A Beginner’s Guide in 2023

Numerous business organizations use SAP applications to control their operations. SaaS ERP is gaining immense importance today as it helps companies enhance business workflows. The global SAP testing market is expected to reach $1132.3 million by 2028, with a CAGR of 7.9%  during the forecast period 2023-2030.

However, it is quite a complicated task to implement these systems. Configuring different SAP modules to acquire the required functionality is a must. Therefore, every SAP implementation involves some testing.

Before going into deeper details about SAP testing, one should understand how SAP ERP software works. For testing purposes, it is important to understand the functionalities, phases, and workflows in ERP systems. These basic sap testing requirements affirm that it is almost impossible to test SAP modules without proper knowledge. So, let’s get started. 

 

What is SAP?

SAP is an acronym for Systems, Applications, and Products. SAP is an integrated ERP software that organizations use to manage business processes. It integrates all business operations, including finance, accounting, sales, production, logistics, distribution, and human resources. 

Executing all business processes in an SAP system allows information to flow from one SAP module to another without redundant data entry. This renders process, financial and legal controls and facilitates the effective use of resources. SAP software helps organizations handle their business processes efficiently while reducing operational costs.  So, enterprises looking forward to dominating the modern business space must endow in top-notch SAP education.

What is SAP Testing?

SAP testing is an essential process in software testing that aims to validate the functionality of SAP modules to ensure that they function correctly. The ERP software supports various business processes across departments, including finance, sales, and human resources. SAP testing is a vital process performed periodically to verify the system’s performance after any modifications, such as adding new modules, configuration changes, patches, and patch management.

Unlike traditional testing methodologies, to perform SAP testing, you need to focus on producing the expected results by the system rather than testing individual components or functions. As a crucial part of the SAP testing process, functional unit testing ensures the accuracy of data stored in the system’s database, enabling businesses to maintain the desired results of all processes.

What is SAP Implementation?

SAP implementation is a set of procedures to deploy the SAP system in an organization, which involves designing, building, and optimizing the system. SAP implementation activates the system within a company’s network.

The SAP implementation process involves the collection of practices (designing, building, and tuning) intended to make the system go live. You can view SAP implementation as the process of turning the vision of a business into reality through the use of SAP ERP software. 

SAP environments are unique to a specific domain or industry.

Each company or organization has distinct requirements for SAP configurations, customizations, internal modules, third-party integrations, and future adaptations. As such, SAP implementations vary from one project to another.

The standard SAP implementation methodology involves the following steps:

Step 1: Project planning and preparation. 

Step 2: Create a business blueprint where all requirements are gathered in detail. 

Step 3: Project realization or implementation of the business process requirements.

Step 4:reparation, including testing, staff training, and other cutover activities.

Step 5: Going live or transitioning to the new system. 

Step 6: Special support until all business processes run normally. 

What is SAP Customization?

SAP customization is the process of adding functionalities to an existing SAP system. It involves mapping your business processes and requirements to the system by making enhancements, thereby developing reports, programs, or screens custom to an organization. In such cases, the desired functionalities are unavailable through configuration, so you create a custom code. 

Example – SAP End-user Customization

This is a common and among the most practical forms of SAP customization. It involves modifying user parameters, including personal data, communication data, date and time format, time zone, attributes for printing, and so on. 

Example – User Interface Customization

UI customization refers to changing the SAP layout per local requirements or user preferences. You can customize visual settings such as color, theme, and fonts to your preferences. You can customize interaction design by adjusting sound controls, keyboard settings, and other attributes. 

What is Maintenance of SAP Software?

Here, maintenance means the changes made to the SAP system after configuring, customizing, and deploying it. This responsibility falls on your development and QA teams, who must work together to ensure the application runs smoothly and meets the required quality standards. The teams must continuously monitor and test the system, identify issues or bugs, and promptly address them to prevent disruptions or negative impacts on business processes. Ensuring quality performance across the SAP system allows your organization to maximize its benefits and avoid potential drawbacks.

In this case, we suggest changes such as:

• Bug fixes
• Addition of new features or functionalities. 
• SAP Kernel Updates
• OSS note implementation.
• Support pack and stack updates

SAP maintenance ensures the system works optimally.  A significant breakdown in the SAP system means a loss of productivity. SAP maintenance is crucial to ensure a smooth workflow across all business processes. 

Putting it all together, these are the three main reasons for SAP systems maintenance.:

1. Inspection – Aimed at identifying the actual condition of the SAP system.
2. Repair – Done to restore the system to its optimal state. If a function fails, repairs are done to restore its normal function. 
3. Preventive – Preventive maintenance helps maintain the system’s current condition. It aims at minimizing breakdown problems through regular inspection and some minor repairs. 

SAP End-to-End Life Cycle

The process of SAP testing tutorial involves following the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) to ensure that the software meets quality standards that align with business goals and market requirements. Each phase of the testing process has specific objectives and deliverables that impact subsequent project phases.

1. The Test Preparation Phase

This phase involves identifying the tests that must be performed, establishing testing metrics and methods, and determining the business processes and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be tested.

2. The Test Execution Phase

In this phase, testers carry out all required test cases using manual or automated testing methods. The QA team logs defects, tracks progress, and reports on the testing status throughout this phase.

3. The Test Evaluation Phase

Here, the testers evaluate the quality of the testing process by analyzing defects and thoroughly documenting the test cases. The QA team identifies areas for improvement to be implemented in the next lifecycle.

Different Types of Testing for SAP Suite

To ensure a prosperous development cycle, it is imperative that your QA team plans and executes various forms of SAP testing. To know how to do SAP testing, you need to be aware of the various types of testing. 

We advise incorporating diverse SAP testing types into your QA process for optimal results. You can test the functionality of the SAP system through several methods. It includes: 

1. Unit Testing 

It is a kind of white box testing done to test the functionality of different units in the SAP system. This type of testing is performed by skilled developers who understand the functionality of each component in the system and perform Unit Testing. It comprises testing workflows, interfaces, conversions, reports, forms, data transfer rules, and security authorization within the system. 

2. Integration Testing

Integration testing involves testing multiple components of an SAP system to ensure they function correctly when integrated. With the help of realistic data, it is done in the QA environment. As the business end-users are familiar with data extracted from a real source, this testing uses such data. 

As configured in the SAP software, SAP integration testing demonstrates that business processes are run with real-world data. It also ensures that interface triggers, workflows, and reports function properly.

3. Regression Testing

To make sure that the changes made in the system do not affect the actual functionalities, SAP regression testing is performed. The main motive of this test is to check how the system works with the newly added configuration.

Whenever a system gets upgraded, a patch gets applied, new interfaces are added, and configurations are altered, it can adversely affect the system. 

So, SAP regression testing is carried out by skilled testers with various automation tools. This ensures features introduced or enhancements made to the system do not adversely affect the core business processes. 

4. Performance Testing

Performance testing is done to determine if the SAP system meets the needed level of performance. Its objective is to increase the stability of the SAP software. Thus, deploying systems that sustain a higher load forecast without performance issues. In a nutshell, SAP performance testing includes:

• Testing if the system responds as per the organizational requirements.
• Determining if the system can support the desired concurrent user load.
• Verifying whether periodic processes are executed within permissible time. 
• Identifying system obstructions due to inefficient coding, high transaction rate, or batch volumes. 

5. Functional Testing

SAP applications are known for their high configuration. They enable integration with third-party applications. For such complexities, SAP functional testing is crucial. It determines whether the functionality of all modules meets the business requirements. Skilled testers review design documents and create test artifacts such as test cases, test scenarios, and test requirements to perform SAP functional testing. 

6. User Acceptance Testing

It is also known as Acceptance Testing, and it ensures that the SAP system meets the business end-user requirements. The end-users accept the application only if it performs the designated job functions. Therefore, the essential aspect of user acceptance testing is understanding all businesses deploying systems that sustain a higher load forecast is easy to label. When users take ownership of the system and feel comfortable working around the new business environment, user acceptance testing is said to be successful. 

7. Security Testing

As the name suggests, Security Testing ensures the safety and integrity of SAP applications. It ensures system users access appropriate data and execute the relevant transactions to their domain. Different teams, including database administration, development, infrastructure, and testing experts, perform security testing. They examine high-risk areas like portal security, network security,  operational security, product security, source code audit, and access control. 

8. Portal Testing

SAP systems have different portals depending on the business processes and organizational requirements. Portal testing checks the portals on different browsers.  

How to Create A SAP Test Case?

An SAP test case is required to check the system’s installation, configuration, and implementation. Whether you are performing intranet testing, real-time testing, or a multi-language test, the test case should sufficiently cover the scope of your test. 

And because SAP software is typically a decentralized system available for simultaneous use by multiple users in real-time, writing ERP test cases requires effort and dedication.  

For an effective test case, one must:

• Determine the SAP role or professional required to execute a particular test case.
• Determine the SAP transaction to be executed in the test case
• Obtain test data required for the test case. Additionally, check whether another SAP tester is using the data or whether it should be created. 
• Define the test case characteristics, i.e., status, priority, sensitivity, owner, keywords, timelines, and test classification. 
• Identify all prerequisites
• Conduct a peer review of the test case.
• Create both positive and negative scenarios
• Ensure all test steps are well-detailed. 
• Document all defects as soon as they occur. 

For instance, in SAP Solution Manager 7.2, you can create a test case for a business process from the test management work center (solution documentation view).

SAP Automation Testing

Let’s look at how to do testing in SAP. SAP system testing is complex and quite challenging. If testers fail to perform comprehensive tests, it exposes the system to high risks. This includes inefficiency and potential system failure. Compared to the manual testing process, which is time-consuming, SAP automation testing is a better alternative.  

In automation testing, the testing team writes the scripts but uses software tools for testing. This saves time and improves accuracy when testing the product. During the process, testers re-run test cases that were performed manually. They also test the system from performance, load, and stress perspectives.
The benefits of using SAP test automation tools include the following:

• Improved test coverage.
• Improved product quality, which minimizes production outages. 
• The reduced workload in subsequent release cycles. 

Performance Testing for SAP

Performance testing is done to check SAP applications’ speed, stability, and scalability. The main reasons for executing performance testing on SAP systems include the following:

• Ensuring the system conforms to the service-level agreements.
• Managing hardware costs. 
• Optimizing software configuration settings
• Verify that the SAP system will not fail or crash during occasional high loads, which helps avoid corresponding losses. 

There are different test tools for checking the performance of SAP systems. They can be developed as open-source such as Jmeter and Open STA, or for commercial purposes, such as SAP IBM Rational Robot and Load Runner. The choice of the testing tool depends on the SAP application you want to test.

SAP Testing Automation Tools

Regarding methodologies, strategies, planning, and testing stages, the SAP testing tutorial is similar to testing any other application.

However, just like with other types of testing, automation tools are necessary for SAP testing to improve test coverage, increase test efficiency, reduce testing time, and enhance productivity for customer satisfaction. This section highlights the common SAP testing tools. Let’s take a look.

1. HP QuickTest Professional (QTP)

HP QuickTest Professional (QTP), now known as Micro Focus Unified Functional Testing (UFT), is a robust automation tool that supports many environments, including SAP. It is a commercial keyword-driven software testing tool that allows users to automate the testing of web, desktop, and mobile application testing. Testers using QTP enjoy excellent vendor support, which makes it a popular choice among testing professionals.

Features

• Multiple scripting languages
• Image-based testing
• Object identification
• Keyword-driven framework
• Record and playback  

Pricing

The accurate HP QuickTest Professional (QTP) pricing is unavailable. Please connect with the vendor or pricing. 

Pros and Cons

2. Selenium

 

Selenium is an open-source software testing suite for web applications. It can be deployed on all major operating systems, i.e., Windows, Linux, and Mac. It allows users to write SAP testing tutorial scripts in several programming languages, including Java, Python, and Ruby, to automate web-based tasks, including testing web applications, scraping data from websites, and automating repetitive tasks.

Features

• Multi-language support
• Parallel testing
• Cross-browser compatibility
• Object recognition
• Continuous testing

Pricing

Selenium is a free, open-source SAP testing software. For the pricing of other commercial versions, please connect with the vendor.

Pros and Cons

3. SAP TAO

SAP TAO (Test Acceleration and Automation) is an automation testing tool developed by SAP in collaboration with Focus Frame, the Hexaware-affiliated company. The device combines HP QuickTest Professional (QTP) and HP Quality Center (QC), where QTP serves as the execution engine. SAP TAO software testing tool is designed to accelerate and automate the testing of SAP applications.

Features 

• Automated SAP tests
• Test management
• Test optimization
• Codeless test automation
• Integration with SAP solution manager

Pricing

SAP TAO is based on a per-user, per-year subscription model. However, the pricing rate is not available. Please connect with the vendor for pricing. 

Pros and Cons

4. Extended Computer-Aided Test Tool ( ECATT )

ECATT is an automation tool for creating and running functional and regression tests on SAP software. It is an in-built tool that comes alongside SAP software. ECATT performs automated tests on business processes. It allows users to create and execute test cases and simulate business processes without manual intervention.

Features

• Parameterization
• Error handling
• Batch processing
• Test data migration
• Regression testing

Pricing

Extended Computer-Aided Test Tool ( ECATT ) pricing varies depending on the SAP license model. Please contact the vendor for pricing.

Pros and Cons

5. IBM Rational Functional Tester

The IBM Rational Functional Tester is a tool for automating regression and functional testing on Windows, IE, Java, and ERP applications that run on the Windows platform. It provides test cases for standard objects such as bitmaps, lists, menus, and objects specific to the development environment. The tool supports various user interface technologies, including Web, Java, VS.NET controls, Delphi, and Oracle.

Features

• Keyword driven testing
• Custom scripting and integration
• Mobile application testing
• Robust object recognition engine
• Distributed testing

Pricing

IBM offers a flexible pricing model that includes perpetual, subscription-based licenses and cloud-based options. Please connect with the vendor for a quote. 

Pros and Cons

6. Silk Test

 

Silk Test by MicroFocus is an automation tool for running regression and function testing. It also supports mobile and cross-browser testing. Silk test is a keyword-driven testing tool and can, therefore, provide a collaborative test design environment. It supports a range of platforms, including web, mobile, desktop, and cloud-based applications, and enables testers to create and run automated tests quickly and easily.

Features 

• Cross-browser testing
• Cross-device testing 
• Intelligent object recognition
• Parallel testing
• Image-based testing

Pricing

The pricing of Silk Test depends on the specific requirements and needs of the user. Please connect with the vendor for a personalized quote. 

Pros and Cons

7. TestComplete

 

Test Complete is a great and easy-to-use automation tool developed by SmartBear. It automates tests across mobile, desktop, and web applications. The tool supports scripting languages like VBScript, JavaScript, and Python. TestComplete can be applied to various testing techniques, including data-driven, keyword, regression, functional, and distributed testing. It is a powerful and flexible testing platform that helps software development teams improve their testing processes and increase efficiency.

Features

• Object recognition
• Keyword-driven testing
• API testing
• Cross-browser testing
• Visual testing

Pricing

TestComplete offers several pricing plans, including:

• TestComplete Base- starts at $3655
• TestComplete Pro-$5686

Pros and Cons

8. Testing Anywhere

Testing Anywhere is a simple tool for testing the front end of software products.  It creates software bots to automate testing processes without integrating third-party tools or writing additional code. The software can automate tests for applications built with various technologies, such as Java, .NET, HTML, and more. It enables users to create and execute automated tests for various software applications.

Features

• Multiple scripting options
• Test scheduling
• Object recognition
• Test coverage analysis
• Codeless automation

Pricing

The pricing of Testing Anywhere is not available. Please connect with the vendor for pricing.

Pros and Cons

9. WinRunner

Originally created by Mercury Interactive (currently acquired by HP), WinRunner software automates functional testing on SAP applications. The functional test suite implements a proprietary Test Script Language that allows customization of user input. It captures and verifies user interactions to identify defects and establish whether business processes work as designed. The tool automates functional and regression testing. 

Features

• Object recognition
• Parameterization
• Custom checkpoints
• Data-driven testing
• GUI-based script editor

Pricing

WinRunner may vary depending on the version and the server. Please connect with the vendor for pricing.

Pros and Cons

10. LoadRunner

 

LoadRunner is a powerful SAP testing and GUI load testing tool. This tool is becoming increasingly popular among SAP testers because it handles different aspects of SAP applications. It helps users test the performance and reliability of applications before they are released to the public. It was developed by Micro Focus and is used by many large organizations to ensure their applications can handle high traffic volumes.

Features

• Protocol support
• Cloud-based testing
• Real-time monitoring
• Parameterization
• Automated testing

Pricing

LoadRunner is available and has several pricing plans, including Community, Professional, and Enterprise. The Community edition is free, while the Professional and Enterprise editions require a subscription or license. The pricing for these editions is not available. Please connect with the vendor for pricing.

Pros and Cons

11. Visual Studio Test Professional

Visual Studio Test Professional is a powerful tool that combines SAP testers, product managers, developers, and other stakeholders. It enables users to create and execute automated tests, perform manual tests, manage test cases, and track testing progress. The tool supports various programming languages, including C#, VB.NET, and C++. It also provides tools for test automation to create tests without writing code.

Features

• Test planning and management
• Code coverage analysis
• Load testing
• Automated testing
• Manual testing

Pricing

Visual Studio Test Professional offers two pricing plans:

• Visual Studio Enterprise subscription-$5999/user/year
• Visual Studio Test Professional subscription-$2169/user/year

Pros and Cons

12. WATIR

 

Watir is an open-source tool for automating web testing. The tool’s scripting language is written in Ruby, but it can test all web applications regardless of their technology. It integrates seamlessly with back-end development tools such as Cucumber and RSpec. Watir uses Ruby programming language to drive web browsers, allowing developers and testers to write automated tests that can verify the functionality of web applications.

Features

• Cross-browser testing
• Customizable reporting
• Multi-window testing
• Element identification
• Screenshots

Pricing

WATIR is an open-source tool accessible to all users for free. It has no licensing or subscription fees. There may be additional costs associated with using it. Please connect with the vendor for pricing. 

Pros and Cons

Final Words

SAP testing is a crucial aspect of ensuring the reliability and functionality of SAP ERP applications. It plays a significant role in verifying that modifications made to the system, such as new modules and configuration changes, operate as intended.

 With the increasing demand for SAP consultants, pursuing a career in SAP testing can offer tremendous opportunities for individuals interested in quality assurance. 

With the right skills and expertise, one can break into this highly regarded field and significantly contribute to the success of organizations that rely on SAP systems.