From ERP procurement to maintenance – how Testimate helps in the renewal of business-critical systems

Renewing an ERP system is a major investment and success requires careful planning and quality assurance. Testimate ensures that the project progresses in a controlled manner and that the end result supports the business.

The implementation of business-critical systems, such as various ERP or CRM solutions, is a major project in large organisations, sometimes lasting for years. Whether it’s SAP, Dynamics 365, or Oracle platforms, in practice, the solution is a long-term commitment, and a significant amount of resources are invested in its implementation.

Since business systems are rarely replaced, companies purchasing such systems often lack the in-house expertise to cover all stages of the procurement process. External expertise may be needed to ensure that the procurement process is completed successfully and that the system can be used smoothly in everyday operations.

The company may consider the following issues, for example:

Which ERP solution suits our needs? How should the procurement be scheduled? Does the implementation truly meet the needs of our users? How can maintenance and updates be handled without disrupting the company’s operations?

Many important issues – so what kind of help is available for implementing business systems?

Testimate is a software quality assurance specialist company whose experts’ toolkit includes identifying customer needs, critical thinking, systematic planning, and smooth communication.

In this article, we will discuss how a partner focused on software quality can be involved throughout the entire lifecycle of business systems. You can benefit from our services regardless of whether your company has its own software development expertise or relies entirely on external suppliers – especially in the latter case, we can help you significantly.

Defining requirements to find the right solution

A quality management expert can provide valuable assistance at a very early stage, when potential systems are being mapped out and preparations are being made to issue a request for tenders.

Reviewing the requirements specification is very important, because at this stage, correcting errors is still the easiest and cheapest thing to do. A quality assurance professional helps to ensure that the requirements are internally consistent, free of contradictions, and as complete as possible, and that atypical workflows and error scenarios are taken into account.

For example, at Posti, Testimate has been heavily involved in defining and specifying business and technical requirements in several projects (see the customer case about our partnership with Posti).

If your company does not have the internal capacity to define requirements, Testimate’s network of partners can provide a suitable candidate. The Business Analyst role serves as a bridge between IT and business operations, helping to identify and define the requirements essential for business operations within the system.

Help with test planning, implementation, and management

Business systems are often complex entities that integrate with other systems within the company through various interfaces. From the early stages of the project, it is important to ensure that data, for example, flows correctly from point A to point B.

Testing of systems that are business critical should not be left solely to the project manager or software developer (who may belong to the supplier’s organisation).

Testing software functionality and data integrity is part of the daily routine and special expertise of testing professionals. A skilled test manager plans the testing schedule, the necessary test cases, and the resources required for testing. Testers can be brought in flexibly as needed.

The use of test automation is an important part of the test plan. Test automation allows testing routines to be transferred from humans to machines, freeing up human testers’ time for tasks such as testing new features, reporting, and internal project communication.

Acceptance testing ensures that you get what you purchased

Once the technical implementation is nearing completion, it is time to ensure that it actually meets the needs of end users. This stage is called acceptance testing.

In acceptance testing, the company’s end users get to sit down with an almost finished system, try it out in practice, and ensure that productive work can be carried out smoothly.

In addition to the project manager, acceptance testing is usually led by a testing expert, whose role is to take care of the testing arrangements, collect and communicate findings, and ultimately help decide whether the system is mature enough to be used.

Practical working methods are shaped according to the needs of the project, and the entire phase can be approached in an agile and iterative manner. Testing can be carried out, for example, on successive partial deliveries, which are tested according to the delivery schedule – this is the recommended approach for complex projects.

In the acceptance testing project carried out by Testimate for the City of Tampere, several 30-60 minute testing clinics were held with end users. In these sessions, the team was able to discuss openly and give free feedback.

How to keep updates running smoothly

Most modern ERP and CRM systems operate either entirely or partially in the cloud, rather than using traditional on-premises solutions. This brings both advantages and challenges that you should prepare for in advance.

Cloud services make adding new features more flexible, but the number and frequency of updates increase significantly. To maintain the functionality of both old and new features, companies must be prepared to test quickly.

Fortunately, the aforementioned test automation helps here, as it allows old features to be tested automatically. Test automation experts turn manual regression test cases into automatically runnable scripts that can be easily executed at any time, providing quick feedback on how the update is working.

While the machine performs routine testing, human testers can focus on new functionalities that can also be added to the automation process in due course. For example, at Koho, Testimate is constantly developing test automation for their product, with the aim of minimizing the time spent by (already busy) people on manual work.