Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a vital set of end-to-end processes that empower your organization to deliver integrated solutions to business applications for a variety of use cases: accounting, customer service, manufacturing, supply chain logistics, and human resources.
ERP testing offers a variety of benefits: It combines data used across various applications into a common database. In addition, ERP testing eliminates the need for interfaces between applications, resolves synchronization issues for key sets of data, and boosts efficiency by automating data collection.
In short, ERP testing delivers an invaluable set of solutions across the entire enterprise resource spectrum. Properly executed, ERP testing yields accurate results, helps testers understand the project’s purpose, and ensures fewer defects before product release.
Like any tool, however, ERP testing can quickly careen off the rails if your team overlooks or skips key elements or steps across the project.
Step 1: Preparation
Imagine setting out on an epic journey to an exotic locale without even a modicum of preparation. You probably wouldn’t get very far. The same applies to an ERP testing journey lacking proper preparation.
First, the entire team needs to understand the setup in order to correctly deploy it. That means making expectations clear and ensuring everyone has access to the tools they need. UAT tools like TestMonitor provide that depth of preparation with an intuitive manual test dashboard that features a simplified interface designed for different kinds of users.
As the testing project prepares to launch, make sure everyone understands the expected outcome by creating a communication plan. You should also make sure they understand test design. A proper test case design determines the testing goal, what you want to test, and reserves sufficient design time. The test case must be simple, with no more than 10 test instructions per test case.
A word about milestones: Key to the success of your ERP preparation is the marking of important events in your project for the entire team, as well as scheduling sprints, releases, or iterations to organize your test runs.
Step 2: Execution
As the ERP test commences, it’s vital to keep your testers informed of all upcoming test activities via notifications. Notifications keep your project members up to date on all upcoming test activities and planned test runs. With one click on the attached link, they can start testing right away. This includes logging all results, duplicating or rerunning test runs.
Next-level reporting features fuel success throughout the test as well. TestMonitor delivers integrated reports for requirements, risks, test runs, test results, and issues. The ERP team can view traceability, progress, and coverage reports, in addition to issue reports per status, impact, category, priority, or organization. During execution, powerful filter options for report generation offer real-time insights as well.
Step 3: Evaluation
After executing a well-planned ERP test, it’s important to pay special attention to the evaluation phase. Because ERP involves the entire company, your process must incorporate a robust central issue management strategy that encompasses all operational processes. With several people and stakeholders involved in ERP, multiple test results will arise and that can lead to many issues.
As you view the latest outcome per test case and test run, you’ll be able to convert failed results into issues. In fact, blocking test results can be converted to issues or linked to existing issues. Once the issues are fixed, TestMonitor can easily plan a retest to verify if the issues have actually been resolved effectively.
As these issues arise, ERP tools like TestMonitor provide insights into central issue management that inform you of the state of testing quality at any given point. TestMonitor helps eliminate errors from the software and setup at an early stage with the help of your own end users.
In addition, TestMonitor optimizes your ability to track test results. Your team can receive an overview of results for every test run, or they can zoom in to get more details of each test case. QA managers will be able to monitor results over time and see how they improve, remain stable, or decline.
Of course, the ERP testing process involves more than these three vital steps. Check out these additional resources which take a deeper dive. Interested in exploring the ERP journey further? Check out our free 14-day trial.
