Introduction

Organizations rely on ERP and CRM solutions to support business critical functions and efficiently handle business challenges. Effective ERP solutions give businesses a competitive edge, as they are scalable and customizable to evolving business needs. Minor performance and scalability issues can cause a negative impact on the ROI and business productivity.

What is ERP

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a computerized application that runs the business functions of a company. It ensures the smooth running of a company by managing its business operations, resources and information from a shared data source. Testing the ERP implementation process is important due to ERP’s critical role and complexity.

ERP Application Testing

ERP Applications are generally configured to map to highly integrated and often complex business processes. Each configured ERP application is unique; therefore each system must be tested thoroughly before going live

Such testing can include:

• Testing the individual components (Unit Testing),
• Testing the entire business process from end to end,
• Integration testing to other applications,
• Performance testing,
• User Acceptance Testing on behalf of the end user.

The identification of the test scope is a key activity that determines the time and effort required for the testing process. There are different reasons for embarking on a testing process including:

• New ERP Implementation
• Changes to an existing release of the ERP Application
  • Configuration changes
  • Custom Developments
  • New/Amended Interfaces
• New Releases to the ERP Application
  • Legal Changes
  • Functional Improvements

Each type of change necessitates a different approach to testing.

In an ERP implementation or upgrade the ultimate responsibility for testing resides with the business users and not the ERP provider or IT department. The business user must verify that the system works as a whole and is functioning correctly.

Testing should be considered and planned early in the project in order to fit into the overall project plan. Once the test scope has been identified, the tests can be planned. All tests should be aligned to the business processes, and a risk assessment should be executed in order to determine the potential effect of change(s) on business processes and hence ensure that adequate testing is proposed to minimise the potential for any disruption to the business.