Effective Testing Strategies for D365 Finance

1. Overall testing strategy
2. Project scope stalled on test scope.
3. High level test plan
4. Phases and types of tests
   1. Key Definitions
   2. Test management
5. Testing tools

The objective of implementing a testing strategy is to ensure a successful client outcome when implementing D365 Finance. This review is done through different workshops whose objectives are:

• Drive communication and understanding within the implementation team regarding test objectives, test types, scope, test planning and solution validation approach.
• Identify risks and issues – By looking at the test strategy broadly but taking a high level, you can identify issues and risks related to the approach that could have a negative impact on the outcome.
• Provide recommendations – Based on the identified risks, these workshops will provide recommendations to help you better manage and mitigate risks.

Overall testing strategy

The testing strategy covers the high-level approach and the plan to validate that the solution will be suitable for use in production. The questions to ask are:

• Is a documented testing strategy in place?
• Does the testing strategy reflect the needs and circumstances of this project?
• Is the test strategy expressed in a language adapted to the project and understandable by the relevant stakeholders of the project and the company?

Project scope stalled on test scope.

The scope of the tests clearly depends on the project scope.

The following question must be asked: how and in what test phase or type of test should the functional areas of the project be assessed?

Consider the following application areas:

• Business processes
• Business requirements
• Design requirements
• Data (for functional use, migration, interfaces, reporting/BI, etc.)
• Geography
• Custom zones
• Process changes
• Safety
• Regulatory requirements
• Project objectives

Another question to ask: how, and in what test phase or type of test, should the non-functional areas of the project be assessed?

Consider the following application areas:

• Performance
• Ease of use
• Operability
• Maintainability
• Disaster recovery
• Business continuity
• Other areas relevant to the project

High level test plan

Testing will be conducted throughout the project and the high-level test plan provides the structure to show how several types and phases of testing rely on each other to provide a gradual and complete validation of the solution. The following questions should be asked:

• How does the high-level test plan fit into the project plan?
• Does the test planning reflect the testing strategy?
• Are all types and phases of testing accurately reflected in the test plan?
• Does the test plan provide sufficient time and effort to perform tests commensurate with the size and complexity of the project?
• Does the test plan show that the time and effort allocated to the different test areas is proportional to the risk posed to the company?

Phases and types of tests

Tests in a business application like D365 Finance are multidimensional and the phases and types of tests represent the validation of different layers and dimensions of the solution.

Key Definitions

Test phase/ Test type	Key objectives	Source documents	Coverage of tests	Admission criteria	Exit criteria
Enter the test phase title (Integration Test or User Acceptance Test) or enter key test types (Performance Test).	Enter the key objectives that should be achieved in each test phase.	List the type of document/requirement domain used to define test case content and acceptance criteria.	Determine the areas of the project scope that should be validated by this phase	Define the entry criteria that must be met for this test phase to be considered ready to start.	Define the output criteria that test results must meet for this test phase to be considered as meeting its objective.

Test management

Test phase/ Test type	Test preparation	Testing implementation	Test report	Test administration tool(s)	Test property
Enter the test phase title (Integration Test or User Acceptance Test) or enter key test types (Performance Test).	Brief description of the test preparation expected to meet the test entry criteria (The test script, data requirements, environments).	Brief description of how this test will be implemented (what roles will the tests perform or what will the life cycle be).	Define how the test progress will be reported and how results/quality will be analyzed and reported	Determine the tools that will be used to store, review, and manage the test framework, test cases and test results.	Define who is responsible for the result of this test.

The phases and types of testing key that could be covered are:

• Unit tests
• Functional/process testing
• System integration tests
• End-to-end testing of processes
• User acceptance tests (UAT)
• Regression tests

The main types of non-functional tests that could be covered include:

• Performance testing
• Validation of data
• Safety tests

This list is not exhaustive and depending on the nature of the project, other types of tests may be relevant such as point-of-sale (POS) tests for retail stores or scanning device tests for warehouse applications.

Additional questions for a given test type/phase could be asked:

• Have functional test cases been defined based on requirements and/or business scenarios?
• Do functional tests cover all functional modules?
• Are functional test scripts validated with business users?
• Does the integration test strategy require a test environment to be created to perform these integration tests?
• Is there a method defined to synchronize/resynchronize all systems participating in the system integration tests?
• Have the end-to-end process test cases been validated with each functional module owner?
• Does the end-to-end testing strategy of processes take usability tests into account?
• Have the main stakeholders of the UAT been identified?
• Does the UAT plan clearly document the role of each stakeholder in the UAT phase?
• Have you put in place a clear communication plan during UAT with all required stakeholders?
• Has each main process been decomposed to include sub-processes?
• Have the test scenarios been prioritized in the UAT?
• Does the UAT test plan include appropriate provisioning of the UAT test environment?
• Do you have any user training planned for the testers before the UAT tests?
• Has an adequate definition been established for the basic set of tests that would constitute a sequence of regression tests?
• Is there a process in place to identify recent (high level) changes for regression testing?
• Does the test plan include automation of regression testing?
• Is there a process for data validation testing?
• Have the appropriate business stakeholders been identified to perform data validation tests?
• Is there a plan to perform end-to-end testing process on the migrated data?
• Do data validation tests include data reconciliation plans and reports?
• Have the key areas for security testing been identified?
• Does the test plan require that all necessary security roles and privileges be defined and filled in before UAT or system integration tests?
• Does the security testing strategy include your organization’s security requirements?

Testing tools

The planning, preparation, conduct and reporting of tests requires significant management. For the simplest projects, this process can be managed using Excel sheets, but it can become difficult to manage and follow up on more complex projects.

Most projects will use task management software (Devops type). In addition, many organizations use automation tools to plan, create tests, run tests, and report test results. The following questions may be asked:

• What test administration tools are used, how, to match tests with source needs (traceability matrix)?
• What test administration tools are used to manage the identification and storage of test cases?
• What test administration tools are used to manage resource allocation and track the full test lifecycle from test creation, run, test results collection, error logs, resolution and retry?
• What tools are used to automate the execution of test types and the collection of results?