Need For SAP Testing

The world's most popular ERP package, SAP ERP(previously SAP R/3) provides a great flexibility in configuring applications. This facility however comes with potential risk attached to it, for example the amount of impact releases can have on business owing to the sheer size, complexity and demands for shorter implementation cycles.

This raises the bar for effective and extensive testing of key business process flows and configuration in ever shortening cycles before any release can go live.

SAP ERP has a modular structure which means, it contains a number of modules accessible via one login to the SAP ERP system (with the exception of SAP BW and SAP KW). SAP ERP modules are widely known by their abbreviations.I think the first and foremost thing which a SAP QA should keep in mind is the SAP module abbreviations:)

The most widely used functional modules are:

• Sales and Distribution(SD)
• Finance and Controls(FICO)
• Material Management(MM)
• Production Planning(PP)
• Plant maintenance(PM)
• Human Resource(HR) 

Typical SAP release challenges:

• Time constraint for development and Testing/QA cycle.
• Testing of critical business process flows.
• Large number of fixes\enhancements with each release of application.
• Risk associated with the upshot of configuration changes.
• Risk associated with distributed and diverse system.
• Proper documentation of scenarios to be tested.

How QA\Testing can address these challenges:

• Early detection of bugs and issues can reduce cost of failure.
• Proper implementation of QA can help in wrapping up the testing of application quickly.
• Test automation is consistent and repeatable.
• Baselined scripts can be provided to new folks for testing, thereby utilizing the expertise of functional testers to test critical scenarios.
• Well documented manual test cases will acts as the building blocks for test automation script creation.
• Automation ensures uniformity in the testing process each time test is executed.
• Test accelerators such as SAPTAO can help in reducing the manual testing effort.
• If Solman is the 'single source of truth' then integrating it with HP QC\ALM will help in impact analysis.

Given the challenges, it is clear that SAP testing is not a luxury but a necessity. Although many companies have started adopting testing methodology for SAP, I believe with a right strategy and approach reduction in cost of SAP release can be achieved.