Test Data Management (TDM) is the administration of the data necessary for fulfilling the needs of automated test processes. TDM should also ensure the quality of the data, as well as its availability at the correct time.
For performing test automation, test data is needed and to get good test data is a great challenge.So, selecting right approach for Test Data Management is very crucial.
The solution which can deal with sensitive data via masking and/or synthesis and which supports agile principles can be considered as true Test Data Management solutions.
Creating Automated Self-Sufficient Test Cases is one of the best approaches where the test data are created the same way as it is in real world. Worksoft Certify can be used to create data by executing a test case which will generate some data and then Certify will store this generated data in real time.This generated output data can be used in further transactions of the end-to-end business process. There are many tools in the market which can automate applications but some steps in the end-to-end flow involves manual work. Whereas using Worksoft Certify tool this manual effort can be eliminated, as a result there is increase in ROI.Let us look into some of the examples below:
Example -1
Let us consider an order to cash cycle where a customer orders some laptops. In SAP Order toCash cycle, before creating delivery 2 more transactions can be added as below:
a. MMBE- In this transaction availability or stock of laptops(the ordered material) can be checked. If stock is not there, then below transaction can be used
b. MB1C- In this transaction the stock can be maintained i.e stock can be increased to make it available for delivery.
So, in WorksoftCertify while creatingthis end-to-end Order to Cash cycle SAP transactions MMBE and MB1C can also be automated and added in the flow. This reduces the manual effort of data creation and also whichever SAP environment this end-to-end process will be executed the data (in this case ‘Stock’) will be increased in that environment which basically eliminates performing same steps to increase stocks manually for all SAP environments.
Example -2
Let us consider another example:SAP transaction SE16N is used for General Table Display. Master data is the core data that is used as a base for any transaction.We can fetch these master data by entering various table names like MARA, EKKO, VBAP, VBAK, VBRK etc. in SE16N transaction. We can also use different filter criteria to filter out the table data. Beloware the steps to be performed as an example:
a. Enter SAP transaction SE16N
b. Enter table name ‘EKKO’
c. Maximum no.of hits
d. Selection criteria- ‘Created On’ and enter ‘From Value’ and ‘To Value’ (Note:-You can use any other selection criteria depending on your requirement)
e. Check the required checkboxes of ‘Output’ so that whichever checkbox is checked only those columns will be displayed in the table
f. Click Execute or press F8
Now you can see ‘Purchasing Documents’ and all relevant information related to the ‘Purchasing Documents’ in the table. You can store these master data through automation anduse them in other transactions.
If you do not want to view all the columns in the table and you have not performed ‘step e’ as mentioned above, then in the displayed table screen you can perform below steps
a. Select menu path Layout-> Change layout
b. Change layout window appears where you can select the columns which you want to display in the table
Now all these steps of SE16N transaction can be automated using Worksoft Certify and this SE16N transaction can be added as a pre-requisite for other transaction where you need to enter these master data. Hence manual effort can be reduced significantly. Also, executing this end-to-end flow does not need any additional changes to be made in the script when execution environment changes which in turn makes the test cases self-sufficient.
Likewise, we can use table ‘MARA’ in SE16N transaction and follow similar above steps to display and extract Material related data and use them in other transactions.
Many times,whilecreating Sales report in SAP we need to fetch data from both header details and item details. We can fetch header details from SAP tables ‘VBAK’, ‘LIKP’, ‘VBRK’, ‘MKPF’ and corresponding item details from SAP tables ‘VBAP’, ‘LIPS’, ‘VBRP’, ‘MSEG’. Also, we can fetch both header and item details from single customized SAP tables like ‘WB2_V_VBRK_VBRP2’, ‘WB2_V_EKKO_EKPO2’ etc. We can automate both these methods of data extraction through Worksoft Certify easily which makes the test cases self-sufficient of extracting the master data and using them.
All the above examples prove that through Worksoft Certify self-sufficient test cases can be easily created irrespective of execution environment. This approach is very helpful, and testers do not have to wait for other person to provide master data manually. Hence testing time is reduced to a great extent and ROI is improved significantly.