3 ERP testing tactics for your new software system

The subjective testing of any ERP system offers nearly as many options as there are stars in the heavens. Consequently, in order to cut to the chase, here are three of the more traditional approaches to the problem.

1) Theoretical

There’s nothing better than a paper-based critical path diagram, supported by a solid set of granular process/data maps. In this scenario the risk to a system is entirely marginalized, while at the same time, the overall intellectual process allows a manager or UX designer to not only consider all processes and subordinate elements in a macro sense, but also allows the investigator to drill down into needed areas as necessary.

In this instance, the only true downside is the need to carve out enough available time to work through a complete end-to-end systems review methodically.

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2) Automated

Today’s ERP systems not only offer hosts of ways to leverage business advantages in an operational sense, but also offer value by delivering ‘watching the watchers’ functionality, if you will. In the latter case, there are a number of automated testing systems that can work through one or more comprehensive validation regimes while readily offering an enterprise operator a clear understanding of a particular system’s stability and usability.

However, while this form of ERP testing offers significant speed as a general value point, downsides can include the potential of marginal test customization routines that are sometimes unable to accommodate a particular system configuration, and/or process requirement.

3) Real time

Of the three options discussed in this article, this last option offers perhaps the best and worst of all ERP testing regimes. On the one hand executing an ERP testing regime module-by-module, process-by-process, and element-by-element does offer a highly granular understanding of a particular system’s stability and accuracy. However, there are two primary risk factors associated with this approach.

First, executing one or more ERP testing processes in concert with a real time operational system can, in some cases, run a risk of threatening a host platform, either by a manual test process failure, data corruption, or other unknowable incident. Secondly, this approach tends to consume nearly the same amount of time required by a paper evolution.