SAP Business Process Automation:

A Unique Differentiation

STEP AUTO EVENT 2008

Abhik Kar (Business Analyst)

Bipasha Das (Business Analyst)
Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Table of Content

SAP Business Process Testing Space

Scope of the Paper

Challenges in SAP Testing

SAP Automation with a Difference

Business Benefits

A Case in Point

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 2

SAP Business Process Testing Space

 Frequent upgrades  Market pressure deadlines

 Enter cycle of Regression  Extensive functional testing
testing  Test Coverage
 Test critical business  Impact: Interruptions to
processes business engagements
Support Packs
Business Process Changes
SAP
Within Company
Upgrades
Business Changes

Sarbanes Oxley

Regulatory Compliance

Internal Compliance
Disaster Recovery Customer Applications
System Environment Other Applications
Hardware, Database Changes Integration Platforms

 High Priority  Availability

 Functional and Regression  Performance
testing
 End-to-end integration
testing

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 3

Scope of the Paper

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 4

Challenges in SAP Testing

1 Manual Testing Challenges 2 Automation Testing Challenges

A Enormous Testing Time Requirement A Unstable and without reusability

B Risk of low test coverage B Synchronization issues

C Compliance and Regulatory Risk C Handling Exceptions

D Integration Testing Risk D Maintenance Overhead

E Consequence of Change Request Requires advanced technical skills

F Higher Total Cost of Ownership Complexity of testing tools

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 5

SAP Automation with a Difference - The Framework

Define keywords/ actions

Build automation blocks H
Y
B
R
I
Keyword Driven D

Same script – used F

multiple times R
A
M
Data Driven E
W
O
R
No hard coding of data K

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 6

SAP Automation with a Difference – The Methodology

Business Expert Automation expert

Analyze test cases Enhance Keyword Library

Identify keywords Create Object Repository

Model UI/ Business process and Associate Repository with

Test Cases already modeled Test cases

Generate Scripts

Execute Script

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 7

SAP Automation with a Difference - Edge

Handling Exceptions Reusable Blocks Data Parameterization

Pass data at run time

Example of a Recovery •Login : Login to the SAP
Scenario:
client
•T-Code 1 : Same script – different data
Transaction: MIRO
sets
.
.
Reusability Enhanced
.
•T-Code N :
•Logout: Logs out of the
Company Purch
T-Code Code Org Plant Material
SAP client
Exhaustive keywords and
M E2 1N 10 0 0 ES0 1 4 0 0 0 M a te ria l1
functions designed to recover
M E2 1N 2 0 0 0 ES11 6 0 0 0 M a te ria l2
from such unexpected events
Identify >> Create
and errors >> Reuse

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 8

Business Benefits

Critical Parameter Traditional Way New Age Way

Time to break even Longer Estimated to be in less than 3 release

Business Abstraction Not possible Ensures separation of the Business and Application layers

Reusability Limited Extensive

Change Incorporating changes is Incorporates changes easily

Management difficult

Error Handling Comparatively less user User friendly error messages are displayed. Screenshots can be
Mechanism friendly
taken at the point-of-failures.

Division of Labor Not Possible Possible due to use of logical Names. This enables automation
experts and business testers to work in parallel.

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 9

Business Benefits

Nature of Change Impact Mitigation in Mitigation in New age automation

traditional automation

Change in SAP Addition/removal of Update all test scripts Modify the Test case definition and
Business Process transactions or change affected by the change regenerate the scripts at the click of a
in the sequence of button. Changes will be reflected to all the
transactions scripts pertaining to the business process.

SAP Hot Patches New patches are release Analyze impact and Only add/ modify/ disable an action and
in SAP with Modify each script for regenerate script to get the changes
new/modified transaction the deleted/ modified/ reflected
added script

Change in  A transaction might Analyze impact and Additional screens/controls are modeled
functionality undergo change in manually edit the scripts and associated with business process by
functionality where a which use the changed the business tester and change will reflect
particular feature may be screens/controls and in all scripts once regenerated
disabled/modified or this needs to be
added managed by the test
automation experts

Version Upgrades  New versions are Significant Easy enhancements to scripts

released with upgraded enhancements to script
SAP business process needed

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 10

A Case in Point

Client Profile
 
The Client, a leading international retail brand, was going for a global rollout of SAP and required to perform automated
testing of critical integration business processes for one of their clusters - to test the flow of messages through various sub
systems in an automated manner as manual testing was time consuming and repetitive in nature.

Business Case Challenges The Solution The Results

Infosys proposed to automate the manual test cases using
 Complex business process the above SAP business process testing methodology to The solution offered the following
enable creation of maintainable test scripts in a faster benefits to client:
 Testing knowledge limited manner.
to few business experts.  Maintainable automated test scripts
Infosys team adopted the following approach to meet the in short span of time
 Updating the manual engagement objectives:  Lower cost because of potential
documentation side by side  Analyze the test cases and the sample test savings in effort because of the
with the automated scripts scripts provided to define the Business usage of the solution
processes.  Highly structured and detailed level
 Dependency on  Model the business process objects for the of test case script generation for the
automation expertise to applications using solution User Interface manual test cases
extend automation  Develop the keyword functions that are  Ease of future maintenance of the
required to achieve complete automation of the test cases using the Solution
test cases in scope framework.
 Generate Test Scripts using Solution’s scripting  The saving in effort for key activities
Engine that was achieved by the client is
 Develop system for automated execution of enlisted below.
the generated scripts

•Activity •Savings in Effort

•Design and Development of test Automation framework based on Business Component Driven approach •30%

•Test case Scripting • 50%

•Future Maintenance of Test suite • 50%

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 11

 Thank You !

SAP Business Process Automation: A Unique Differentiation 12