SAPinsider Issue 3 2020

its orders at distribution centers across California, North Carolina, and Texas. Your existing processes were not designed to do this. To make the neces- sary changes, you would need to update the UIs and business logic across all the related processes and systems (such as order placement, order processing, and warehouse management). You would also need to test each component to verify that the individual changes work as designed. Then, once all the indi- vidual updates were finished, you would want to test the complete end-to-end process to ensure that everything works together and that some subtle- yet-critical element was not overlooked. When updates occurred less frequently, McKes- son verified such changes with a combination of open-source test automation tools and manual testing (about a 40%/60% split). However, with the push for daily or hourly updates, the testing team quickly learned that this approach could not keep up. The open-source test automation tools focused only on certain technologies, resulting in “islands of test automation,” which meant extensive manual testing was still required to validate complete end- to-end business processes. This resource-intensive approach simply does not enable the speed, scope, or accuracy of testing that is essential with the new pace of innovation. The company needed a faster, easier way to ensure its core processes would continue working after an update. Increasing Agility Without Risking Business Disruption To help McKesson reach its goal of rapid updates without business disruption, the company embarked on a testing transformation project in July 2019. This endeavor continues to evolve today based on a three-year roadmap (see Figure 2 on the next page) created by the project’s lead, Danial Khan , North America Service Transition and Business Operations Leader at McKesson. “Software that doesn’t function correctly can have far-reaching and, in some cases, dire implica- tions due to McKesson’s industry-leading business and life-critical mission,” Khan says. The company needed a testing platform that automates test- ing across every part of its complex systems and processes. After extensive research, McKesson elected to partner with Tricentis and implement its enterprise continuous testing platform, which McKesson identified as the ideal product to work across all its different SAP and non-SAP platforms and technologies. The Tricentis platform includes three core capa- bilities: agile test management, provided by Tri- centis qTest ; change impact analysis, provided by Tricentis LiveCompare ; and enterprise test automa- tion, provided by Tricentis Tosca . McKesson was first introduced to Tricentis by way of qTest. For over a year, qTest has provided McKesson with centralized visibility and control across its entire software testing practice, including manual and automated testing tools, commercial tools, and open-source tools. It also integrates with a third-party tool application that McKesson uses for software management, which helps prevent duplicated efforts while improving traceability and collaboration. After rolling out qTest across its US locations, Khan says that McKesson noticed a 25% reduction in its test cycle times. “The journey isn’t just about selecting a tool and letting it do that work. It’s also about changing the mindset of not just the testers, but also the developers, business partners, and other supporting functions who use the tool daily.” Danial Khan North America Service Transition and Business Operations Leader, McKesson 33 SAPinsiderOnline.com