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Enterprise Resource Planning solutions (ERPs) were designed to increase productivity and improve operational efficiency. But this can only be achieved if the ERP solution is adopted by the end users. Often, due to time and resource scarcity, organizations overlook user acceptance testing (UAT) altogether. This leads to poor adoption by end users and, ultimately, financial and operational losses when the ERP isn’t utilized to its full potential.
UAT is the final stage in the software development process and it takes place right before software is moved to production. It’s critical because it provides end users the opportunity to validate whether or not the ERP system can support day-to-day business processes. Other types of testing such as functional, performance, database, and security testing are needed to ensure the ERP works technically, but these types of testing don’t ensure the ERP meets actual, real-world business requirements. And end-users will only adopt an ERP if their real world business needs are met. Thus, it is correct to say that UAT leads to higher ERP user adoption.
Simply put, here’s why UAT is so essential.
- UAT confirms that the ERP meets end user requirements and fulfills business needs.
- UAT uncovers critical gaps that may lead to poor adoption by end users.
- UAT determines whether or not the ERP is ready to go live.
Now that we’ve established the importance of UAT, let’s discuss a few best practices to help you make sure your ERP solution will be well-adopted by end users.
| Read: User Acceptance Testing: Why It Matter
Best practices for user acceptance testing
1. Identify end users.
The employees who will be using the application the most are the people who should perform UAT. However, functional consultants and manual testers usually end up doing it. This is a mistake, since end users know the ins-and-outs of their daily processes and will have a better understanding of how the application should perform in the real world.
2. Develop and stick to your test plan.
A test plan includes documented information regarding the scope of testing–what will and will not be tested–and is crucial for your UAT success. Your test plan should contain testing objectives, assignments on who should complete which tests, and other important details.
3. Develop detailed user stories and acceptance criteria.
Real life test scripts are critical for successful UAT. Before creating a test script, you should create detailed user stories and acceptance criteria. Once user stories and associated acceptance criteria are defined, you can start creating test scripts.
If you’re depending on business users to write test scripts, you should use a no-code test automation platform, since these employees typically aren’t typically trained.
4. Create bug communication standards.
Vague reporting can lead to confusion among testing teams and delay the UAT process. Bugs found during UAT should be reported with plenty of detailed information that can be easily interpreted and understood by dev teams. Test automation solutions like Opkey allow business users to seamlessly take screenshots or recordings and forward these details to development teams.
Read next: A Guide to Salesforce User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Conclusion
User Acceptance Testing is key to ERP implementation success as it ensures higher adoption rates. To ensure UAT success, development teams should follow these best practices and also consider a no code test automation platform like Opkey so that business users can efficiently and actively participate in the testing process. As a leading test automation platform, Opkey supports enterprises with Oracle UAT, Workday UAT, Salesforce UAT, SAP UAT, and UAT for almost 14+ other enterprise applications.
