10 most critical factors of SAP payroll: Unit and parallel testing

Unit and Parallel TestingUnit and parallel testing is the fifth factor in the 10 most critical factors of SAP Payroll. We covered Data integrity, Integration, Configuration and Customization, and HRSP and legal changes in the first four blog posts.

Testing is a building process where we look at individual functionality and see how it fits in the big picture. We can then identify how the process changes when moving from another system or by changes to the SAP system. How do are the differing levels of testing defined and what should levels should we go through?

Unit testing is the validation of individual functionality. Unit tests are typically performed by the technical or functional support team. Those team members should understand the business process.

If your support is outsourced, the outsourced team members should have an understanding of your specific business processes because general knowledge will not provide a specific enough understanding to your business processes and requirements. Many times, outsource team members are viewed as only technical or configuration, but their understanding will impact the effectiveness of functionality.

Integration testing is the validation of aggregate functionality by combining individual functionality. Integration testing is best performed by a mix of the support team and business users.

Parallel testing is the validation of data through concurrently testing functionality. Similar to integration testing a mix of support team and business team members is best.

Finally, we have User Acceptance testing where our Subject Matter Experts along with key users should review the functionality and validate that it will support the business processes and meet their requirements. The SMEs and business users should be able to perform all of the processes and identify breakdowns.

All stages of testing should be performed to provide a complete testing methodology. Unfortunately, when timelines are short it is not uncommon for testing to be shortchanged. The short-term gain may likely be outweighed when fallout is found in production and the result is incorrect employee remunerations. The best run projects will keep testing scopes intact and provide sufficient time and resources to verify business processes and requirements are met.

Please join us for our next blog post where we’ll discuss Time management as another critical factor in SAP payroll.

Here at Integrated Consulting Group, we specialize in the design, development, and customization of SAP Human Capital Management business software for leading edge North American companies with global reach. Have any questions about SAP? Feel free to contact us via the contact page of our site, or on Twitter or LinkedIn.