Test Automation in a Complex SAP Environment

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The Challenge

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The testing cycles for the Qlik Gold Client ERP solution were becoming increasingly long due to the complexity of the processes in need of testing and the limited bandwidth. The team was under pressure due to the high volume of manual work required to maintain SAP and other apps.

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Qlik tried to address the burden of manual testing with a test automation framework developed in-house. But this was code-heavy, not particularly user friendly, and difficult to maintain. The lack of progress that this framework delivered in terms of Qlik’s test cases led the company down a different path.

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Qlik began looking at outside vendors for test automation tools in order to streamline its Quality Assurance process. The company had two specific requirements. First, any solution must work well in an SAP environment, as the Gold Client ERP solution is an SAP-specific solution. Second, Qlik was looking for something that was not highly technical - a no-code or minimal-code solution.

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Key Challenges

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The Solution

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In February 2021, Qlik licensed the Copado testing tool to help automate the Qlik Gold Client testing process. Qlik’s Senior SAP Solutions Engineers, Steve George and Lindsey Foster, along with SAP Data Architect collaborated over 10 months to develop 120 end-to-end test scenarios for the Qlik Gold Client ERP solution.

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A major project milestone was reached when these scripts were used to test Qlik’s Gold Client ERP 8.7.2 release. Previous versions required manual testing from multiple Gold Client PS team members taking over four weeks to complete due to competing priorities.

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The Future

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Using Copado, the 120 end-to-end test scenarios developed for the automated testing process can now be completed within just three days. This reduces the time it takes to release new Gold Client versions and patches to customers and allows for more frequent regression testing. There is also an opportunity to use the Copado product for testing other Qlik SAP solutions.

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In the future, Qlik hopes to use Copado as part of a dedicated system where scripts are run every week as code changes are released, with any potential issues addressed in real-time - making testing as simple as pushing a button.

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