Required an appropriate testing methodology to ensure software quality during an important Oracle E-Business upgrade.
Human resource management is primarily responsible for maximizing employee performance by fulfilling various support services such as recruitment, training, performance appraisals, payroll and benefits. A well-known UK government agency that provides personnel, pensions, welfare and support services to employees, stakeholders and their dependents recently sought a vendor with an appropriate testing methodology to ensure software quality during an important and complex Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade. The agency operates a highly complex IT infrastructure and several specialized applications that are critical to the defense of its nation.
The agency originally appointed a systems integrator to upgrade Oracle E-Business Suite v11 to v12 as well as refreshing its entire infrastructure and moving to a new data center. The software comprises a collection of enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and supply chain management applications. However, the project so on started to flounder and the agency sought another systems integrator to complete the software upgrade and manage the BPO.
The new specialist appointed London-based Infuse Consulting, a Micro Focus Gold Partner, to assist with the testing element of the project. Infuse Consulting and its systems integration partner faced several challenges as neither party could liaise with the agency’s internal employees, who were under contract to the incumbent vendor for the next four months. Moreover, Infuse Consulting had to deliver the System Integration testing project within the original timescale while ensuring software quality and performance with a sound return on investment at a fixed price.
“This was a tricky predicament,” explains Nalin Parbhu, chief executive officer, Infuse Consulting. “We’d not only picked up the project in mid-flight, there were also no requirements listed, a lack of testing documentation and the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools were not the latest versions. We therefore could not make a fact-based statement about software quality.”
Spokesman
UK government agency
A leading government agency successfully upgraded its highly customized Oracle E-Business Suite by integrating Micro Focus Application Lifecycle Management, Micro Focus Business Process Testing and Micro Focus Unified Functional Testing software with use Mango. The new testing environment is delivering a 50 percent cost saving.
The first stage of the project involved due diligence by using a framework called the Testing Maturity Model (TMMi) to baseline the maturity of the testing organization. This highlighted some significant flaws and a process improvement plan followed which was prioritized to ensure timely delivery and maximize return on investment. Before upgrading the ALM software, Infuse Consulting worked with the system end-users to capture and prioritize all front-end business processes for input into the System Integration Testing (SIT) and acceptance environments.
During the project, Infuse Consulting integrated Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), Business Process Testing (BPT) and Unified Functional Testing (UFT) software with useMango, another automated testing tool. Forming part of the ALM portfolio, UFT and BPT provide the necessary functional and regression test automation for software applications to ensure software quality. useMango delivers the content and accelerates the ROI by generating assets utilized by the software in a third of the time than it would using standard tools. The solution drives testing efficiency across the entire test automation process.
“We upgraded and integrated all the ALM tools, implemented useMango to automate 75 percent of business processes and then ran them in iterative test cycles weekly, in prioritized order in SIT, until we reached75percent automation coverage,” says Parbhu.
This approach to project delivery involved the collaboration of the agency at an early stage, helping the customer to understand the testing methodology and the quality of the results. It also ensured Infuse Consulting comprehended all the agency’s business processes. Consequently, the project team made fact-based judgements about software quality which led to proactive improvements within strategic areas of risk.
The Infuse Services Delivery Methodology is to test the most important business processes numerous times during SIT and then move rapidly to the build and deployment phases of test automation. It also provided a comprehensive grasp of the applications, any business impacts, and aided future performance testing through the outputs of useMango’s business level reporting through ALM.
“Infuse Consulting and the business’ systems integration partner have performed excellent work. They are very professional and have delivered exactly what they said they would,” declares a UK government agency spokesman.
After implementing the application and business process testing regime, Infuse Consulting helped deliver the Oracle E-Business upgrade on time and to budget, securing its own reputation and that of the systems integrator across this important business sector. Delivery took place at a fixed price and used only 50 percent of the testing resources required by a manual process.
Integrating the software with another automated test tool ensured the project delivered 50 percent more change programs, tested all business processes and proactively captured major business defects early, delivering a 50 percent cost saving. The government agency believes the time associated with future test cycles will fall by 75 percent.
“We plan to build our future testing strategy on the testing roadmap developed by Infuse Consulting. We will use the rich heritage of our investment in future work across the account and continue to reap substantial benefits,” concludes the UK government agency spokesman.
