Solution Brief

SAP Services AUTOMATED END-TO-END BUSINESS

PROCESS TESTING
REDUCE TESTING TIME, COSTS, AND
RISKS
The SAP® Test Acceleration
and Optimization application
provides preconfigured, auto-
mated, functional test com- Organizations today face a sea of chang- Fast, Adaptive, and Efficient
ponents. Used together with es driven by unprecedented levels of
business complexity and stakeholder de- Testing business processes is critical,
the SAP Quality Center appli- mands, an ever-increasing amount of but current approaches toward end-to-
cation by HP, the solution new regulations and legislation, and con- end business process testing can be
tinuing technological advances. Busi- inefficient, ineffective, expensive, and
enabbles fast, adaptive, and nesses must keep up with and adapt to risky. Some quality assurance profes-
hig
ghly efficcie
ent testing of these changes. Doing this with ample sionals use customized, manual proce-
speed and agility helps separate the dures – that are expensive and time
SAP solutions and business businesses that thrive from those that consuming – to test processes and ap-
processes. merely survive. During any change event, plications. In addition, subject matter
such as an application implementation or experts often spend extra hours com-
upgrade, it is imperative that an organiza- municating the process data flow to
tion’s core business processes – for ex- the testers. Published research indi-
ample, order to cash or procure to pay cates that the combination of testing
– continue to work as expected without and data conversion account for be-
any disruption. The highly secure and tween 35% and 38% of the duration
mission-critical nature of enterprise and cost of an IT project.
application data means that you need to
regularly test these applications and SAP Test Acceleration and Optimiza-
related business processes. tion addresses these challenges by
streamlining the creation and mainte-
The SAP® Test Acceleration and Optimi- nance of business process testing. The
zation application brings together the software automatically creates test
worlds of business process knowledge components, uploads test components
and quality assurance to significantly re- to the SAP Quality Center application
duce the time, costs, and risks associat- by HP, and then runs the automated
ed with business process testing. tests, as outlined in the following table.

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 Test Acceleration Process
Action Steps Involved
Generate Test Components • Scope the transaction codes
that you want to test
• Automatically inspect, learn, and
generate components for test
codes
• Consolidate components
• Upload components to SAP®
The SAP Test Acceleration
Quality Center application and Optimization
by HP
application provides pre-
Compose Test Cases • Create test suites to test target
scenarios and requirements configured, automated,
• Compose test cases functional test compo-
• Add test data to the
components nents to significantly re-
Execute Test Cases • Select and collect all the duce the time, costs, and
relevant test cases
• Build a test run set
risks associated with
• Assign data sets for business process testing.
multiple regressions
• Run the test set
• Maintenance
With SAP Test Acceleration and Opti- Automated testing with SAP Test Ac- You can record component parame-
mization, you can break down applica- celeration and Optimization maximizes: ters with SAP Test Acceleration and
tions into components, which can then Optimization. The software provides
be assembled into test cases through • Deployment a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to
a simple drag-and-drop interface. The In tandem with SAP Quality Center, save parameters for reuse and main-
test cases are parameterized so you SAP Test Acceleration and Optimiza- tenance. You can also move compo-
can reuse a test that has updated data tion dramatically reduces the amount nents from SAP Quality Center to
inputs. This functionality is easy and of time required to build and execute SAP Test Acceleration and Optimiza-
cost-effective to maintain, even when test scripts. The application is fully tion for additional backup
screens, flows, or service packs aligned with the ASAP methodology possibilities.
change. You can add patches, provided to streamline your development and • Robustness
by SAP, so that your test cases are still implementation efforts. The SAP Test Acceleration and Opti-
valid. • Reuse mization inspection process ensures
SAP Test Acceleration and Optimiza- that your tests will hold up to any
Used in concert with the SAP tion eliminates the need to create changes that may take place during
Quality Center application by new tests whenever a component the inspection process or as testing
changes. If one component changes situations change. During the inspec-
HP, SAP Test Acceleration and in a group of tests, just replace that tion process, the data content – not
Optimization enables fast, adap- component and then reconsolidate just the screen object behavior –
the tests. within a component is examined.
tive, and highly efficient testing
of SAP solutions and business
processes.

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 Effective Test Data Management Increase Efficiency, Reduce Risk SAP Test Acceleration
and Cost
SAP Test Acceleration and Optimization and Optimization pro-
provides best practice guidance on the SAP Test Acceleration and Optimization
process integration of existing test data increases testing efficiency, reduces vides best practice
management applications, such as the risk, and improves total cost of opera-
SAP Test Data Migration Server soft- tions by enabling: guidance on process
ware. With SAP Test Data Migration • Dramatic reductions in time and re-
Server, you can take a more agile sources through automatic generation integration of existing
approach to automated regression, of test components, unattended exe-
functional, and business process testing, cution of business process testing, test data management
because you can create small, easy-to- and increased test coverage for critical
use test environments and populate business processes applications, such as
them with a manageable set of up-to- • Automated adaptations to changes by
date, business-relevant test data. This providing detailed insight into the im- the SAP Test Data
approach helps ensure consistency in pact of planned SAP software chang-
the live software environment. It also es to transactions, a list of change Migration Server
enables you to minimize infrastructure events, and affected transactions, and
and maintenance expenses and maxi- by enabling automated detection and software.
mize the effectiveness and accuracy regeneration of outdated test
of the nonproductive systems used for components
testing, quality assurance, and training. • Assistance for effective test data man-
agement with best practice guidance Learn More
SAP Solution Manager Integration on process integration of existing test
data management applications To find out how SAP Test Acceleration
The SAP Solution Manager application and Optimization can improve your test
management solution speeds test prepa- ing processes, call your SAP representa-
ration and execution. It provides you with tive or visit us online at www.sap.com
a single point of access to the entire /usa/services/consulting/saptesting.epx.
software landscape as well as central
data storage so you can reuse testing
materials in subsequent projects and
access test results to support cross-
component tests. Integrated with SAP
Quality Center, SAP Solution Manager
allows you to initiate testing as you con-
figure process structures. And because
it is also integrated with your issue-
handling software, it helps you resolve
problems efficiently.

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 QUICK FACTS www.sap.com /contactsap

Summary
Through preconfigured, automated, functional test components, the SAP® Test Acceleration
and Optimization application fundamentally changes the testing paradigm from manual test-
ing to testing by composition, significantly reducing the costs and risks for all system
change events.

Challenges
• Avoid resource and time constraints caused by manual testing
• Require expert know-how for automated tests via scripting
• Create more certainty on which business processes are affected by transport orders
• Avoid damaging automated test cases through system changes
• Reduce uncertainty on test coverage of areas affected by change
• Set up a test system with most recent, relevant, and representative test data

Supported Business Processes and Software Functions

• Automated business process testing – Accelerate testing of business processes, fully
aligned with the ASAP methodology, the SAP Solution Manager application management
solution, and the SAP Quality Center application by HP
• Test case creation – Build test cases that are easily composed by using bulk-generated
components or components generated on demand

Business Benefits
• Lower risk reduces security and failure risks due to better testing coverage and
assurance
• Improved testing optimizes the testing process and realizes a faster ROI during testing
cycles
• Increased capacity absorbs and manages change more effectively by ensuring the
reliability of your applications
• Tighter integration seamlessly integrates testing processes with SAP Quality Center and
SAP Solution Manager to speed test preparation and execution

For More Information

Call your SAP representative or visit us online at www.sap.com/usa/services/consulting
/saptesting.epx.

50 088 992 (08/01) Printed in USA.

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