The Mosaic Company

Robert J. Pitman – QA Coordinator

Leveraging Worksoft Beyond

Test Automation

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About The Mosaic Company

Our Work

World’s largest combined producer and marketer

of concentrated phosphate and potash fertilizers.

Our Mission

We help the world grow the

food it needs.

Our Formation

Incorporated in 2004 through

the combination of IMC

Global Inc. and the fertilizer

businesses of Cargill.

Our Global Presence

8,900 worldwide employees

We Help The World Grow The Food It Needs

Built by PeopleBound by Purpose

Leveraging Worksoft Beyond Test

Automation

Test Data Automation - Supporting

Developers: A Quick Win

Automation of Labor Intensive

Processes

Leveraging Worksoft to Build a

Knowledge Base

Mosaic has automated more than 90% of our

North America critical business process testing

for SAP, but we’ve found we can do even

more:

QA Department, Embedding Quality in the Process

Stake Holders ----------------

Test Leads – IT Quality Assurance

Business Analysts (BA) – IT Analysts

Subject Matter Experts (SME) –

Business Experts

Project Managers (PM) - IT

Terms ---------------------------

Quality Assurance (QA)

Quality Center (QC)

System Integration Testing (SIT)

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

Test Data AutomationSupporting Developers: A Quick Win

Test Data Automation – Questions to Ask

SAP shops: Do you refresh from a Golden Client?

If you do, the refreshed system will have no

transaction data. This can be an issue in sandbox

and development environments.

Do you refresh only once a year or less often?

Then your teams probably have issues with

consumed data. This can cause trouble if your

teams need open contracts, orders, shipments,

etc.

Have you asked your teams how much time they spend

creating test data?

Why not? Do you like wasting money?

Test Data Automation

If the answer to any of these questions is YES, you

should really think about a transactional data creation

system for your developers.

m

Step 1) Create a folder that belongs to the

developers in which they can make changes.

Step 2) 80/20 rule: Only Copy the processes

most often used and/or modified.

Test Data Automation

Test Data Automation – Worksoft Can Help

Copy the

most

commonly

used test

scripts to a

folder where

the

developers

can make

changes.

Test Data Automation

Step 3) Rename the datasheets. When developers change

the data, it will not interfere with normal automated

regression runs.

mStep 4) Train the developers how to run the scripts.

Step 5) Teach them how to set control breaks in

the test script to control data creation.

Test Data Automation

Test Data Automation

Step 6) Bask in the glow of the developers

telling you how much easier it is now to set up

large amounts of test data.

Automation of Labor Intensive

Processes

Automation of Labor Intensive

Processes – Bob’s Rules

Rule1: Don’t use your functional test automation

system to automate processes in a production

environment, as an operational data loader.

It would mean that the QA team would have do production

support, which requires 24-7 coverage.

Rule 2: SAP allows you to get around “Rule 1”, to

some degree, because configurations start in

development.

This means they go through the normal QA processes.

Test Data AutomationStep 1: Find a process that is a pain point

with your developers due to its repetitive

nature.

Step 2: Estimate how many developer hours

it takes to support your business in this

process.

Step 3: Estimate how many hours would be

required to capture, automate, and deploy

automation scripts.

Automation of Labor Intensive

Processes

Plant creation was Mosaic’s biggest pain point. The support

group needed five days to gather/configure/build/add data/test

a single plant. We create 30-40 plants per year in our North

America group alone, which works out to about 150 – 200

days of resource consumption.

Our support team chased down the configuration & master data

required for new plant.

They configured the plant in our SAP development environment

and enter the master data.

They test it in the development environment.

They move it to our SAP QA system and test it again.

Automation of Labor Intensive Processes

– Mosaic’s Pain Point

Automation of Labor Intensive Processes –

Analyze & Craft Solution

After using automation for two years we are now evaluating

the following modifications:

Revisiting the plant information document for completeness.

Evaluating if we can identify existing standards for plants, shipping,

pricing, etc.

Use identified standards for testing, instead of having to create from

master data.

Automate the process of transferring information from the business’s

plant information document to the datasheet in Worksoft.

Automation of Labor Intensive Processes

– Future State

Leveraging Worksoft to Build a

Knowledge Base

Worksoft Certify – Automation & Knowledge

Mosaic’s Business

Process Procedures

(BPPs) resolve into work

instructions on how we

use our software

packages: SAP, Maximo,

etc.

Worksoft Certify – Automation & Knowledge

We want to retain our

SMEs’ and BAs’

knowledge on these

work instructions,

Worksoft Certify – Automation & Knowledge

by designing a simple

process for capturing that

knowledge.

Using Worksoft to Put the Puzzle Together

Each business

department only

knows their

processes.

Using Worksoft to Put the Puzzle Together

The challenge is putting the pieces together and

making sure they fit.

Secrets to Success - Ownership

Business: Owns the business transactions [Current State].

Reviews their business transactions at least once per

year.

Informs QA when they make changes in the processes.

BAs (IT): Owns the End-to-End processes that have been

automated [Business Process Flows].

Reviews impact to library during projects.

Works with QA team to updates future state of business

processes during new projects.

QA: Owns & maintains automated regression library.

Coordinates & supports Business SMEs & IT BAs.

Reviews – Be Warned

If you are going to make them do reviews….

You had better make the process easy!

Use What You Already Own

Troux’s Navigate product

provides the viewing portal.

Worksoft’s Certify provides

PDFs of the work

instructions.

OpenText’s LiveLink

provides document

management.

The Design – Make Sure it’s Solid

In Troux’s Navigate other

links can be made.

Examples:

SP Training

SP Security

After automating a script, my team puts a PDF of a successful run in an

OpenText LiveLink folder belonging to the department. These PDFs allow

us to created a knowledge base in Troux’s Navigate.

Knowledgebase – Transaction Level

Knowledgebase – Transaction Level

Knowledgebase – Transaction Level

The PDF allows our IT

Business Analysts or our

Business Subject Matter

Experts to review a work

instruction. It creates a

common language between

the departments.

Knowledgebase – Process Level

Knowledgebase – Process Level

The individual

transactions are

listed here and

can be opened by

clicking on them.

The process can

be displayed by

clicking on it.

Knowledgebase – Process View

Displays the process flow of the automated test script.

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Business Benefits

Test Data Automation Higher quality through improved data for QA

Greater staff efficiency

Automation of Labor Intensive Processes Annual performance improvement of about 40% for SAP

configuration of new plants, expect it to reach 70% after 2nd

effort.

Leveraging Worksoft to Build a Knowledge Base Improved process knowledge retention with staff changes

More accurate information for process improvement projects