERP software is cost-intensive and requires a lot of investment in time and effort. Every ERP software comes with multiple versions and requires customization to suit specific business requisites. Moreover, since every element in the application is connected to some other module, upgrading them can be a challenging task. For example, creating a sales order would need access to the inventory management module. If any of the modules does not function to its optimum, the entire ERP application may be impacted. This can have a cascading effect on the performance of the company as well as create bad customer experiences. Hence, testing ERP applications shall ensure the correct implementation of the software and prevent crashes.

ERP software testing, besides checking the software’s functionalities, should ensure the generation of reports and forms accurately. By identifying and removing bugs during the testing phase, testers can avoid facing post-implementation blues. Moreover, it can lead to an early adoption of software and ensure its smooth running. ERP application testing services validate business processes, functions, and the rules governing them. They help reduce operational risks within the constraints of available resources and time.

Approaching the testing of ERP applications

It is imperative for enterprises to set up a robust testing strategy. The strategy should prioritize the testing of processes depending on the short and long-term goals.

Setting up KPIs: At the outset, testers should setup the KPIs or performance metrics and evaluate how they will impact the overall organizational goal as well as departmental objectives. Thus, establishing the KPIs will help derive the right ROI for the organization.

All-encompassing: ERP implementation for a large organization with many departments and processes can be a complex and challenging job. However, it is important that all stakeholders are taken into confidence and involved in the process. The process also includes making the necessary investment in training. When everyone is involved in ERP implementation, there is more cohesiveness in the administration of the software.

Data migration: An organization can plan its strategic moves if it can make use of its data emanating from various processes over a period of time. To ensure real data is not lost or distorted in any way during ERP validation and testing, its proper migration process should be planned beforehand.

Selecting the right automation tools: As ERP software can have myriad variables interfacing with various processes, they need to be validated. This requires choosing the right test automation tools - open-source or premium ones. Automated ERP testing can validate a large number of variables for various processes against expected outcomes. The right automation tool will help testers to write and execute test cases.

Identifying test cases: Since it is not possible to test every sinew of an ERP application, proper test cases should be written to ensure the maximum test coverage. Thus, testers should identify the test cases for each test and document them as well. Also, since ERP processes are linked to each other, and even to third-party applications or modules, they should undergo automated ERP testing.

Conducting performance, regression, and security tests: As an ERP system helps to run the operations of an enterprise as a single unit, it should run some critical tests. These include regression, performance, integration, security, and usability tests. This way the enterprise can ensure continuous monitoring of the system, save time and cost, and prevent any sudden downtime or latency.

Proper documentation: Post testing of components in the ERP system, the documented glitches ought to be analyzed to preempt any failure in a real environment. Moreover, the reports can be used for future reference.

 Conclusion

 To sustain in the competitive business environment of today, businesses need to take digital initiatives such as implementing an ERP solution. However, to ensure the successful running of such a solution and derive benefits out of it, enterprises should carry out ERP testing. The approach for such a testing should involve automation and carrying out various types of testing.

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What are the benefits of ERP testing?

Today’s enterprises are subjected to a lot of pulls and pressures - from the markets, competitors, customers, and stakeholders, among others. They need to be up with the times in terms of technology, processes, and general market trends to meet their productivity and sales targets. However, given their footprints, in many cases, lying across territories, they need to remain connected with their branches, employees, and stakeholders, in real time. This is where an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can help matters by tying the organization in a single unit.

The ERP software enables an organization to run smoothly by collating all data generated from various units. It helps stakeholders to analyze such data and get insights into the processes and requirements in real time. The insights can further help in formulating and implementing strategies on the ground to remain competitive. An ERP software can have interfaces with various departments within an organization viz., finance, human resources, administration, supply-chain management, and customer relationship management, among others. By streamlining business processes and eliminating manual work, an ERP software suite can help improve productivity and efficiency, enhance the quality and speed of delivery, and achieve ROI.

Since the ERP software can be the virtual lifeline of an organization, its effectiveness needs to be top-notch at any given point in time. This is of utmost importance as any software glitch can bring processes to a standstill by giving erroneous inputs to the respective departments. To ensure smooth functioning of the software system under severe test conditions, ERP testing should be made a routine exercise. Nowadays, enterprises deploy third-party resources to manage various tasks owing to the latter’s core competencies. These resources are accessed (both ways) through the cloud or mobile services. To ensure a smooth progression of such services, businesses should brace themselves for testing ERP solutions. This is in alignment with the objectives of Agile or Lean methodologies. Let us understand in detail as to what an ERP testing exercise can deliver -

 Why ERP quality assurance and testing?

For beginners, ERP testing is a QA process to ensure the comprehensive software suite is made fully operational before deployment. It checks various units, features, and functionalities of the software against a set of parameters or metrics. The various tests that are part of the ERP QA include functionality testing, performance testing, integration testing, user acceptance testing, and unit testing, among others. So, why do we go for ERP validation in the first place?

Time-saving: During ERP implementation, any glitch can derail the functioning of the software or generate erroneous results. To identify such glitches, the testing team needs to unscramble each of the integrated units. This can be hugely time-consuming leading to delays. However, should testing ERP solutions be a part of the SLDC in the Agile format, considerable time can be saved in mitigating glitches.

Early mitigation of glitches: By following a shift-left automated ERP testing process, glitches can be identified quickly. Since both testing and development processes take place in a sprint, identification and mitigation of glitches can be quick.

Data security: One of the biggest issues plaguing the digital ecosystem is data security or the lack of it. Moreover, since an ERP system pools data from disparate sources to a centralized repository, hackers can exploit the data pool. An ERP centre of excellence can leverage the right tools to verify the centralized database. This way, it can secure the database by removing any inherent vulnerabilities.

Improved productivity: An operational ERP software can identify the operational needs and verify the presence of inventories. It can ensure the proper deployment of resources, thereby saving time and cost. Also, automated testing can get around the slow response times of manual testing and improve productivity.

Achieves ROI: An efficient ERP system can deliver suitable outcomes within tight turnarounds thereby saving time and cost for the organization. Moreover, by streamlining processes, breaking silos, and attending to customer feedback promptly, the organization can deliver better user experiences. A happy end-customer will generate better sales and enhance brand equity through word-of-mouth. This leads to better ROI for the organization.

 Conclusion

Testing of ERP applications entails the validation of their performance, functionality, user acceptability, and security. Its absence can have serious implications for the business processes, configuration, interfaces, or security of an organization. A robust ERP testing exercise can help an organization to meet its business objectives by optimizing costs.

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How can Test Accelerators support ERP Testing?

The growing competition among businesses is leading them to implement robust ERP solutions. This is done to streamline processes, monitor inventories, manage resources, and leverage databases to help the stakeholders take business critical decisions. Every business department has an inherent way of functioning, which may or may not be in league with the other departments. This often leads to compatibility issues - especially when it comes to following of common protocols or standards. If left to their own, each department working in silos and at its own pace can create bottlenecks and hinder achieving a common objective.

With ERP solutions, the various arms of a business viz., accounts, operations, sales, HR, production, or marketing can work in tandem based on common objectives, protocols, and benchmarks. The criticality of ERP in realizing ROI and other business objectives necessitates its testing before implementation. Since the business outcomes depend on the successful running of an ERP software, it should be tested comprehensively and with considerable rigour.

A comprehensive and rigorous ERP testing methodology needs test automation to realize its true potential. However, the prevalence of a poor test automation environment, non-availability of skilled resources, and high cost of automation tools can limit the effectiveness of test automation. Moreover, implementing an ERP solution can leave a company with challenges leading to time and cost overruns. While test automation helps in identifying and plugging errors in the software codes, shortening the SDLC, accelerating the time to market, and creating a robust test framework to enable future testing, - test accelerators can accelerate activities such as functional and regression testing. The use of test automation accelerators as part of the ERP testing services leads to an end to end test automation covering a slew of technologies.

Why ERP?

Businesses go through a host of transformational activities such as mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers making the management of databases a tedious and complex exercise. Moreover, businesses need to rationalize their operational costs, streamline their processes, estimate the market trends, manage inventories, sharpen their delivery and feedback mechanism and strategize to remain competitive. All these and more can be achieved effectively through the implementation of ERP solutions such as SAP, Salesforce and others.

How can test accelerators help in ERP testing?

Since ERP solutions facilitate the integration and streamlining of various processes, branches, and departments of a business, they are needed to be tested thoroughly. ERP testing should encompass a broad range of testing activities such as performance testing, regression testing, integration testing, functional testing and security testing. The challenge in choosing an automated ERP testing platform and writing robust test scripts that validate functions and processes is that it requires the use of test accelerators. These frameworks help the ERP testing experts to execute automation at the early stages of development. Since test accelerators help in cutting down the complexities associated with test automation, they can enable other business stakeholders to be a part of testing. These help test experts to validate the pieces of codes across the entire SDLC phalanx and technology platforms.

Let us find out how test accelerators can support ERP software testing.

Accelerating the time to market: In the Agile or DevOps setup, test accelerators help to speedily develop, test, integrate, and deliver applications. The frequent release of glitch free applications can drastically reduce the cost, time, and effort that would otherwise had gone into rework. Test accelerators can help experts to monitor the quality metrics in an effective manner.

Better quality software: Test accelerators can execute comprehensive testing of the various arms of an ERP software. These can detect glitches right at the beginning of the development of a software. The speeding up of shift left testing can lead to better integration and delivery of a product. In the ultimate analysis, this helps businesses to stay competitive and achieve ROI.

Optimizing test automation framework: The use of test accelerators can pre-empt the development of a test automation platform right from the inception stage. These facilitate the writing of automated test scripts based on the logical flow of test cases. Test accelerators can drastically cut down the time spent on developing test scripts besides reducing the licensing costs.

Conclusion

ERP implementation can be taxing for an organization given the inherent challenges. These relate to the presence of complex technologies and multiple applications, and regulatory and compliance issues among others. These can invariably slow down the testing process leading the business to lose its competitive edge. However, test accelerators, by automating various aspects of testing, can help in managing cost and accelerate the time to market.

This Article is originally published at Medium.com, How can Test Accelerators support ERP Testing?

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How critical is an ERP solution for a large-scale enterprise? Check out how large-scale organizations are successfully implementing and testing ERP solutions.