SAP Testing: Create your First SAP Test Case

Note Reference Multiple blogs

SAP End to End lifecycle and corresponding Testing Phases
There are a multitude of methodology that can be used for SAP implementation

• ASAP Implementation ( For the initial implementation of SAP systems, and porting
from legacy system Maintenance Lifecycle
• Upgrade Life Cycle
• Custom Development Life Cycle

Whatever the lifecycle you may be working, there are three main testing phases you will be
involved in

1) Test Preparation

2) Test execution phase

3) Test Evaluation phase

Test preparation phase

1. Identification of business process to be tested
2. Manual and automated Test Case development
3. Creation of test suites and review
4. Set up of test system
5. Creation of test data

Test execution phase

1. Test execution either manually or using test tools
2. Test status reporting and Defect handling

Test evaluation phase

1. Detailed assessment of all test plans
 2. Defect Analysis
3. Documentation of the testing process

For SAP applications the common testing performed are:

1. Unit Testing: This part of testing is mostly taken care by the developers based on their
defined Unit Testing rules as per the organizations. This is sometimes done by the skilful
white box testers. The test is done in the development box. This is the testing of
interfaces, conversions, enhancement, reports, work flows and forms(RICEWF)
developed primarily with ABAP code. Testing of development object includes testing for
security authorization, data transfer rules, reconciliations and batch scheduling
jobs. BW (Business Warehouse) testing is also part of the development tests.
2. Integration Testing: It is the testing of combined components of an SAP application
to determine if they function together correctly. It is typically done in the QA
environment and uses realistic test data.
3. Regression Testing: Regression Testing is done to ensure that the new changes
implemented do not adversely affect the existing working code. SAP R/3 is a tightly
integrated system. A single stack update, OSS note, transport, configuration changes,
new development interfaces can have a cascading and severe effect. Regression
Testing is usually executed using an automation tool by the testing team.
4. Performance Testing: It is testing SAP applications to ensure that they will perform
well under the expected workload. Performance Testing encompasses load, volume
& Stress Testing to determine system bottlenecks. This testing aims to enhance the
robustness of SAP applications and helps deploy systems that can sustain high load
forecast, with zero post production performance issues. The testing includes checking
business processes that may cause stress, due to high transaction or batch volumes. It
is usually executed using automated tools & involves collaboration of basis, database,
infrastructure and test teams to monitor test results.
5. Functional Testing: Functional Testing ensures that your implementation of SAP meets
your business requirements. SAP is a highly configurable system and could be easily
integrated with in-house applications or third-party tools. Given this varied
configuration and complexity, functional testing is a must. Functional testing removes
uncertainty over business use cases and brings quality. It includes a review of design
documents and creating test artefacts including test requirements, Test Scenario and
test cases. Functional testing is usually done by the testing team with a background in
particular SAP module being tested.
6. Usability Testing − It checks the ease of use of an application or a system. It checks how
easy it would be for a new user to use an application or to understand the system.

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 7. Acceptance Testing − Acceptance testing is performed to test if a system meets the user
requirement and whether to accept the application or system.
8. User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Once functional, system and Regression Testing is
completed, UAT ( User Acceptance Testing) is performed. It ensures that the SAP system
is usable for the end-users of the system. The end users independently execute the user
acceptance test cases that include testing business processes, functions,
documentation (operating manuals, cheat sheets) etc. With UAT users can feel
comfortable with the new business environment and can take full ownership of the
system.
9. Security Testing: To ensure the safety of SAP applications, Security Testing is
performed. High-risk areas like sap-portal security, network security, operational
security, product security, access control and source code audit for security are tested.
This usually involves the basis, database, infrastructure, development and test teams.
10. Portal Testing: These techniques involve testing the SAP Portals on different browser
and checking business processes

How to create an SAP Test Case

Let’s design a test case to change the name of an employee in the SAP system

To create an effective test case, you must

• Determine SAP role required to execute the test case

• Identify the SAP transaction that needs to be executed for the test case
• Test Data required executing the test case. Determine whether the data needs to be
created or whether it used by another tester or whether the data is locked & cannot be
modified.
• Any Pre-requisites
• Peer review Test cases
• Create positive as well negative scenarios
• Create detailed Test Steps.
• Test coverage should be robust
• Document defects promptly which is as soon as they are discovered.

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Impact Analysis for Critical Processes
Here, the following activities are to be carried out in Impact Analysis −
• Identification of the critical business processes impacted by change implementation.
• Business justification to be provided as to why this change has to be implemented.
• Creating the test plan to monitor critical processes for SAP testing while performing the
change.
• Evaluation of the impact of change on critical processes and the purpose to implement the
change.

Automation has following benefits for SAP applications

1. The chief and most valuable benefit is improved test coverage

2. Better product quality and therefore less production outages. Outages in SAP
productions environments could cost a company millions!
3. Workload decreases with each release cycle

Automated Testing of SAP Applications

Automation Tools

The methodology and approaches are more important than the chosen test tool. When you
think about testing SAP application, some tools comes in mind naturally like SAP TAO,
eCATT, QTP etc.

ECATT ( Extended Computer Aided Test Tool)

ECATT is used to create and execute functional tests for SAP. ECATT is an in-built tool that
comes bundled with SAP with a primary objective of automated testing of SAP business
processes.

ECATT useful features

1. Test transactions, reports and scenarios

2. Call BAPIs and function modules
3. Test remote systems
4. Check Authorizations (user profiles)
5. Test updates
6. Test the effect of changes to customizing settings
7. Check system messages

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QTP ( Quick Test Professional Tool)
HP’s QuickTest is a keyword driven automation tool. It supports many environments
including SAP. The tool is robust, feature rich and user-friendly. Its market leader in
automation tool commanding major market share. It’s a commercial tool with excellent
vendor support. It’s a tool of choice for SAP automation.

SAP TAO
SAP released the automation tool SAP TAO in collaboration with Focus Frame(now acquired
by Hexaware).

SAP TAO wraps up QTP and QC where QTP acts as execution engine and test scenarios are
created and driven from QC through business components. SAP TAO automates generation
of test components for end to end scenarios. SAP TAO and HPQC setup do have some
benefits compare to other testing tool there is a huge corporate support for both HP and SAP
software products.

SAP TAO client application performs three functions, inspecting transactions from a SAP
server, exporting the transactions to HP Quality Center and consolidating components
or scripts from HP Quality Center.

Performance Testing of SAP Application

Performance testing of SAP applications is done to check its speed, scalability and
stability. Performance Testing SAP helps with

• Conform with service-level agreements (SLAs).

• Optimize software configuration settings.
• Reduce overspending on hardware
• Certify that the system will not crash or fail during seasonal high load and help avoid
corresponding financial losses.

Events that Trigger Performance Test

Choice of Performance testing tool for SAP depends on the underlying SAP application being
tested. Below is a list of SAP performance test tools and their application areas

1. Open source/ Free

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 • Jmeter - (Performance Test SAP Business Obects BI Platform)
• Open STA (Performance Test SAP Portals)

2. Commercial

• Load Runner (Performance Test SAP ECC amongst other SAP applications)
– recommended by SAP
• IBM Rational Robot (Can test wide variety of SAP applications)