Increasing test requirements and optimized test management

Hesse Competence Center

The challenge

Compared to many other public-sector institutions, HCC operates a highly integrated SAP landscape comprising nearly the entire SAP product range for HR, accounting and reporting. In addition, HCC has to meet strict data privacy standards, maintain a complex array of user permissions and run special civil service solutions such as budget management and supply administration.

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The solution

First, Usage & Procedure Logging was activated on all production systems. The logs, supplemented by data from the SAP Scope & Effort Analyzer (SEA), provided enough input to establish effective process structures for the projects. The Technical Bill of Materials (TBOMs) were generated as an input for the Business Process Change Analyzer (BPCA). HCC needed the usage of BPCA not only to optimize testing by selectively reducing the test scope, but also to automatically generate risk-based test plans.

Next, a solution was developed in order to automatically incorporate current test case templates (eCATT test scripts, Excel test cases) into the process structures based on used transactions. This process was superior to the alternative: migrating processes from ARIS, which would have led to a no-go decision for testing with the SAP Solution Manager at HCC.

To continue using the established test organization, the CRM organizational model in SAP Solution Manager was aligned with the departments that were involved in the test process. SNP also implemented a special solution that enables test activities to be assigned to teams instead of individual SAP users. That gives the departments more freedom to distribute and complete assigned test activities within the team. Team members see test cases in their personal tester worklists; they are also automatically notified of new test activities by e-mail. This goes a long way toward simplifying the test process and facilitating communication among test participants.

 

 

In the standard Test Management process, the SNP email Notifications add-on also supports the communication of test participants during testing and error handling. On the organizational side, HCC created a central Test Management operation team solely devoted to SAP Solution Manager issues to help the departments using the tool. The actual testing is still performed by the individual departments.

In the future, HCC plans to focus more on Test Management and Custom Code Management functions with the use of the SAP Custom Development Management Cockpit in order to manage custom code in SAP landscapes efficiently.

The project owes much of its success to the close collaboration between the HCC project team, the SNP experts, the SAP Basis and the team members of Test Management and Authorizations. HCC aims to leverage the new functions and optimized test processes to save both – time and money for the State of Hesse.

The challenge and benefits

Approximately 30 large projects and over 750 highly integrated major changes are completed each year. This entails an enormous test workload, especially since each go-live is expected to be ‘clean’. HCC is also under tremendous pressure to comply with changes to laws before they take effect. HCC has taken a step towards more optimized testing by instituting test automation (eCATT).

  • Seamless documentation in one central tool – for finding everything quickly in an audit-proof format
  • Tool-supported Test Management to simplify the test process
  • Ability to plan and optimize test scope in advance (grade of test coverage, risk-based testing)
  • Integration of existing Test Management components and processes
  • Reduced test effort and costs
  • Assurance of operations and risk-minimized enhancement
    of all SAP solution

We wanted to standardize and optimize Test Management processes with the SAP Solution Manager. SNP guided us through the overall conceptual design process and helped us to find solutions for our special needs.

Elisabeth Degoutrie

SAP Program Manager; Detlef Deinert, SAP Project Manager/ Developer, HCC – Hesse Competence Center

About Hesse Competence Center

Hesse Competence Center for New Administration Management (HCC) is the Hesse state public administration’s central service provider with responsibility for managing and enhancing Hesse’s SAP® solution. HCC was established in 2001 as a competence and service center focused on the state’s needs. Its main challenge: to effectively and responsively meet a constant stream of new requirements. Besides managing the SAP solution, HCC’s core mission includes providing shared procurement, financial and reporting services. The Hesse SAP solution is vast: It is utilized by 12300 SAP users and 60000 ESS users, while payroll covers roughly 220000 employees each month. In addition, HCC handles all of the State of Hesse’s non-cash payments, which exceed EUR 300 billion, and supplies departments with the information they need to prepare balance sheets. Previously, the test organization – classic testing in test teams (test cases, SAP eCATT scripts) – and documentation was handled in the departments by themselves. SAP Solution Manager was used only for SAP Basis, not for any other SAP applications. By extending the SAP Solution Manager Test Management, HCC has enabled
their departments to extensively use Solution Documentation and Test Management for Application Lifecycle Management.