The shift in mentality from “upgrade” to “update” brought about by PeopleSoft v9.2 has made testing more frequent. The PeopleSoft Test Framework (PTF) is a solution used to automate functional testing to run more tests with greater accuracy in less time
Testing PeopleSoft processes is probably not high on your users list of ‘fun to do’ projects. Although systems integration, implementation and upgrade methods have seen significant advances in automation over the past few decades, most companies still depend on business process owners to perform laborious data entry and other processing tasks. There is truly little need to use your critical business resources to manually key transactions and execute IT processing every time your IT departments implement a change in PeopleSoft.
PTF eliminates the manual tasks from the business owners. It gives more control and automation to IT and therefore significantly expedites the testing process. No more waiting for business owners to manually key tests, etc. This is a huge source of frustration for IT especially when it impacts their timeline and ultimately the company’s bottom line.
PTF works by replicating the actions of a user or users; executing functional tests against the PeopleSoft browser-based application. Users can record manual test procedures and save them within the framework. Later (perhaps after an application upgrade or patch), those tests can be executed against the application to verify whether the application still behaves as expected. This method for capturing and executing tests is often called the record and playback approach to automation.
Since PTF is upgraded with PUM releases and major upgrades, PTF will automatically be adjusted for changes that have occurred in the PeopleSoft structure for delivered functionality. The biggest benefit is the ability to identify issues with customizations and other objects that are not part of the upgrade; PTF will identify functions where changes need to be made.
PTF is a great tool to run the same test repeatedly. It is easy to change variables to use the same test scenario with different test cases. For example, if I wanted to create an asset with different asset profiles, it is simply a matter of copying the test case and then changing the profile and re-running the scenario. There are optimization tools that are built-in to PTF to adjust for changes in upgrades. These tools make PTF more efficient and make the whole user experience more rewarding.
Testing is one of the most time- and resource-consuming parts of an IT project, whether it be maintenance or new features. With the PeopleSoft Test Framework, PeopleSoft customers can accept maintenance updates and test new features more quickly and easily. This results in systems that are more dynamic and up to date.
Don’t let your IT project fall behind schedule. Automate your testing. Management will thank you. Your users will thank you. You will thank us for helping make it so.
