The upgrade of SAP Application requires Regression Testing to make sure that SAP ERP system is behaving as expected. The transactions and underlying custom developments including Reports, Interfaces, Enhancements, and Forms are giving expected results and are not impacted by the Unicode Conversion or the SAP Upgrade Project. The testing phase is an important planned activity for an upgrade project. The testing of 100% scope is not the feasible option for the medium to large Organization. This will call for high effort and time and will significantly increase the project cost. The question which arises is what and how much to test. What quantum of Testing would result in credible assessment that Upgraded SAP System is behaving correctly and as expected. The blog discusses few tips which will help answer this question.
The important tips to manage the SAP Upgrade Project Testing are mentioned below:
- Manage Scope using Risk Based Testing Approach
For SAP Upgrade testing, use the Risk Based Testing approach which stipulates that a conscious decision is made to test the critical and important transactions and functionalities.If these are working correctly it can be assumed that other non-critical transactions will also be working correctly and in case they do not the impact is limited or is non-serious in nature. The benefit of this approach is that significant effort, time and costs are saved. At the same time it is made sure that all critical transactions and functionalities of upgraded SAP Systems are working as desired.It is important to get the buy-in of all the stakeholders to use this approach.
- Identify and Test Critical Transactions
It is important to identify what forms the critical transactions and functionalities that should form the part of the test scope. Critical transaction and functionalities would include identified business transactions where failure would have a high impact on business e.g. Wrong Printout of Delivery Note will stop the outbound logistics. Other critical transaction would be electronic and print invoices, complex technical developments be it reports, forms or custom developed transactions that enables a business process step.
- Identify and Test All Interfaces
All Interfaces should be included for testing as upgraded system would be on new server which will have a different IP address and thus connectivity needs to be tested.
- Adjusted Development Objects
Include also in test scope all the developments which were adjusted by development team as part of upgrade project and where either the functional specifications or technical specifications were required to be changed to make the development behave as expected.
Include Authorization to be part of test scope to make sure these worked as before and the underlying authorization objects are behaving correctly.
- Scope due to Regulatory Compliance
Identify the scope that is important to ascertain that regulatory compliance is met by the Organization. For example, SOX, GxP related transactions, Regulatory reports etc.
The objective is to prioritize based on above factors and arrive at the manageable test scope for SAP upgrade project which can be completed in a reasonable time frame. If the initial testing phase reveals less errors than it can be safely assumed that testing is on right track and other medium to low impact transactions would work fine.
However, if the initial testing phase reveals an unreasonably high number of errors than the testing scope should be increased to include medium to low impact transactions and accordingly testing duration should also be increased. In this situation wider testing would be required to give the credible indication that upgraded system is behaving as expected. Thus early results from testing phase are important to indicate which path one should take with respect to management of testing in SAP Upgrade project.
