TESTING GUIDE Automated Testing for SuccessFactors Introduction This guide will give you an overview of the different aspects of testing your SuccessFactors environment. As most employees interact in some way or form with the system, it’s crucial to test your system regularly and around crucial events to make sure you provide an excellent employee experience. The following topics will be explored: • Testing During An Implementation • Testing For Configuration Changes • Testing For Quarterly Releases • Manual vs. Automated Testing © 2019 Page | 2 Automated Testing For SuccessFactors Testing During An Implementation During an implementation, testing is critical to make sure the system is designed and configured according to expectations. One of the most known test is User Acceptance Testing (UAT) in which a client signs off that the system works as expected. Before UAT, there are many different tests you would like to perform. These tests are done during different phases of a project. Some only once, others multiple times. Let’s start with looking at what phases there are during a SuccessFactors implementation. This may differ slightly, but all SuccessFactors implementations basically follow the same path. The reason for this is that the Agile methodology, which is the preferred method defined by SAP, needs to be followed by SAP professional services and all the certified implementation partners. This methodology has been proven to be most successful. The Agile methodology is an iterative approach. Iterative approach is a way of breaking down the system development of a large application into smaller chunks. In iterative development, functionality is designed, configured and tested in repeated cycles. With each iteration, additional features can be designed, configured and tested until there is a fully functional application ready to be deployed to the client. © 2019 Page | 3 Automated Testing For SuccessFactors The Discover phase includes the decision to adopt the platform. In the Prepare phase the project is kicked off including the initial system installation. In the Explore phase the detailed project plan is created based upon the original scoping and requirements of the client. During the Realize phase, there are three (sometimes less) iterative cycles in which the functionality is designed and verified with the client. Also, the integrations with other systems are built which feed and receive data from SuccessFactors. When all is good to go, the client will do the User Acceptance Testing and the system is moved to production and presented to End users with a Go-live. The Run phase is an important phase in which you optimize your system to ever changing requirements and increased capabilities of the system. Testing starts in the Explore phase in which the SuccessFactors certified partner tests if the initial installation was done correctly. In the Realize phase, the systems are configured in iterative cycles and tested in different ways: • Functionality • Roles and Authorizations • Interoperability • Data • Technology © 2019 Page | 4 Automated Testing For SuccessFactors Functionality testing Functional testing is a quality assurance (QA) process and a type of black-box testing that bases its test cases on the specifications of the software component under testing. Functions are tested by feeding them inputs and examining the output. An internal program structure is rarely considered (unlike white-box testing). Functional testing usually describes what the system does. Functional testing does not imply that you are testing a function (method) of your module or class. Functional testing tests a slice of functionality of the whole system. After every iteration, or change in config, parts of the system are tested if they work the they are supposed to. This can be done by unit testing, which tests if a unit or part of the configuration works as expected. After changes to the config are made, you then test the system again and see if the results deviate from the previous results. This is called regression testing. If payroll is part of your implementation, it’s common to do parallel testing. This means you run a shadow payroll for one or more pay cycles to see if the new system produces the same paychecks, deductions and other data as the system to be replaced. A final test before go-live with a system is User Acceptance testing. In user acceptance testing, the key users of the client will test if the system functions according to the requirements. After signing off the system will go live and will be rolled out a larger population. When the system is placed in production a final test will be done which is called production validation testing. This test is to make sure the system works as designed in production. Roles & Authorization Roles and authorizations within SuccessFactors determines what different users can do and see in the system. It’s crucial to have different roles defined and test if the permissions work accordingly. Role Based Permissions in SuccessFactors is normally set-up per module and a user can have multiple roles assigned to her/him. So, testing this area involves testing if the roles are correctly defined in the system and more importantly if the authorizations are correct. You don’t want an employee to be able to see all salary and performance data from other employees. An area which is sometimes overlooked is reporting by reports can users generate and what data is displayed. When you consider GDPR and other data privacy laws, this is of utmost importance. © 2019 Page | 5 Automated Testing For SuccessFactors Interoperability One of the strengths of the SuccessFactors platform is the capability to integrate with other applications in the organization and create seamless digital business processes. Standard integrations between the SuccessFactors modules are very low risk for issues but will need some testing. The larger focus should be on the non-SuccessFactors applications you integrate with. The risk of not doing Interoperability testing are: • Loss of data • Unreliable performance • Unreliable operation • Incorrect operation • Low maintainability The following are the different types of software interoperability testing you may hear of in order of importance and relevance to SuccessFactors: Data Type Interoperability Testing: This type of testing aims at testing the data at its data type level. In other words, if numeric data is transferred from the source system then the destination should read and process it as numeric data only. Semantic Interoperability Testing: This type of testing aims at verifying the data semantics or algorithm involved during data exchange. Specification Level Interoperability Testing: This type of testing aims at verifying the device specifications such as data transfer protocol used between devices, the data format used between computer software components, etc. Physical Interoperability Testing: This type of testing aims at verifying the physical device or software system connection such as USB port compatibility, HDMI port compatibility, data cable compatibility, etc. between communicating devices. Not relevant for a cloud system like SuccessFactors. © 2019 Page | 6 Automated Testing For SuccessFactors Data testing When clients move to a new system they have different requirements in transferring current or historic data. Some would like to only bring over current data and other prefer to take all their historical data. An important factor is the cleanliness and accuracy of the data. Another factor is if the data is converted or just migrated. Data conversion is the transformation of data from one format to another. It implies extracting data from the source, transforming it and loading the data to the target system based on a set of requirements. Data Migration is the process of transferring data between silos, formats, or systems. Therefore, data conversion is only the first step in this complicated process. Except for data conversion, data migration includes data profiling, data cleansing, data validation, and the ongoing data quality assurance process in the target system. To ensure both historical and incremental data is successfully migrated, it requires running several validation tests, including: Schema Validation: During data migration, it is necessary to validate the schema, such as stored procedures, views, or user preferences as part of the data migration. Cell-by-Cell Comparison: Testing at this level of detail guarantees full validation of the data, helping to avoid time-consuming and expensive data quality issues often discovered in after a data migration. Reconciliation Checks: One of the most important aspects of validation is performing reconciliation checks on the source and target databases for all columns. This ensures that the data is not corrupted, date formats are maintained, and that the data is completely loaded. NULL Validation: It is necessary to ensure the NULL is not accidently inserted in place of valid data. Ad Hoc Testing: The final step in the testing process, ad hoc testing ensures that the target business application and the newly migrated data can successfully process the data. Ad hoc testing may include running a business query from customer, examining important data or frequently used tables to ensure that the source and target data match the data migrated successfully. © 2019 Page | 7 Automated Testing For SuccessFactors Installation testing Now you may think that SuccessFactors doesn’t need installation testing as it is a cloud