Retail: A Multi-Billion Dollar Food, Snack, and Beverage Corporation Seek iLAB’s Help for Software Quality Assurance

View PDF Version

Introduction

A global food, snack, and beverage corporation approached iLAB to help implement a new module: Human Capital Management (HCM), to the SAP Employee Central (EC) module implementation project.

iLAB provided the core testing team and led User Acceptance Testing (UAT). The core testing team also handled defect management. Our team contributed Software Quality Assurance expertise, assisting with project planning and execution and identifying and mitigating risks that could jeopardize the project.

The Challenge

Due to the project’s large scale, organizational needs were difficult to define. We established specific requirements for all 50 countries involved in the implementation, project scope creep, and the lack of pre-existing formal documentation. Milestone timelines were frequently shifted caused of project unknowns due to the client being new to SAP.

The Success

iLAB helped the client establish performance measures and resolutions, resulting in organization-wide standards and country-specific needs to be carried out by the country leads. Our team evaluated identifying actual defects versus enhancement requests, helping close scope creep. We encouraged the client to release formal quality documentation. Creating this documentation helped the client understand the importance of establishing clear standards to be followed by those working on the project. iLAB partnered with the business to identify issues and triage their severity. This process was followed each release until the project go-live.

Project Testing Scenarios

TEN BUSINESS WORKFLOWS FOR EACH COUNTRY:

  • Hire
  • Rehire
  • Terminate
  • Job Change
  • Position Change
  • Manager Change
  • Data Change
  • InPat/XPat
  • Transfer
  • Salary/Compensation Change

Employee Self Service/Manager Self Service (EES/MSS): A system where employees or managers update information for themselves or their employees through user portals.

Event Reason Validation: Every transaction a user makes inside of EC comes with an Event and Event Reasons. These Event Reasons are kept in EC as the source of record. They are passed through business rules and interfaces to other systems.

Event Reason Groupings:

  • Hire
  • Rehire
  • Promotion
  • Position Change
  • Data Change
  • Involuntary/Voluntary Termination
  • Global Assignment
  • Job Change
  • Leave of Absence
  • Pay Change

InfoType Validation: In the SAP world, InfoType describes every piece of data. InfoTypes are groupings of data that when combined create an employee’s profile. EC sends all their data via interfaces that place data into the respective InfoTypes of the legacy and payroll systems.

Interface Validation: iLAB added transactions to EC and requested transactions from third parties. We then evaluated the flat file output for order and perimeter limitations and ensured the file data was valid.

Conclusion

iLAB’s Testing and Software Quality Assurance experts proficiently guided this year-long project by educating the client on the importance of fixed scope, formal quality documentation, and the extent of testing needed. iLAB’s efforts resulted in thorough testing (locating over 400 defects within the EC configuration and interfaces), a successful project, and a satisfied client.

When your reputation is on the line, partner with iLAB to implement quality software that both performs and impresses.

Let's Talk