Whenever a change is made to the code, there is some impact on the software. Now, consider that system is an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system and changes are happening as frequently as possible due to implementation of modern development processes like Agile, DevOps, and Continuous Integration/ Deployment.
To understand better let’s take examples of some ERP systems that receive frequent updates. Oracle Fusion receives quarterly updates, Oracle EPM receives monthly updates, Workday and Dynamics 365 receives two major releases a year, and so on. Considering the complexity of ERP systems and frequency of their updates cycle, one can easily understand how much impact an update can have on the business processes.
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Due to speed of development traditional testing approaches like waterfall testing approach aren’t considered as a viable option. What to test and what not is still a critical question during regression testing. Testing everything consumes a lot of time and resources while limited testing based on guesswork can lead to bugs and security vulnerabilities which creates a false assumption that these new processes can’t deliver on their promise. This is where testing impact analysis comes into play.
In this blog, we’ll dive into the concept of impact analysis with respect to ERP software testing. We’ll shed light on the advantages of test impact analysis and how it addresses the limitations of traditional testing methods.
What is Change Impact Analysis in Software Testing?
Impact Analysis in software testing is defined as analyzing the impact of changes in the code in the software application. It means that the testers need to figure out the likely impacts that the code change will bring to the software application. Thus, whenever a change is made to code, a bug is fixed, or a new feature is added or removed, impact analysis helps in exploring all risks associated with these changes.
Why use Impact Analysis in Testing?
To understand the need of impact analysis, let’s discuss the two possible scenarios:
Use-case 1: Frequent Software Updates
ERP vendors roll out frequent updates to keep pace with rapidly changing market conditions. However, addition of new features to an ERP or fixing bugs might have an impact on critical business processes. And the more changes are incorporated in an ERP, the more difficult it becomes to track their consequences.
Testing an ERP system solely based on industry best practices might fall short of ensuring robust security and seamless performance. This is because testers often rely on their experience and, at times, make educated guesses when selecting smoke or regression test cases. Such an approach can result in insufficient test coverage, leaving your business vulnerable to unforeseen risks.
Critical business processes might require double-checking, deeper analysis, or a different testing approach while testing for updates to ensure that critical business functions remain working as intended.
Impact analysis allows organizations to understand the possible outcomes of these changes, enabling them to keep software releases within timelines without compromising quality.
Use-case 2: Cloud Migration Projects
According to Oracle, 80% of cloud migration projects exceed their budget or timeline. A significant contributing factor is the lack of a clearly defined scope of work, which creates uncertainty and inefficiencies during the migration process. Hidden application dependencies further complicate the situation, making it challenging for QA teams to comprehend the "as-is" business processes fully.
Without this understanding, QA teams struggle to identify the critical changes brought about by the migration and translate those changes into accurate and comprehensive test scenarios. As a result, major risks and potential disruptions often go unnoticed during the planning and testing phases.
These oversights lead to unexpected issues during migration, such as system failures or functionality gaps, which can disrupt operations. The resolution of such issues typically demands extended timelines and additional resources, driving up costs and delaying project completion. By prioritizing thorough impact analysis and clear scope definition, organizations can better mitigate these challenges and ensure smoother migration outcomes.
Let’s summarize why Impact Analysis is essential:
To assess the scope of testing during migration
Impact analysis plays a crucial role in helping QA teams clearly define the scope of testing during cloud migration. By gaining a detailed understanding of the “as-is” processes, QA teams ensure that all critical business workflows are accurately mapped and validated in the new cloud environment.
This understanding not only identifies potential risks but also allows the teams to focus on high-priority areas, ensuring that no critical functionality is overlooked. As a result, QA efforts are more targeted and effective, reducing the likelihood of business disruption post-migration and ensuring a smooth transition for end-users.
To prioritize testing efforts based on risk assessment
In the test everything approaches, when updates are rolled out testers attempt to run their whole regression suite by hand before each release, which is time-consuming and error prone. Furthermore, it doesn't guarantee adequate coverage. Impact analysis helps testers to focus their testing efforts based on the criticality of the changes. High-impact changes are required to be tested on priority so that business continuity remains intact.
For example, Oracle rolls out quarterly updates for its Fusion Cloud Applications. Every time running a full regression suite can be time consuming due to frequency of updates. With Oracle impact analysis, QA teams can understand and prioritize test cases based on the risk assessment across critical business processes.
For better alignment among stakeholders
When human analysis is performed to identify every object affected by a software change, it can just take too much time or sometimes create chaotic conditions due to involvement of too many employees.
Impact analysis eliminates the guesswork during the testing phase. Not only does this eliminate lengthy testing cycles during the CI/ CD process but also ensures that every stakeholder understands the implications of changes. This reduces information gaps and keeps all teams focused on common goals.
How To Conduct an Effective Impact Analysis?
Impact analysis is a critical aspect of software testing. Given below are the important steps involved in conducting impact analysis:
Identify Changes: The first step involves the identification of changes made to the software. Here, the modified code is compared with the baseline to determine the potential impact on the software.
Create Test Scenarios: After the identification of changes, you need to create test scenarios. These scenarios should cover all the impacted areas resulting from the changes.
Prioritize Test Scenarios: Since all test scenarios don't carry the same criticality, you need to prioritize test scenarios based on the impacted areas.
Generate Test Cases: Once test scenarios are defined and prioritized, you need to create detailed test cases for each scenario. Each test case should outline step-by-step procedures so that scenarios can be executed accurately and effectively.
Execute Test Cases: Once the test cases are ready, the testers need to execute them to verify the impact of changes on the software.
Analyze Test Results: Once the test cases are executed, testers need to analyze the test results to identify any process deviations.
Benefits of Impact Analysis in ERP Testing
Early Detection of Defects
Impact analysis can help in avoiding post release surprises as testers can have the ability to identify potential defects at an early stage of the development process. Impact analysis allows them to focus testing efforts across critical business functions and catch defects before they impact user experience.
Optimal Allocation of Testing Resources
Impact analysis ensures that QA teams can prioritize their testing efforts. There should not be over or under testing. Optimized testing efforts will ensure that testing shouldn't act as a bottleneck in Agile/ DevOps software development approaches.
Improved Test Coverage for Critical Areas
With impact analysis, testers don't need to select regression suites based on guesswork. By selecting regressions based on impacted areas and highlighted risks, testers can achieve improved test coverage, ensuring that the most vital functionalities are thoroughly validated.
Opkey’s Impact Analysis
With notable mentions by industry Analysts like IDC, Gartner and Forrester, Opkey is the industry leader for ERP test automation. Opkey’s Impact Analysis engine analyzes the effects of software changes, updates, and upgrades across multiple complex, end-to-end ERP business processes.
AI-based analysis of software changes
Opkey compares your current ERP software with proposed monthly, quarterly or yearly ERP updates to expose risks across critical business processes caused by changes to the ERP landscape. With Opkey’s detailed reports, you can see changes across the releases that affect your ERP application. This decreases production defects to increase the quality of software releases.
End-to-end risk-coverage across critical integrations
Opkey enables users to adapt to software changes and their impacts across the ERP ecosystem, including custom and third-party apps. Opkey supports 12+ ERPs and 150+ technologies. This leads to accelerated integration testing and improved release quality.
Self-healing Test Automation Scripts
As one of the leading self-healing test automation tools, Opkey alleviates the "maintenance burden" that undermines the test automation initiatives.
End-to-end risk-coverage across critical integrations
Opkey’s self-healing capability ensures that changes are automatically synchronized across all your impacted test cases, saving you hours of manual effort.
With Opkey, enterprises have saved up to 60% of their time in maintaining scripts in case of any change or upgrade.
Learn more: How does Opkey support Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud Migrating
Curious Case of Oracle Fusion Migration
Opkey can help by keeping your Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud Fusion Migration within timelines and budgets. Opkey’s Oracle impact analysis can ensure a painless Oracle Cloud migration as:
You can visualize your as-is and to-be business processes.
Opkey's migration impact assessment identifies the exact scope of testing your organization needs.
With comparison assessment between configurations & customizations, Opkey highlights key changes to your environment, leaving any scope of guess work, and therefore risk.
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