Features and Enhancements in SAP TAO 2.0 from SAP TAO 1.0

The SAP Test Acceleration and Optimization™ (SAP TAO ™) software streamlines the creation and maintenance of ERP business process testing. It helps Quality Analyst specialists to break down application into components. Assemble test cases through a simple interface using drag and drop components in Quality Center. Test script can be parameterized for flexible reuse. Maintained easily and inexpensively, even when screens, flows, or service packs change.

Features of SAP TAO ™ 1.0 version released in 2007:
Inspect: Captures the data in a screen or transaction and determines its validity. It enables you to create and maintain a list of transactions and screens.

Import/Export: Primarily runs in background mode to export and import data from the SAP Test Acceleration and Optimization™ client to the SAP Quality Center.

Consolidator: Gathers all the objects and data in an SAP Quality Center test script and creates a single component.

Connect: Connection settings for SAP and Quality Center

Enhancements in SAP TAO ™ 2.0 versions released in 2009:
PFA (Process flow Analyzer): It records user interactions and the sequence of screens to execute a business process, in the SAP TAO ™ repository. It automates inspection and creation of the test components and a parameterized draft transition test case. It automatically creates the data table spreadsheet with the DT columns and values used during the recording process.

Repository: The SAP Test Acceleration and Optimization™ repository is a part of the SAP Solution Manger system and is used to store:
User interaction and sequence of the screens in a business process.
Information specific to SAP Test Acceleration and Optimization™ that cannot be retrieved by other tools.

Change Analyzer: It helps you to analyze the impact of changes due to upgrades, SAP patches or Custom development on a test, components or consolidated component.

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Some myths and challenges faced by BPT Methodology

Is designing test for an entire business scenario a time-consuming process?
Business Process (BP) – a BP should be well-documented written at a level that can be script. The BP should be understandable by people not familiar with business. It should be sufficiently detailed. If possible we can have Mercury Screen Recordings (MSR), Navigational flow etc.

Data – The input data required for executing the BP should be reusable. If it is not reusable, sufficient set of data should provided for automating the BP. For most of the finance modules data are not reusable.

Business Process should be complete, correct and accurate. Verifying BP completeness and correctness takes a lot of time, better to start off with these steps in mind as verification time should be used to ensure the quality of the scripts instead of verifying the quality of the BP. Don’t assume anything, design the test cases so that any person can run it or execute it. Design the test cases so that any person can understand what steps are to be validated.

Generally speaking, the more user involvement a BP requires the less desirable it becomes for automation. Though scripts build during development process are executed successfully, they are liable to fail during regression execution. The common errors and solutions can be summarized as:

Wrong Data is being used: Most of the time the script fails due to a mismatch between the data displayed in application and the data stored in Data Table. The solution for this is to change the incorrect value in the Data Table.

Script Flow has changed due to a new build or a new data: if this is the case we need to modify the existing script to add/remove the necessary steps. This is not acceptable because we are automating scripts with the same process. This may represent delays in our delivery date.

The script is running with a different user: The solution is to use the same user that we were using during the development phase or give the new user the same privileges that the user utilized during development had.

Data is burned: If this is the case we need to get or create new data in order to execute the script.

Are your scripts backward compatible i.e., can they run in lower versions?
Scripts execution in lower version of QTP: The other major problem faced in scripts are not backward compatable.ie.., scripts build in upgraded version of quick test professional like 9.2,cannot be executed in 9.0 or lower versions. This problem can be overcome by using BCIE (Bushiness component Import and Export) tool. Using this tool we can import the reusable component from higher version of QC and export it to lower version of QC. Scripts are then compatible with lower versions.

Does Subject Matter Experts require technical knowledge?
Even though creating Business Processes Test Script using accelerators might seem like a simple task, there are multiple factors and caveats that need to be taken into account.
1.The initial Components base might prove complete for some BP’s, but there will surely be a need to create new components in order to complete all the scripts.
2.Though the UI Scanner automatically generates the required components, it might be required to manually modify the QTP code, or even to manually create a whole component.
3.VB Script knowledge is welcomed, since sometimes, there might even be the need to create new functions in the libraries, or modify the existing ones. It is always better to have a technical architect in a project dedicated to handle Libraries, tool installation, debug and trouble shooting. A technical architect should have considerable knowledge of library architecture and descriptive programming understanding, should understand relationship between Accelerators libraries and Business Process Testing. The responsibilities of the technical architect would be to provide the team with wrappers and

Are accelerators only for ERP applications?
Accelerator projects are not restricted to only ERP applications like SAP, PeopleSoft,Seibel and Oracle. It can be customized for application like Metavance, web based application like SAP web portal by our technically expertise development team.

When to automate?

• Business scenario that will run with each new version of your application
• Business scenario that uses multiple data values for the same operation
• Business scenario that create data for additional business scenario
• Business scenario that require low end-user decision making
• Complex or lengthy business scenario that are often run during business day.

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QATS @ Hexaware

Welcome to the world of QATS.
Our Motto
Strive for perfection
Our Goal
Testing to make the application fool proof
What we do
We at QATS live eat sleep test everything. Innovation is in blood. We do not talk about innovation but we live it.
We never take things for granted. We love our work and we never leave any stone unturned. This belief philosophy helps us differentiate us from other. The team strives to bring that wow effect in every engagement that we undertake.

The WOW effect
A testimony of our innovation @ our QATS is now also on Microsoft site. We hope you will keep coming again and again here.
We promise that we will serve you with more and more info/tips/solutions that will help you make your life easy.
For more details on the complete suite of QATS offerings check out this link
If you would like to learn more, check out this link http://www.hexaware.com/new_testing.htm

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