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1    Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP




                    Model-Based-Testing for ERP
     An adaptive software solution generating tes t cases based on Bl ueprint business
                                     process models



                                                Whitepaper




    June 2011, by

      Dr. Harald Goebel
      Andrew Kashulin
      Heinz-Jürgen Scherer
      Dr. Boris Zinchenko




     BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
2    Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP



    Table of Contents


    Abstract                                            3
    Motivation                                          3
    Blueprinting an ERP Solution                        4
    Requirements for Testing                            5
    Approach for Model-Based Testing                    6
    Test Case Generation Algorithm                      7
     Execution Strategies for Test Cases                10
     Adaptive Test Case Generation                      11
     Important Considerations                           11
        Interfaces and IT Systems                       11
        Work Products and Deliverables                  12
        Organizational and Resource Assignments         12

     Costs Optimization of Test Case Analysis           12
        End-to-End Process Execution Probability        12
        Effort Weighted Testing                         12

    Methodology for Test Case Generation                13
     ERP Solution Blueprinting                          13
        Modeling Method                                 14
        Model and Diagram Data Interchange              14

     Generation of Test Cases                           15
        BPMN Method Internally Used                     15
        Test Case Generation Based on the BPMN Method   16

     Linking with Testing Tools                         18

    Summary                                             18
    Bibliography                                        20




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    Abstract
    For the requirements definition of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, the management
    discipline and methodology of Business Process Management (BPM) has an important role in the
    Blueprint project phase of ERP implementation. Using BPM methodology, the business requirements are
    documented and analyzed. Process improvement is achieved via better support of business activities by
    ERP software. The Blueprint consists of functional, organizational and system process models developed
    by a Business Process Analysis (BPA) tool prior to the realization phase of customizing the ERP software.
    Because of the complexity of ERP software, the integration testing of ERP supported processes is a very
    essential task to lower business impacts of badly tested software. At the same time, testing is a resource-
    consuming task in critical project phases. This whitepaper discusses an adaptive software solution for
    automatically transforming Blueprint business process models into test cases for a methodical and tool-
    based integration testing.


    Motivation
    ERP software is standard software from leading software vendors like SAP® or Oracle®. It comprises a
    comprehensive support of business processes, and is generically developed for the enterprise market.
    As implied by the definition of standard software, it is maintained by updates of the vendor and can be
    updated. It is in the nature of things that ERP standard software tends to be a complex construct
    consisting of many software components and configurations. ERP software needs to be customized to
    implement requirements and support business processes of an organization. Customization is a standard
    process in an ERP implementation, and is done by parameterization and change of the software
    components like the programs and configuration originally supplied by the software vendors. Beside
    functional acceptance, the software quality is influenced by errors in originally delivered software and
    customization.

    To achieve a qualified support of business processes, extensive software testing is mandatory not only
    on the software development level, e.g. using unit tests. The maturity of customized software is achieved
    by a continuous testing approach with functional use-case testing and integration testing. This is equally
    true for traditional transaction-based ERP systems and Business Process Management Systems (BPMS)
    with execution and integration of processes. Nowadays, SAP ERP is still a predominant transactional ERP
    system where SAP transactions like forms support business activities.

    Implementation of an ERP system is done through several project phases. SAP uses the Accelerated SAP
    (ASAP) project methodology where Blueprinting is the design phase of the ERP solution. In the realization
    phase, the ERP solution is customized based on the requirements specified in the Blueprint.

    For the methodical approach of testing, the definition of test plans based on test cases is a challenging
    task. To attain it, different members of the project team with various skills such as business key users,
    business analysts, quality assurance (QA) and software implementation team members must work
    together. It is even more complex because team members talk with different business or technical
    languages and are distributed across different locations including the employment of System Integrator


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    offshore development teams. Primarily, we can consider three challenging aspects in
    ensuring the quality of business processes ERP support:

    Costs

    The task of manually creating test cases is accomplished with high project efforts for the design of many
    end-to-end business scenarios. The traditional design of test cases takes qualified and costly resources
    out of the project core and testing teams. The business impact of insufficient integration testing reduces
    production efficiency, and increase software maintenance costs.

    Risks

    Even if skilled project team members design the test cases, there is a high risk of not capturing all
    relevant end-to-end scenarios to be executed as test cases, or having mostly incomplete test cases with
    business impacts in the production environment. In productive operation, a process may fail because the
    executed scenario was not tested or interfaces between different components were not identified for
    appropriate interface integration tests. If a business process has changed in the context of risk
    management like Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), it is critical to miss the re-testing of process risk controls.

    Quality

    Bad test coverage leads to low software quality with high business impact. This negative impact is
    increased by an incomplete matching of the test data and insufficient reviews of work products and
    deliverables.

    All in all, the business impact of insufficiently tested end-to-end scenarios results in low quality business
    process support and higher software maintenance costs.


    Blueprinting an ERP Solution
    For many years the Blueprint of an ERP solution was traditionally created via workshops to capture
    business requirements from business key users and process owners. This process called “Blueprinting the
    ERP solution” commonly uses tools from Microsoft Office to describe the organizational and functional
    aspects with Word documents and Visio process flow diagrams.

    The Business Process Management (BPM) concept is a management discipline that offers a more
    comprehensive view of organizational, functional, data-centric, performance and process aspects of an
    organization. BPA tools are used to describe the business architecture structured by management, core
    and support process models in a single repository. The BPM approach for Blueprinting is supported by
    software vendors like SAP® with Solution Manager and BPM or Oracle® with the Application Integration
    Architecture (AIA) and the BPM Fusion Middleware.

    As the use of Enterprise Architecture (EA) and BPM methodologies is becoming more and more popular
    for large organizations, business processes are described by process models and their visual



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    representation which can show the process logic and flow with different levels of
    abstraction. On a functional level, business processes are described by a model with a sequence of
    activities depicting the business logic.




    Figure 1 Business Process “Sales Order Processing“ supported by SAP ERP

    Process models map business logic that describes end-to-end scenarios as sequences of business
    activities.

    The motivation for developing the solution described below is to use available Blueprint process models
    to automatically generate test cases that can be used by test management tools to lower project costs
    and reduce the risk of software quality impacts on IT supported business processes.


    Requirements for Testing
    As ERP software is usually customized for organizational and business requirements, there is the
    absolute need for test management with applied testing concepts. Similar to concepts like software unit
    testing which are very important for software development on the coding level, testing procedures like
    functional use-case testing and integration testing are crucial to ensure the quality of ERP support on the
    business process level.

    To achieve the goal of improving quality and minimizing risks, a certain level of completeness of the test
    cases is needed. Testing efforts can be reduced by avoiding unneeded test cases, removing redundancy,


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    and improving automation by setting correct priorities for frequently-operated end-
    to-end scenarios. It is important to identify gaps between business processes and related test cases to
    achieve completeness of test case coverage.

    Because of business and IT complexity, the emergence of Change Requests (CR) is not unusual in the
    project life cycle.

    Using BPM methodology and a BPA tool for Blueprinting an ERP solution reduces the absolute number
    and complexity of CRs because of a comprehensive understanding of the business logic and
    requirements. Each CR influences the scope of the software solution, and has an impact on the
    customizing. A change in a business process is managed in an ERP project by Change Management. This
    should include the impact of the changes with respect to related test cases. In order to achieve lower
    testing efforts, redundant and obsolete test cases have to be removed; and to ensure quality, existing
    test cases must be updated to reflect the change of the business process.

    Under software maintenance, test cases should be periodically reviewed to detect the impact of change
    requests.


    Approach for Model-Based Testing
    Blueprint process models created in the BPA tool and imported for the generation of test case. The test
    case data is utilized by the testing tool or for a manual test procedure.




    Figure 2 Approach for model based testing

    A test case is an end-to-end business scenario as a sequence of activities to be executed sequentially.
    The process logic is explicitly formulated by using logical rules commonly expressed with exclusive
    execution (XOR), parallel execution (AND) and inclusive execution (OR) of a branch in the process flow.
    The OR rule is complex to understand. It can be comprehended as a combination of a XOR and an AND
    rule [OS08]. Because process activities can consists of human or system atomic tasks (atomic means
    here that a task cannot be divided further into subtasks, like a SAP transaction), a sub process is defined
    by several tasks or a process interface. We use statements as designation of activities in a test case. The
    statements are linked by transitions1 to the logical flow of an end-to-end scenario.




    1
        A transition is described in a process model by a connector between activities


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    Test Case Generation Algorithm
    To calculate the full set of potentially possible test cases, we implemented an algorithm adapted from
    [OS08] for the linearization of the model graph into test case models. While [OS08] discusses the
    generation of test cases based on the Event-Process-Chains (EPC) method, the algorithm used here is
    based on BPMN to internally describe process models and test cases. With regard to control flow based
    testing this approach aligns with statement condition coverage [WP.2].

    To calculate the combinatory of statements suitable for execution as test cases, we utilize the basic
    BPMN patterns as described in the DoD Enterprise Architecture Design Patterns [MZM09]. For the
    linearization of statements, in addition to the DoD design patterns we have to consider the iteration
    pattern.

            Elementary sequence

            Split and Join Patterns

            Iteration



    Elementary Sequence

    The sequence is the fundamental idea of the chain of discrete individual statements following each other
    in a certain order. It is the common semantic interpretation or implication causality.




    Figure 3 Elementary sequence of statements




    Split and Join Patterns

    Split gateways have exactly one incoming and more than one outgoing connection, whereas join
    gateways have more than one incoming and exactly one outgoing edge. Although implicit splits and joins
    are not a good practice at all, they can be replaced by explicit gateways.




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    Pattern                                                                   Linearization
    Parallel AND
    split                                                                     1: A, B, C
                                                                              2: A, C, B2




    Exclusive choice
    XOR split                                                                 1: A, B
                                                                              2: A, C




    Multiple choice
    OR split                                                                  1: A,B
                                                                              2: A, C
                                                                              3: A, B, C
                                                                              4: A,C, B2




    Event-based
    choice XOR split                                                          1: A, B
                                                                              2: A, C




    2
        Only needed for C3 condition coverage, not needed for C2 path, C1 branch or C0 statement coverage.


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    Pattern                                                                      Linearization
    Synchronized
    AND join                                                                     1: A, B, C
                                                                                 2: B, A, C2




    Unsynchronized
    XOR join                                                                     1: A, C
                                                                                 2: B, C




    Synchronized OR
    join                                                                         1: A, C
                                                                                 2: B, C
                                                                                 3: A, B, C
                                                                                 4: B, A, C2




    Implicit and explicit Iteration

    The iteration is the fundamental idea of the similar repetitive sequence. Iterations use only XOR
    connectors to create such a pattern.




    Figure 4 Implicit iteration with F1, F2 and explicit iteration with F3, F4

    Table 3 shows the results of the linearization of the iteration pattern of Figure 5.
    The iteration is expanded into all possible sequences of statements.

    Table 1 Linearization of the iteration




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      Runs    (N)       Linearization event
      0                 (F1) so-called “Top tested loop”
      1                 (F1, F2)
      N = 2,…           (F1, F2, F1, F2, …)


     The linearization of the iteration is simple, but in practice it requires handling additional reasonable
     assumptions to reduce the number of test runs. An additional parameter in the generation algorithm of
     test cases describes how many loops have to be executed for an iteration pattern. Per default 2 loops are
     generated per iteration.

     Conclusion

     Based on a breadth first search (BFS) algorithm handling graph theory [MAI11] the logic of linearization
     of statements finds all potential end-to-end scenarios with the linear sequence of statements describing
     a test case. For complex business processes with deeply nested branches, the number of some
     thousands of potential possible end-to-end scenarios exceeds the practically approach of executing the
     generated test cases. The generation of test cases for practical use is improved by an adaptive algorithm
     for test case coverage.

     Execution Strategies for Test Cases
     Integration testing is a kind of control flow based testing procedure. There are different concepts to
     reduce the potentially enormous number of possible test cases. For an example of a complex process
     model with 10 XOR gateways and 2 branches each we will have 210 = 1024 test cases feasible for
     execution. Because this number of potential test cases is too costly to be executed, the number should
     be reduced by different test execution strategies.

      The approach of narrowing the number of suitable test cases is called statement coverage test analysis
     [WP.1]. In principle, 4 different statement coverage strategies C X (X=0..3) can be considered.

     Table 2 Cases for test-case statement coverage

      Case Coverage of           Description                    Pro                 Con
      C0   Statements            All statements and gateways    Less effort, all    Not all transitions (edges of
                                 as nodes of the control        statements of the   the control graph) between
                                 graph will be covered by the   process flow are    statements will be passed
                                 testing not possible in a      executed.           through while testing the
                                 logical order.                                     process model.
                                                                                    All statements are weighted
                                                                                    equally
                                                                                    Empty branches are not
                                                                                    covered
      C1      Branches           All edges of the control       Empty braches are   Dependencies of decisions are
                                 graph with all nodes and       covered             not covered
                                 edges are tested at least 1                        Loops are not tested
                                 time. This includes the C0                         sufficiently



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      Case Coverage of        Description                      Pro                    Con
                              coverage and all functional                             Complex branches are weakly
                              needed test cases, but not                              tested
                              all test cases for integration
                              testing.
      C2     Paths            Each rule with possible          High error detection   High effort for testing
                              decision is included in a test                          Based on conditions not all
                              case.                                                   paths are covered
                              High efforts by given
                              number of possible test
                              cases.
      C3     Conditions       All variations of rule           High error detection   Very high effort
                              decisions are covered in test
                              cases. Very high effort for
                              testing by potential number
                              of test cases.



     Adaptive Test Case Generation
     The test case generation software uses an adaptive approach to reduce the potential number of test
     cases by the use of the parameter C X=0..3. For a practical use, branch coverage C1 coverage testing
     deliverers good results of test quality with reasonable costs for the test case execution.

     The testing condition coverage C3 is equivalent to the test case generation algorithm described in the
     previous chapter. The adaptive approach starts with the generation of possible test cases. Each
     generated test case is tested against the chosen C 0 or C1 coverage.

     For statement coverage, for each new generated test case it is tested against the available test case
     statements if all statements of the process model are covered. For branch test cases this is the same
     with edges tested against the process model instead of statements. Overlapping test cases are
     eliminated to reduce the effort of test case execution.

     Important Considerations
     Although the process is in the center of test case generation, it is important to understand the context of
     a statement in the end-to-end scenario. The context is described by the preceding and subsequent
     statements linked by transitions, the statement is supported by IT systems, the data of work products is
     linked with the help of interfaces between different technical components. Resources support the
     execution of the business process.

     Interfaces and IT Systems
     The activities (e.g. SAP process steps and transactions) are supported by IT systems. By the knowledge of
     this support it is clear if a transition links to statements executed in different IT systems. The statement
     associated work products have to be serialized and transformed using an interface between the two
     different IT systems. It is very important to review this interface link in the execution of test cases.




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     Work Products and Deliverables
     To properly describe test data and functional use case success criteria it is important to know which work
     products are processed in the end-to-end business scenario.

     Organizational and Resource Assignments
     Finally, the organization and resources supporting the execution of statements being responsible,
     accountable, controlled and informed (RACI) have extensive business knowledge which in many cases is
     not described by Blueprint documents. They know e.g. how to handle exceptions in workflows, or know
     about probabilities of executing branches in complex workflows. The algorithm uses this information for
     cost optimization of test case analysis.

     Costs Optimization of Test Case Analysis
     In the case of test case coverage C 2 or C3, the potential number of possible test cases can be very large.
     The calculation of execution probabilities or execution costs can be used to reduce the number of test
     cases to be executed, e.g. to avoid the execution of test cases belonging to quantiles with lesser
     probability like the first quartile [WP.1].

     End-to-End Process Execution Probability
     The probability of executing an end-to-end process called test case can be calculated based either on
     “as-is” facts or on “to-be” estimations. As a fact in ERP, the number of transaction execution times in a
     process can be used and stored as a frequency value in a statement attribute. As an alternative, an
     execution probability can be assigned to branches of gateways expressing explicit rules like exclusive
     XOR, inclusive OR, and AND. For the case of methodically possible implicit rules, the value of probability
     is stored in the transition.

     The probability of an end-to-end scenario is the product of all existing probabilities of statement
     transitions passed through. For a simple case with a number of 2 XOR-rules with 2 branches each, there
     are 4 possible test cases with a overall probability of 0,25 for each test case. The probability of the test
     case is calculated and stored in the Probability attribute of model describing the test case.

     Effort Weighted Testing
     To calculate the time effort of executing a test case, a weight factor can describe the effort to test
     statement. The standard value per default is 1. For a complex statements to be executed, the weight can
     be increased or decreased for simple statements. The overall effort of a test case is stored in a model
     attribute Effort.

     Conclusion

     Depending on the complexity of the business process to be tested, an approach using C1 for branch
     coverage is practically sufficient. Using C2 or C3 delivers too many test cases with high effort to test all
     end-to-end variations. For very complex process models it will not be possible to generate and test all
     possible test cases. For e.g. 20 XOR gateways we would have a number of more than 1M test cases. For a
     standard PC with 100 test cases generated per second it takes 3h to calculate in memory all possible



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     variations for this process model. For this reason the algorithm uses an Exception
     parameter to avoid the time costly generation of too many C2 or C3 test cases.


     Methodology for Test Case Generation
     For the purpose of the automatic generation of test cases based on Blueprint business process models
     an integrative methodology is developed. The methodology considers three phases to control the risk of
     business impact by insufficiently tested end-to-end processes and to lower the efforts for integration
     testing.

         1. ERP Solution blueprinting

         2. Test case generation

         3. End-to-end testing




     Figure 5 Solution for model based testing




     ERP Solution Blueprinting
     As already stated, blueprinting an ERP solution using tools for business process analysis (BPA) delivers
     many benefits. For e.g. SAP® ERP the project method SAP® Accelerate SAP (ASAP) defines the Blueprint
     project phase before the realization phase starts that includes the testing of software. While a BPA tool
     captures and documents business requirements for subsequent analyzing and business improvement,
     the SAP Solution Manager (SSM) tool is used for the documentation of the Blueprint by means of a


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     structured IT view containing business scenarios, processes and process steps with
     linked SAP transactions. The SSM includes a test management that is integrated with the Blueprint.

     Modeling Method
     It is a characteristic of the BPM market that BPA tools use many different modeling methods (commonly
     nicknamed as a “modeling language”). The latter use a set of specific rules to describe a business process
     control flow and its relationships between processes, activities, resources, work products and the
     organization. The methods use various notations with symbols to visually express the organizational or
     process models by diagrams. In general, methods can be distinguished into legacy or vendor specific
     methods, and standard methods like BPMN developed and controlled by the Object Management Group
     (OMG).

     Today, what is mainly used are variants of flowcharting methods, Event-Process-Chain (EPC) variants and
     variations of BPMN-based methods. Even if a vendor claims that the promoted BPA tool uses a standard
     method, in most cases the tool implements a specific method version, or a method subset or extension
     as compared to the standard method.

     For model data exchange, BPA tools use mostly vendor specific XML formats. To interchange model data
     between tools of different vendors one can use standard formats like XMI (OMG) or XPDL (Workflow
     Management Coalition - WfMC).

     However because of variations in three dimensions

         1. Implementation of modeling standard

         2. Implementation of exchange format standard

         3. BPM vendor commercial interests

     in many cases unexpected results occur when importing process models from a different BPA tool into
     the tool used. The US Department of Defense (DoD) made a review using standards BPMN and XPDL for
     model data interchange [MZM09 page 10]. No tool was capable of importing error-free models from
     another tool. Sometimes the tools failed to import its own (!) created export format.

     Model and Diagram Data Interchange
     To overcome the known problem of interoperability between tools and modeling standards, the BPM-
     Xchange® (BPM-X) middleware for the interchange of model, master and meta data is available. This
     software solution establishes interoperability in the enterprise management systems landscape of an
     organization. This approach eliminates existing silos of enterprise meta-data information and avoids
     efforts of manually re-keying or re-mapping existing model data or visual diagrams. The automatic
     conversion model and diagram improves the quality of exchanged data and reduces needed human
     interactivity. The BPM-X middleware is an Enterprise Integration Application (EAI) framework for the
     execution of transformation sequences. The framework uses inbound and outbound adapters to read
     and write tool or standard-specific data formats. For standard formats like XPDL, BPM-X offers support



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     for different versions and so called flavors to support vendor specific
     implementations of exchange standards. To eliminate vendor specific (standard) methods, BPM-X uses
     pattern-based rules for transformations of model and diagram data described by tool specific methods.

     The automated process using BPM-X mainly consists of five steps, namely to

         1. Export data from the supplier tool, database or repository

         2. Import data into a BPM-X repository neutral model representation using an inbound adapter

         3. Optionally improve model consistency

         4. Execute a sequence of model transformations from supplier into consumer methods

         5. Export into consumer tool format using an outbound adapter and import into the consumer tool

     In the case of model-based testing, the BPA tool is the supplier tool exporting the business process
     models. The consumer tools are testing tools like HP Quality Center (QC), SAP Solution Manager (SSM),
     or Microsoft Word in case of manual testing.




     Figure 6 Generic model transformation into BPMN using BPM-X middleware




     Generation of Test Cases
     BPMN Method Internally Used
     A process model is managed by the supplier BPA tool described by a specific method. A method consists
     of a meta model and a diagram notation for the visual modeling of a diagram. In addition, modeling


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     rules describe possible patterns that cannot be expressed through the meta model.
     Commonly the meta model plus notation is called a modeling language. From the point of view of
     generating test cases, this is an external method. The model data including the visual diagrams is loaded
     into the BPM-X middleware repository still using the external method.




     Figure 7 Test-case model based on BPMN

     Internally, BPM-X organizes its repository with model instances allowing several logical representations
     of the same model within one physical repository. To have a common initial point for the generation of
     test cases, BPM-X initially transforms the models stored in one model instance (1) into a new model
     instance (2). For test case generation, the internal method used is BPMN. This operation provides a
     normalization of a specific model method into the BPMN method.

     During this transformation of the business process, included work product objects are associated with
     activities by associations. Resources such as organizational units, groups, roles or IT applications are
     converted to so-called “performers”. Process activities, transactions or interfaces are converted to tasks,
     sub-processes or call activities.

     Test Case Generation Based on the BPMN Method
     BPM-X middleware offers a flexible framework to execute transformations in a sequence of so called
     atomic operations (AO). With an application programming interface (API), developers can develop own
     AO’s. MBT is developed as a BPM-X AO to implement the test case generation.




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     Based on the model data stored in the instance (2) the software generates test case models and stores
     them in a new instance (3). The test case models are also described by the BPMN method. The algorithm
     described can be easily modified or replaced to deliver alternative generated test cases. The following
     figure shows the first four test cases generated on the sample SAP business process model. Based on this
     specific example including 4 XOR gateways with 2 branches each, a total of 2 4 equal 16 possible test
     cases can be generated.




     Figure 8 A set of test-case models automatically generated on business process model




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     Linking with Testing Tools
     Once the test case models are available within the model instance (3), BPM-X AOs can transform the test
     cases into an external format for a testing tool.




     Figure 9 Export to Testing Tool

     These generated test case models can be converted into the model representation described by a
     consumer method and data format. E.g. export is possible into XPDL format for test case processing in
     HP QC, into SSM Blueprint projects or into Visio for manual test case documentation.

     Table 3 Examples for Testing Tools and external formats

      Tool                             Format                  Description
      HP QC                            XPDL V2.0 or V2.1       Load test cases into HP QC based on XPDL
      SAP Solution Manager             Word-Document           Use tab “test-case” with type “manual test case” using
      T-Code SOLAR02                                           Word documents can be used to assign the test case
                                                               documents to a blueprint structure
      SAP Solution Manager             Blueprint Project       Implementation project with Scenarios and uploaded
      T-Code SOLAR01                                           Processes for each test case model and Process-Steps
                                                               for activities.
      Microsoft Office                 Word, Excel, Visio      Documentation, analyzing and manual execution of test
                                                               cases


     Summary
     This whitepaper addresses the integrated solution of test management using business process models
     from the ERP Blueprint as a basis of automatically generated test cases for further use in a testing tool or
     manual testing. Using the BPM-X integration middleware for software interoperability builds a very
     flexible software solution for the interoperability of any BPA tools to be linked to a testing tool. The



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     BPM-X framework allows the development specific operations like the discussed test
     case generation. This new operation can be linked into the chain of transformations starting from the
     import of business process models, through transformations of model data by different methods into
     BPMN, to the export of test cases in a specific data format used by the testing tool.

     This concept of testing is much more business-focused instead of isolated functional testing not fully
     covering business logic and technical interfaces that supports data flow between business activities.

     The approach ensures the completeness of test case coverage to improve the quality of ERP supported
     business processes and lower the impact of weakly tested end-to-end scenarios.

     Costs

     High efforts are reduced by automatically generated test cases. By re-using business know-how from
     business process models defining probabilities of process flows, the test cases can be prioritized only re-
     testing an appropriate number of test cases when software changes and not the full set of test cases for
     a business process that is very time consuming in execution of the test cases.

     Integration of test case tools like HP QC or SSM Blueprint test management or test projects speeds up
     the handling of test cases in complex ERP projects, as compared to manual analysis and description of
     test cases especially when the test cases change through change requests.

     By examining end-to-end business scenarios with high probabilities, the automation of tests with tools
     like HP Loadrunner or SAP eCATT scripts save big amounts of time by re-running theses test during
     change requests or ERP maintenance.

     The overall efforts are greatly reduced for costly resources of the QA team and business key-users.

     Risks

     Many business executives have concerns about the quality and resulting costs for implementation and
     maintenance of ERP software. By using the model based approach for integration testing, the business
     impact of insufficiently tested ERP software is eliminated. By the re-use of business logic given by
     process models and execution probabilities combined with systematic execution of prioritized end-to-
     end scenarios, the relevant states of a business processes are reviewed. This includes identification and
     explicit testing of interfaces for exchange of data between activities supported by different involved ERP
     and 3rd party software components.

     A more methodical and tool-supported approach by using tools like QC or SSM lowers the risk of
     influence of inexperienced QA team members and insufficient project time available for testing.

     For revisions of business software, automatically generated test documentation can be used to audit and
     review test cases.

     Quality



      BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
20    Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP


     Using business process models as a basis of their generation, the test cases re-use
     documented process knowledge. The use of BI technology to analyze test case data and the visual
     documentation of test case diagrams improves the analytical understanding of end-to-end business
     scenarios. Based on test cases it is much easier to define appropriate test data for integration and for
     functional use case testing.

     The integrated approach addresses the impact given by business requirement changes to test cases in
     the ERP project cycle or during the maintenance of ERP. The changed test cases can be re-tested again to
     eliminate side effects of software changes.

     At the bottom line, the described methodology of the model-based generation of test cases
     complements the concept of using BPM for ERP Blueprinting. This establishes an optimal alignment
     between the business and IT.


     Bibliography
      [OS08]     Zur automatischen Ermittlung von Testszenarien aus EPK-Schemata, Oliver Skroch, 2008
      [WP.1]     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartile
      [WP.2]     http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_Coverage
      [MZM09] Enterprise Architecture based on Design Primitives and Patterns Guidelines for the Design
                 of Business Process Models (DoDAF OV-6c) using BPMN, Michael zur Muehlen, 2009
      [MAI11]    Graph Theory and Algorithms, M. Ashraf Iqbal, 2011




      BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public

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BPM-X Model-based-testing for ERP 01-2012

  • 1. 1 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Model-Based-Testing for ERP An adaptive software solution generating tes t cases based on Bl ueprint business process models Whitepaper June 2011, by Dr. Harald Goebel Andrew Kashulin Heinz-Jürgen Scherer Dr. Boris Zinchenko BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 2. 2 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Table of Contents Abstract 3 Motivation 3 Blueprinting an ERP Solution 4 Requirements for Testing 5 Approach for Model-Based Testing 6 Test Case Generation Algorithm 7 Execution Strategies for Test Cases 10 Adaptive Test Case Generation 11 Important Considerations 11 Interfaces and IT Systems 11 Work Products and Deliverables 12 Organizational and Resource Assignments 12 Costs Optimization of Test Case Analysis 12 End-to-End Process Execution Probability 12 Effort Weighted Testing 12 Methodology for Test Case Generation 13 ERP Solution Blueprinting 13 Modeling Method 14 Model and Diagram Data Interchange 14 Generation of Test Cases 15 BPMN Method Internally Used 15 Test Case Generation Based on the BPMN Method 16 Linking with Testing Tools 18 Summary 18 Bibliography 20 BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 3. 3 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Abstract For the requirements definition of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, the management discipline and methodology of Business Process Management (BPM) has an important role in the Blueprint project phase of ERP implementation. Using BPM methodology, the business requirements are documented and analyzed. Process improvement is achieved via better support of business activities by ERP software. The Blueprint consists of functional, organizational and system process models developed by a Business Process Analysis (BPA) tool prior to the realization phase of customizing the ERP software. Because of the complexity of ERP software, the integration testing of ERP supported processes is a very essential task to lower business impacts of badly tested software. At the same time, testing is a resource- consuming task in critical project phases. This whitepaper discusses an adaptive software solution for automatically transforming Blueprint business process models into test cases for a methodical and tool- based integration testing. Motivation ERP software is standard software from leading software vendors like SAP® or Oracle®. It comprises a comprehensive support of business processes, and is generically developed for the enterprise market. As implied by the definition of standard software, it is maintained by updates of the vendor and can be updated. It is in the nature of things that ERP standard software tends to be a complex construct consisting of many software components and configurations. ERP software needs to be customized to implement requirements and support business processes of an organization. Customization is a standard process in an ERP implementation, and is done by parameterization and change of the software components like the programs and configuration originally supplied by the software vendors. Beside functional acceptance, the software quality is influenced by errors in originally delivered software and customization. To achieve a qualified support of business processes, extensive software testing is mandatory not only on the software development level, e.g. using unit tests. The maturity of customized software is achieved by a continuous testing approach with functional use-case testing and integration testing. This is equally true for traditional transaction-based ERP systems and Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) with execution and integration of processes. Nowadays, SAP ERP is still a predominant transactional ERP system where SAP transactions like forms support business activities. Implementation of an ERP system is done through several project phases. SAP uses the Accelerated SAP (ASAP) project methodology where Blueprinting is the design phase of the ERP solution. In the realization phase, the ERP solution is customized based on the requirements specified in the Blueprint. For the methodical approach of testing, the definition of test plans based on test cases is a challenging task. To attain it, different members of the project team with various skills such as business key users, business analysts, quality assurance (QA) and software implementation team members must work together. It is even more complex because team members talk with different business or technical languages and are distributed across different locations including the employment of System Integrator BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 4. 4 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP offshore development teams. Primarily, we can consider three challenging aspects in ensuring the quality of business processes ERP support: Costs The task of manually creating test cases is accomplished with high project efforts for the design of many end-to-end business scenarios. The traditional design of test cases takes qualified and costly resources out of the project core and testing teams. The business impact of insufficient integration testing reduces production efficiency, and increase software maintenance costs. Risks Even if skilled project team members design the test cases, there is a high risk of not capturing all relevant end-to-end scenarios to be executed as test cases, or having mostly incomplete test cases with business impacts in the production environment. In productive operation, a process may fail because the executed scenario was not tested or interfaces between different components were not identified for appropriate interface integration tests. If a business process has changed in the context of risk management like Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), it is critical to miss the re-testing of process risk controls. Quality Bad test coverage leads to low software quality with high business impact. This negative impact is increased by an incomplete matching of the test data and insufficient reviews of work products and deliverables. All in all, the business impact of insufficiently tested end-to-end scenarios results in low quality business process support and higher software maintenance costs. Blueprinting an ERP Solution For many years the Blueprint of an ERP solution was traditionally created via workshops to capture business requirements from business key users and process owners. This process called “Blueprinting the ERP solution” commonly uses tools from Microsoft Office to describe the organizational and functional aspects with Word documents and Visio process flow diagrams. The Business Process Management (BPM) concept is a management discipline that offers a more comprehensive view of organizational, functional, data-centric, performance and process aspects of an organization. BPA tools are used to describe the business architecture structured by management, core and support process models in a single repository. The BPM approach for Blueprinting is supported by software vendors like SAP® with Solution Manager and BPM or Oracle® with the Application Integration Architecture (AIA) and the BPM Fusion Middleware. As the use of Enterprise Architecture (EA) and BPM methodologies is becoming more and more popular for large organizations, business processes are described by process models and their visual BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 5. 5 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP representation which can show the process logic and flow with different levels of abstraction. On a functional level, business processes are described by a model with a sequence of activities depicting the business logic. Figure 1 Business Process “Sales Order Processing“ supported by SAP ERP Process models map business logic that describes end-to-end scenarios as sequences of business activities. The motivation for developing the solution described below is to use available Blueprint process models to automatically generate test cases that can be used by test management tools to lower project costs and reduce the risk of software quality impacts on IT supported business processes. Requirements for Testing As ERP software is usually customized for organizational and business requirements, there is the absolute need for test management with applied testing concepts. Similar to concepts like software unit testing which are very important for software development on the coding level, testing procedures like functional use-case testing and integration testing are crucial to ensure the quality of ERP support on the business process level. To achieve the goal of improving quality and minimizing risks, a certain level of completeness of the test cases is needed. Testing efforts can be reduced by avoiding unneeded test cases, removing redundancy, BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 6. 6 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP and improving automation by setting correct priorities for frequently-operated end- to-end scenarios. It is important to identify gaps between business processes and related test cases to achieve completeness of test case coverage. Because of business and IT complexity, the emergence of Change Requests (CR) is not unusual in the project life cycle. Using BPM methodology and a BPA tool for Blueprinting an ERP solution reduces the absolute number and complexity of CRs because of a comprehensive understanding of the business logic and requirements. Each CR influences the scope of the software solution, and has an impact on the customizing. A change in a business process is managed in an ERP project by Change Management. This should include the impact of the changes with respect to related test cases. In order to achieve lower testing efforts, redundant and obsolete test cases have to be removed; and to ensure quality, existing test cases must be updated to reflect the change of the business process. Under software maintenance, test cases should be periodically reviewed to detect the impact of change requests. Approach for Model-Based Testing Blueprint process models created in the BPA tool and imported for the generation of test case. The test case data is utilized by the testing tool or for a manual test procedure. Figure 2 Approach for model based testing A test case is an end-to-end business scenario as a sequence of activities to be executed sequentially. The process logic is explicitly formulated by using logical rules commonly expressed with exclusive execution (XOR), parallel execution (AND) and inclusive execution (OR) of a branch in the process flow. The OR rule is complex to understand. It can be comprehended as a combination of a XOR and an AND rule [OS08]. Because process activities can consists of human or system atomic tasks (atomic means here that a task cannot be divided further into subtasks, like a SAP transaction), a sub process is defined by several tasks or a process interface. We use statements as designation of activities in a test case. The statements are linked by transitions1 to the logical flow of an end-to-end scenario. 1 A transition is described in a process model by a connector between activities BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 7. 7 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Test Case Generation Algorithm To calculate the full set of potentially possible test cases, we implemented an algorithm adapted from [OS08] for the linearization of the model graph into test case models. While [OS08] discusses the generation of test cases based on the Event-Process-Chains (EPC) method, the algorithm used here is based on BPMN to internally describe process models and test cases. With regard to control flow based testing this approach aligns with statement condition coverage [WP.2]. To calculate the combinatory of statements suitable for execution as test cases, we utilize the basic BPMN patterns as described in the DoD Enterprise Architecture Design Patterns [MZM09]. For the linearization of statements, in addition to the DoD design patterns we have to consider the iteration pattern.  Elementary sequence  Split and Join Patterns  Iteration Elementary Sequence The sequence is the fundamental idea of the chain of discrete individual statements following each other in a certain order. It is the common semantic interpretation or implication causality. Figure 3 Elementary sequence of statements Split and Join Patterns Split gateways have exactly one incoming and more than one outgoing connection, whereas join gateways have more than one incoming and exactly one outgoing edge. Although implicit splits and joins are not a good practice at all, they can be replaced by explicit gateways. BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 8. 8 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Pattern Linearization Parallel AND split 1: A, B, C 2: A, C, B2 Exclusive choice XOR split 1: A, B 2: A, C Multiple choice OR split 1: A,B 2: A, C 3: A, B, C 4: A,C, B2 Event-based choice XOR split 1: A, B 2: A, C 2 Only needed for C3 condition coverage, not needed for C2 path, C1 branch or C0 statement coverage. BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 9. 9 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Pattern Linearization Synchronized AND join 1: A, B, C 2: B, A, C2 Unsynchronized XOR join 1: A, C 2: B, C Synchronized OR join 1: A, C 2: B, C 3: A, B, C 4: B, A, C2 Implicit and explicit Iteration The iteration is the fundamental idea of the similar repetitive sequence. Iterations use only XOR connectors to create such a pattern. Figure 4 Implicit iteration with F1, F2 and explicit iteration with F3, F4 Table 3 shows the results of the linearization of the iteration pattern of Figure 5. The iteration is expanded into all possible sequences of statements. Table 1 Linearization of the iteration BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 10. 10 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Runs (N) Linearization event 0 (F1) so-called “Top tested loop” 1 (F1, F2) N = 2,… (F1, F2, F1, F2, …) The linearization of the iteration is simple, but in practice it requires handling additional reasonable assumptions to reduce the number of test runs. An additional parameter in the generation algorithm of test cases describes how many loops have to be executed for an iteration pattern. Per default 2 loops are generated per iteration. Conclusion Based on a breadth first search (BFS) algorithm handling graph theory [MAI11] the logic of linearization of statements finds all potential end-to-end scenarios with the linear sequence of statements describing a test case. For complex business processes with deeply nested branches, the number of some thousands of potential possible end-to-end scenarios exceeds the practically approach of executing the generated test cases. The generation of test cases for practical use is improved by an adaptive algorithm for test case coverage. Execution Strategies for Test Cases Integration testing is a kind of control flow based testing procedure. There are different concepts to reduce the potentially enormous number of possible test cases. For an example of a complex process model with 10 XOR gateways and 2 branches each we will have 210 = 1024 test cases feasible for execution. Because this number of potential test cases is too costly to be executed, the number should be reduced by different test execution strategies. The approach of narrowing the number of suitable test cases is called statement coverage test analysis [WP.1]. In principle, 4 different statement coverage strategies C X (X=0..3) can be considered. Table 2 Cases for test-case statement coverage Case Coverage of Description Pro Con C0 Statements All statements and gateways Less effort, all Not all transitions (edges of as nodes of the control statements of the the control graph) between graph will be covered by the process flow are statements will be passed testing not possible in a executed. through while testing the logical order. process model. All statements are weighted equally Empty branches are not covered C1 Branches All edges of the control Empty braches are Dependencies of decisions are graph with all nodes and covered not covered edges are tested at least 1 Loops are not tested time. This includes the C0 sufficiently BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 11. 11 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Case Coverage of Description Pro Con coverage and all functional Complex branches are weakly needed test cases, but not tested all test cases for integration testing. C2 Paths Each rule with possible High error detection High effort for testing decision is included in a test Based on conditions not all case. paths are covered High efforts by given number of possible test cases. C3 Conditions All variations of rule High error detection Very high effort decisions are covered in test cases. Very high effort for testing by potential number of test cases. Adaptive Test Case Generation The test case generation software uses an adaptive approach to reduce the potential number of test cases by the use of the parameter C X=0..3. For a practical use, branch coverage C1 coverage testing deliverers good results of test quality with reasonable costs for the test case execution. The testing condition coverage C3 is equivalent to the test case generation algorithm described in the previous chapter. The adaptive approach starts with the generation of possible test cases. Each generated test case is tested against the chosen C 0 or C1 coverage. For statement coverage, for each new generated test case it is tested against the available test case statements if all statements of the process model are covered. For branch test cases this is the same with edges tested against the process model instead of statements. Overlapping test cases are eliminated to reduce the effort of test case execution. Important Considerations Although the process is in the center of test case generation, it is important to understand the context of a statement in the end-to-end scenario. The context is described by the preceding and subsequent statements linked by transitions, the statement is supported by IT systems, the data of work products is linked with the help of interfaces between different technical components. Resources support the execution of the business process. Interfaces and IT Systems The activities (e.g. SAP process steps and transactions) are supported by IT systems. By the knowledge of this support it is clear if a transition links to statements executed in different IT systems. The statement associated work products have to be serialized and transformed using an interface between the two different IT systems. It is very important to review this interface link in the execution of test cases. BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 12. 12 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Work Products and Deliverables To properly describe test data and functional use case success criteria it is important to know which work products are processed in the end-to-end business scenario. Organizational and Resource Assignments Finally, the organization and resources supporting the execution of statements being responsible, accountable, controlled and informed (RACI) have extensive business knowledge which in many cases is not described by Blueprint documents. They know e.g. how to handle exceptions in workflows, or know about probabilities of executing branches in complex workflows. The algorithm uses this information for cost optimization of test case analysis. Costs Optimization of Test Case Analysis In the case of test case coverage C 2 or C3, the potential number of possible test cases can be very large. The calculation of execution probabilities or execution costs can be used to reduce the number of test cases to be executed, e.g. to avoid the execution of test cases belonging to quantiles with lesser probability like the first quartile [WP.1]. End-to-End Process Execution Probability The probability of executing an end-to-end process called test case can be calculated based either on “as-is” facts or on “to-be” estimations. As a fact in ERP, the number of transaction execution times in a process can be used and stored as a frequency value in a statement attribute. As an alternative, an execution probability can be assigned to branches of gateways expressing explicit rules like exclusive XOR, inclusive OR, and AND. For the case of methodically possible implicit rules, the value of probability is stored in the transition. The probability of an end-to-end scenario is the product of all existing probabilities of statement transitions passed through. For a simple case with a number of 2 XOR-rules with 2 branches each, there are 4 possible test cases with a overall probability of 0,25 for each test case. The probability of the test case is calculated and stored in the Probability attribute of model describing the test case. Effort Weighted Testing To calculate the time effort of executing a test case, a weight factor can describe the effort to test statement. The standard value per default is 1. For a complex statements to be executed, the weight can be increased or decreased for simple statements. The overall effort of a test case is stored in a model attribute Effort. Conclusion Depending on the complexity of the business process to be tested, an approach using C1 for branch coverage is practically sufficient. Using C2 or C3 delivers too many test cases with high effort to test all end-to-end variations. For very complex process models it will not be possible to generate and test all possible test cases. For e.g. 20 XOR gateways we would have a number of more than 1M test cases. For a standard PC with 100 test cases generated per second it takes 3h to calculate in memory all possible BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 13. 13 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP variations for this process model. For this reason the algorithm uses an Exception parameter to avoid the time costly generation of too many C2 or C3 test cases. Methodology for Test Case Generation For the purpose of the automatic generation of test cases based on Blueprint business process models an integrative methodology is developed. The methodology considers three phases to control the risk of business impact by insufficiently tested end-to-end processes and to lower the efforts for integration testing. 1. ERP Solution blueprinting 2. Test case generation 3. End-to-end testing Figure 5 Solution for model based testing ERP Solution Blueprinting As already stated, blueprinting an ERP solution using tools for business process analysis (BPA) delivers many benefits. For e.g. SAP® ERP the project method SAP® Accelerate SAP (ASAP) defines the Blueprint project phase before the realization phase starts that includes the testing of software. While a BPA tool captures and documents business requirements for subsequent analyzing and business improvement, the SAP Solution Manager (SSM) tool is used for the documentation of the Blueprint by means of a BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 14. 14 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP structured IT view containing business scenarios, processes and process steps with linked SAP transactions. The SSM includes a test management that is integrated with the Blueprint. Modeling Method It is a characteristic of the BPM market that BPA tools use many different modeling methods (commonly nicknamed as a “modeling language”). The latter use a set of specific rules to describe a business process control flow and its relationships between processes, activities, resources, work products and the organization. The methods use various notations with symbols to visually express the organizational or process models by diagrams. In general, methods can be distinguished into legacy or vendor specific methods, and standard methods like BPMN developed and controlled by the Object Management Group (OMG). Today, what is mainly used are variants of flowcharting methods, Event-Process-Chain (EPC) variants and variations of BPMN-based methods. Even if a vendor claims that the promoted BPA tool uses a standard method, in most cases the tool implements a specific method version, or a method subset or extension as compared to the standard method. For model data exchange, BPA tools use mostly vendor specific XML formats. To interchange model data between tools of different vendors one can use standard formats like XMI (OMG) or XPDL (Workflow Management Coalition - WfMC). However because of variations in three dimensions 1. Implementation of modeling standard 2. Implementation of exchange format standard 3. BPM vendor commercial interests in many cases unexpected results occur when importing process models from a different BPA tool into the tool used. The US Department of Defense (DoD) made a review using standards BPMN and XPDL for model data interchange [MZM09 page 10]. No tool was capable of importing error-free models from another tool. Sometimes the tools failed to import its own (!) created export format. Model and Diagram Data Interchange To overcome the known problem of interoperability between tools and modeling standards, the BPM- Xchange® (BPM-X) middleware for the interchange of model, master and meta data is available. This software solution establishes interoperability in the enterprise management systems landscape of an organization. This approach eliminates existing silos of enterprise meta-data information and avoids efforts of manually re-keying or re-mapping existing model data or visual diagrams. The automatic conversion model and diagram improves the quality of exchanged data and reduces needed human interactivity. The BPM-X middleware is an Enterprise Integration Application (EAI) framework for the execution of transformation sequences. The framework uses inbound and outbound adapters to read and write tool or standard-specific data formats. For standard formats like XPDL, BPM-X offers support BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 15. 15 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP for different versions and so called flavors to support vendor specific implementations of exchange standards. To eliminate vendor specific (standard) methods, BPM-X uses pattern-based rules for transformations of model and diagram data described by tool specific methods. The automated process using BPM-X mainly consists of five steps, namely to 1. Export data from the supplier tool, database or repository 2. Import data into a BPM-X repository neutral model representation using an inbound adapter 3. Optionally improve model consistency 4. Execute a sequence of model transformations from supplier into consumer methods 5. Export into consumer tool format using an outbound adapter and import into the consumer tool In the case of model-based testing, the BPA tool is the supplier tool exporting the business process models. The consumer tools are testing tools like HP Quality Center (QC), SAP Solution Manager (SSM), or Microsoft Word in case of manual testing. Figure 6 Generic model transformation into BPMN using BPM-X middleware Generation of Test Cases BPMN Method Internally Used A process model is managed by the supplier BPA tool described by a specific method. A method consists of a meta model and a diagram notation for the visual modeling of a diagram. In addition, modeling BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 16. 16 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP rules describe possible patterns that cannot be expressed through the meta model. Commonly the meta model plus notation is called a modeling language. From the point of view of generating test cases, this is an external method. The model data including the visual diagrams is loaded into the BPM-X middleware repository still using the external method. Figure 7 Test-case model based on BPMN Internally, BPM-X organizes its repository with model instances allowing several logical representations of the same model within one physical repository. To have a common initial point for the generation of test cases, BPM-X initially transforms the models stored in one model instance (1) into a new model instance (2). For test case generation, the internal method used is BPMN. This operation provides a normalization of a specific model method into the BPMN method. During this transformation of the business process, included work product objects are associated with activities by associations. Resources such as organizational units, groups, roles or IT applications are converted to so-called “performers”. Process activities, transactions or interfaces are converted to tasks, sub-processes or call activities. Test Case Generation Based on the BPMN Method BPM-X middleware offers a flexible framework to execute transformations in a sequence of so called atomic operations (AO). With an application programming interface (API), developers can develop own AO’s. MBT is developed as a BPM-X AO to implement the test case generation. BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 17. 17 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Based on the model data stored in the instance (2) the software generates test case models and stores them in a new instance (3). The test case models are also described by the BPMN method. The algorithm described can be easily modified or replaced to deliver alternative generated test cases. The following figure shows the first four test cases generated on the sample SAP business process model. Based on this specific example including 4 XOR gateways with 2 branches each, a total of 2 4 equal 16 possible test cases can be generated. Figure 8 A set of test-case models automatically generated on business process model BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 18. 18 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Linking with Testing Tools Once the test case models are available within the model instance (3), BPM-X AOs can transform the test cases into an external format for a testing tool. Figure 9 Export to Testing Tool These generated test case models can be converted into the model representation described by a consumer method and data format. E.g. export is possible into XPDL format for test case processing in HP QC, into SSM Blueprint projects or into Visio for manual test case documentation. Table 3 Examples for Testing Tools and external formats Tool Format Description HP QC XPDL V2.0 or V2.1 Load test cases into HP QC based on XPDL SAP Solution Manager Word-Document Use tab “test-case” with type “manual test case” using T-Code SOLAR02 Word documents can be used to assign the test case documents to a blueprint structure SAP Solution Manager Blueprint Project Implementation project with Scenarios and uploaded T-Code SOLAR01 Processes for each test case model and Process-Steps for activities. Microsoft Office Word, Excel, Visio Documentation, analyzing and manual execution of test cases Summary This whitepaper addresses the integrated solution of test management using business process models from the ERP Blueprint as a basis of automatically generated test cases for further use in a testing tool or manual testing. Using the BPM-X integration middleware for software interoperability builds a very flexible software solution for the interoperability of any BPA tools to be linked to a testing tool. The BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 19. 19 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP BPM-X framework allows the development specific operations like the discussed test case generation. This new operation can be linked into the chain of transformations starting from the import of business process models, through transformations of model data by different methods into BPMN, to the export of test cases in a specific data format used by the testing tool. This concept of testing is much more business-focused instead of isolated functional testing not fully covering business logic and technical interfaces that supports data flow between business activities. The approach ensures the completeness of test case coverage to improve the quality of ERP supported business processes and lower the impact of weakly tested end-to-end scenarios. Costs High efforts are reduced by automatically generated test cases. By re-using business know-how from business process models defining probabilities of process flows, the test cases can be prioritized only re- testing an appropriate number of test cases when software changes and not the full set of test cases for a business process that is very time consuming in execution of the test cases. Integration of test case tools like HP QC or SSM Blueprint test management or test projects speeds up the handling of test cases in complex ERP projects, as compared to manual analysis and description of test cases especially when the test cases change through change requests. By examining end-to-end business scenarios with high probabilities, the automation of tests with tools like HP Loadrunner or SAP eCATT scripts save big amounts of time by re-running theses test during change requests or ERP maintenance. The overall efforts are greatly reduced for costly resources of the QA team and business key-users. Risks Many business executives have concerns about the quality and resulting costs for implementation and maintenance of ERP software. By using the model based approach for integration testing, the business impact of insufficiently tested ERP software is eliminated. By the re-use of business logic given by process models and execution probabilities combined with systematic execution of prioritized end-to- end scenarios, the relevant states of a business processes are reviewed. This includes identification and explicit testing of interfaces for exchange of data between activities supported by different involved ERP and 3rd party software components. A more methodical and tool-supported approach by using tools like QC or SSM lowers the risk of influence of inexperienced QA team members and insufficient project time available for testing. For revisions of business software, automatically generated test documentation can be used to audit and review test cases. Quality BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public
  • 20. 20 Whitepaper – Model-Based-Testing for ERP Using business process models as a basis of their generation, the test cases re-use documented process knowledge. The use of BI technology to analyze test case data and the visual documentation of test case diagrams improves the analytical understanding of end-to-end business scenarios. Based on test cases it is much easier to define appropriate test data for integration and for functional use case testing. The integrated approach addresses the impact given by business requirement changes to test cases in the ERP project cycle or during the maintenance of ERP. The changed test cases can be re-tested again to eliminate side effects of software changes. At the bottom line, the described methodology of the model-based generation of test cases complements the concept of using BPM for ERP Blueprinting. This establishes an optimal alignment between the business and IT. Bibliography [OS08] Zur automatischen Ermittlung von Testszenarien aus EPK-Schemata, Oliver Skroch, 2008 [WP.1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartile [WP.2] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_Coverage [MZM09] Enterprise Architecture based on Design Primitives and Patterns Guidelines for the Design of Business Process Models (DoDAF OV-6c) using BPMN, Michael zur Muehlen, 2009 [MAI11] Graph Theory and Algorithms, M. Ashraf Iqbal, 2011 BPM-X GmbH | www.bpm-x.com | Public