Hi, everyone. Welcome back to lesson seven. Ear p testing strategy. In this lesson, we're going to discuss the testing strategy phase of our EAP implementation plan. I'm Jennifer Nicholson. It would be easy to expect that after 10s of thousands of business implementations, earpiece software ought to be mature enough to just run the install wizard.

Go get a cup of coffee, and come back to completed earpiece system. Unfortunately, earpiece systems are so flexible and complex that a huge success factor for an earpiece implementation is aggressive and extensive testing. Testing requires more than just assigning manpower. It is an iterative process, which means not only testing, but evaluating problems and fixing them. It means having valid master data available to support the test and understanding the process that you were testing. It means testing development objects and how they interact with everything else.

It means having a dedicated test client which can be controlled and monitored each test leads to a bigger test. So there is a natural progression of testing sophistication over the course of an implementation after initial configuration is completed. All plan transactions are tested for simple transactional validity. I can enter a sales order, I can report production, I can place a purchase order, some problems will emerge from these tests requiring revision and retesting. This level of testing is done on an individual basis, with each functional team, understanding that all of their transactions need to be successfully tested by a given milestone date. Shortly after this milestone date, the first round of integration testing should be scheduled.

Integration testing in this case means testing an entire business process from initial input to final output. an integration test is a scripted arrangement of the 10 to 60 sequential transactions required to execute a specific process in the real world. The key to make this face successful To identify the right 1530 scripts that represent 90% of the business processes, and working hard on process improvements until they all execute smoothly. The next round of integration tests involve subject matter experts and super users. During this round of tests random but real word real data is introduced. The randomness ensures that the right processes were identified and integration test one using real world data allows business participants to help evaluate the output.

During this round of testing, master data must be well developed. Because the ability to enter real orders with real customers means that master data is available to be the process subsequent rounds of integration tests try to rehearse and execute the go live, including synchronization of inventory, sales orders, purchase orders and production orders and replicating 100% of the activity of a business for a given time period. Every test cycle teaches uncovers problems and make go live more manageable. Eventually, an inflection point occurs during testing, which is incredibly important for a team's morale and attitude. It is a realization that the team is certain of successful go live. That knowledge and confidence, which can only come from repeated and successful testing is essential to an implementation success.

The next step is to set up user training, which I'll discuss in the next lesson. Thanks for joining me