Download:  US States

AK,ALASKA
AL,ALABAMA
AR,ARKANSAS
AZ,ARIZONA
CA,CALIFORNIA
CO,COLORADO
CT,CONNECTICUT
DE,DELAWARE
FL,FLORIDA
GA,GEORGIA
HI,HAWAII
IA,IOWA
ID,IDAHO
IL,ILLINOIS
IN,INDIANA
KS,KANSAS
KY,KENTUCKY
LA,LOUISIANA
MA,MASSACHUSETTS
MD,MARYLAND
ME,MAINE
MI,MICHIGAN
MN,MINNESOTA
MO,MISSOURI
MS,MISSISSIPPI
MT,MONTANA
NE,NEBRASKA
NC,NORTH CAROLINA
ND,NORTH DAKOTA
NH,NEW HAMPSHIRE
NJ,NEW JERSEY
NM,NEW MEXICO
NY,NEW YORK
NV,NEVADA
OH,OHIO
OK,OKLAHOMA
OR,OREGON
PA,PENNSYLVANIA
RI,RHODE ISLAND
SC,SOUTH CAROLINA
SD,SOUTH DAKOTA
TN,TENNESSEE
TX,TEXAS
UT,UTAH
VA,VIRGINIA
VT,VERMONT
WA,WASHINGTON
WI,WISCONSIN
WV,WEST VIRGINIA
WY,WYOMING

If you want to give the manual version of SVN a go, check out the WordPress instructions here.

A Word on SVN

SVN is a code repository that provides superb versioning and access controls for development teams. These types of tools are particularly necessary in large development groups where many developers might be working on the same code. If you’re like me, you may have only the faintest idea as to what SVN does. Well, not to fear. These next two videos are going to tell you exactly what you need to do in order to get your plugin’s code into the repository.

Configuring Aptana for Subversion Integration

Aptana is an IDE that is based on the open source Eclipse IDE project. The following video shows you how to download and configure Aptana for connecting to your repository.

You probably noticed that the sound was cut off there at the end.  ScreenToaster was having some problems and it was cutting off recording audio at 4:00 mins.  And I’m so bad at doing these videos that I couldn’t bear trying it yet again for 10 seconds more sound.  Basically I said, “The Subclipse box will show up in the bottom right.  And check out part 3, which brings it home!”

Once you’ve configured Aptana and SVN (Subclipse), you’re now ready to make the connection to your remote WordPress plugin repository.  So, check out video 3 which demonstrates the steps for getting your plugin files into the repository.

Cheers!

Byron

In short, the WUG meeting was fantastic.  Shoot the stars, knock the cover off the ball, can’t wait ’til next time, blow me away (that’s 2 posts in a row with me raving like that…in case you are keeping track).  The Worksoft folks really put on a great session.  The doors to the meeting room (burried somewhere deep in the bowels of the Venetian Hotel…I couldn’t find it again if I tried) opened at 1:30 yesterday afternoon and we finally dragged out of there (well fed with all the trimmings) between 7:00 and 8:00.  It was a long day, but we really needed another 2 or 3 hours to get through everything that was planned.

To any folks who were there, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting every one and hearing how you are using Certify.  The presentations were extremely helpful, and the audience active, asking questions that were on everyone’s mind.  It seems that many folks are relatively new to automated testing, and are confronted with the same issues around strategy, data management, etc.

I particularly enjoyed the other customer presentations.  Even when I’m at an SAP conference, I love to hear the customer presentations to see what they are doing with SAP.

I was priviledged to be able to give a presentation as well, and part of my conclusion was a short WUG Wishlist, which I will repeat here as a general broadcast (much like SETI) to any and all who may join in.

An Abridged WUG Wish List:

• Open discussion & documentation of Best Practices on:
  • Test strategy
  • Test planning
  • Test design (naming conventions, balance of granularity, etc)
  • Execution
  • Documentation
• Provide a voice for Certify Feature requests
• Source for tips, techniques, and training for using Certify (added)

Finally, thanks again to Worksoft and all WUG attendees for making the event such a great experience.  I look forward to seeing how the WUG can help us all be better at what we do.

Cheers!

Byron

Setting the Stage

Take for instance 2 separate test cases.  Each test case utilizes SAP t-code VA01 (Create Sales Order).  Each of the sales orders being created will have 1 or more line items.  To get multiple line items on a sales order through Certify, you typically create a recordset that contains multiple line items that will loop at the specific point of entering the line items.  This recordset cannot be the overall recordset for the sales order since the multiple line items would end up looping the entire transaction, resulting in multiple Sales Orders instead of multiple Line Items.  So ultimately, we will need 2 different recordsets for each of these test cases.  One recordset will be the overall recordset for the entire sales order, excepting the line items.  The second recordset will contain the line items that will be looped through in the line item entry sub-process.

The Problem of Recordset Placement

In our example, let say that we have a standard Certify process (test case) for called VA01_Create_Sales_Order.  Imbedded within that process is a sub-process called VA01_sub_Item_Entry.  We want 2 variations of these with different data, so we’ll have a total of 4 recordsets.  For sake of brevity, lets call the recordsets:

• RS_SO_Stock
• RS_SO_Stock_Items
• RS_SO_Direct
• RS_SO_Direct_Items

If we assigned the recordsets directly to the processes, we would have to change those recordsets each time we ran one of the test cases.  A problem here is that somebody may not realize that there is a sub-process that needs to have its recordset changed as well.  This could be really problematic if we had 2 testers executing different scenarios at the same time since the assigned recordset gets saved right before you execute. 

Solution

The answer for the overall sales order recordset would be to create a super-Process for each of your scenarios.  You would attach the overall recordset RS_SO_Stock or RS_SO_Direct at the super-Process level, and that process would have VA01_Create_Sales_Order as the only process within it.

This still leaves the problem of getting the right recordset attached to the item entry sub-process.  An elegant solution to this problem is to use a variable as the recordset name for the sub-process.  In your overall recordsets, you would set that variable to the proper sub-process recordset name RS_SO_Stock_Items or RS_SO_Direct_Items. 

The image below shows where to set the recordset variable name for the sub-process.  You will add this variable as a field in your overall recordsets and fill with the appropriate recordset name.

Feel free to share any tips and tricks or references you have in the comments below!

What is Certify?

In the 2006 to 2007 timeframe, Worksoft made the strategic decision to tailor its automated software testing platform for the SAP experience. This well may be the tipping point for this relatively small company. They are gaining a lot of traction with some pretty major SAP customers. Here in St. Louis, there are already several Certify customers (here’s hoping a Worksoft Certify User’s Group will be in the making).

Among the testing tools that we looked at, Certify most closely matched our testing strategy – at least what we hoped our strategy would be going forward. Certify came across as having the advantage of allowing your business process experts (BPX’s) create and maintain the test cases for their areas of responsibility. Other testing platforms talked about Quality and Testing Engineers, and other dedicated resources that we were not prepared to secure.

Has Certify lived up to the ease of use we expected? Not quite. Let me qualify that. This is certainly a tool that the average BPX can become proficient in, however, there is a learning curve, and this bike requires a lot of practice to get good at riding it. We are finding that as BPX’s use the system more regularly, they are finding more uses for it in their daily work. They are dreaming up additional test cases and variations that give us much broader testing coverage than we’ve had in the past. Some of them actually like it . Certify is a complex and quirky tool that is made all the more complex because of the complexity of the patient – SAP. If SAP weren’t so complex, Certify would seem a lot simpler.

Does Certify Deliver the Replicator Experience?

Yes…once you’ve got the test cases built. That is the mountain you must climb to reach Valhalla. Our BPX’s are able to do Sales Tax testing on 50 states in a tiny fraction of the time that it was taking them in the past. We have people creating 300 line item PO’s with the push of a button. This ties up the computer for 20 minutes, by this was an hour+ of manual work before, and heaven help the person who flubbed up the downstream testing and requested another 300 line item PO.

The creation of test cases is not to be taken lightly, especially if you’re running some bolt-ons in your SAP environment. Hopefully we are blazing the trail for future Certify customers (thank you cards are accepted ) in the area of bolt-ons. We are running a number of them such as GuiXT, and it seems that these frequently have quirks that Certify is not prepared for. Worksoft has been very responsive in applying resources to help us through these problems. These usually result in a work around or in some cases a hot fix that gets applied to your clients.

Gaining user acceptance is a major feat, but it is definitely a battle worth fighting, no matter which testing platform you go with. The payoff is huge for your testing strategy. We have had the most success by dedicating 2 resources to the test case ramp-up phase. All of our BPX’s are busy with daily life in SAP, so adding the Certify learning curve and test case creation to their plates was not going to really work. We’ve had our BPX’s identify test cases to be created. Our Certify experts are scheduling time to work directly with the BPX’s to get these created. We’ve seen a complete turn around once we provided these resources to our BPX’s…knock on wood

A List of Issues to Consider

Here are some items we are/have been dealing with:

1. General testing strategy – what, when, where, why, and how to test our system…and how to document that
2. User acceptance
3. Test data management – no testing system will work with bad or unpredictable data
4. Test case maintenance
5. Possible Integration with SAP Solution Manager – Worksoft is building in Solution Manager integration…we are considering what that looks like and how we would use it, but haven’t gotten very far on this item
6. Tracking test case creation – I created a web application that lets us track the status of our test cases (are they built yet? do they work? are they scheduled to be created? when?). I’ve talked with Worksoft about the need for something like this. Whether you have a dedicated department of testers doing the creation or whether you have distributed that responsibility to your BPX’s, you will need some mechanism to track and manage your progress.
7. Integrating test results with your Support/Development Ticket system – whether you use Remedy or some other ticket system, it would be great to be able to document the Certify testing in that system…automagically

That’s the short list…

Final Words

Should you use Certify? Well, that’s begging for the age old consultant answer…I won’t even say it. Suffice it to say that Certify is a solid product, gaining some real traction among SAP users, and it’s getting better and better every day. The leap from Certify 7 to Certify 8 was like Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 (maybe that’s a bad analogy…forgive me, but you get the point). You should seriously consider how you want to test your system. Look at the alternatives on the market, and pick the best for you. We’re giving Certify a tentative 2 thumbs up. We’re still early on in our use, so anything else would be rash. Worksoft are interested in being a successful company, and they realize that there is really only one path to that…making their customers successful. We can attest to that.

Cheers!

Byron

1. Open and login to Certify
2. On the top toolbar, select Help / Contents
3. In the Help screen, select Search
4. Search for Process and Data
5. Select “Process and Data Editor”…should be the first result
6. About half way down the page, you should see a cheesy film reel icon (bad clipart). To the right of that is a like to click (“here”) that will start the video. You might have to scroll down to click the play button

And, there you go!

We are getting started with Certify testing. If I come across any tips, I’ll try to post them out here. Would love to hear experiences from any other Certify users out there.