Table of Content
Where Test Automation and Code Analysis fit into the S/4HANA Picture
As we all know, S/4HANA projects are not only complex and long, but risky and obviously very costly.
According to the July 2023 SAPinsider report, during their S/4HANA project, customers and partners are searching for solutions to help them achieve their goals of completing their S/4 project successfully, meeting their budgetary restrictions, de-risking and allowing business to continue uninterrupted.
Customers are mainly looking for:
- Impact analysis tools – Since S/4HANA projects involve significant changes to the system, businesses need to see the potential impact. Almost a third of the market focuses on these types of tools.
- Automated testing and test management – This kind of project clearly involves intensive testing therefore a third of the market searches for tools to simplify the process.
- Code analysis tools – Most organizations have a significant amount of custom code. This requires upfront risk analysis across custom and standard objects, to ascertain where immediate fixes are needed.
- Automatic code remediation tools – With custom code playing a large part in most legacy ECC systems, businesses would therefore prefer to automate as much as possible, in order to have a smooth and sleek transition to S/4HANA.
Common Challenges gathered from our customers.
From first-hand conversations with customers and partners, we know that there are many challenges, but the major ones revolve around project evaluation and risk management.
Project Magnitude
From the very beginning, it is important to understand the scope of the project, timing and budget, and of course manage the risk throughout the project.
Custom code
Custom code inevitably leads to technical debt, that is built up over time. Many customers, have ECC for years, even decades, developed over time to address their business needs. Most customers will not remove or clean their unused custom code, and this eventually translates into technical debt, which adds complexity to this kind of project.
In an S/4HANA project, customers will need to address their existing technical debt as well as ensuring that their code works as it should through code analysis.
Remodeling of business processes
Remodeling business processes is an integral part of an S/4HANA project, as SAP standard processes are often changed, replaced, or removed. Many new processes are introduced, moving towards more seamless, intuitive, solutions. This includes new UIs and simpler solutions, requiring lots of work remodeling the business processes.
Testing
Testing is a vital aspect of any S/4 migration project, ensuring seamless deployment and uninterrupted business operations. A hybrid approach that combines both manual and automated testing is essential for achieving comprehensive test coverage. Manual testing is indispensable for complex scenarios and exploratory testing, while automation excels in repetitive and large-scale test executions.
Regression test automation is particularly crucial in this context, as it verifies that existing functionalities remain intact after each code change. Automated tests ensure faster and more reliable validation of these functionalities, significantly reducing the risk of introducing new defects. A codeless automation approach allows even non-coders to participate in test automation, enhancing resource efficiency.
User Acceptance Testing (UAT), on the other hand, is key for business validation and compliance. Business users perform UAT to ensure that new business processes meet the required standards and work as intended. This step is critical for verifying that the system aligns with business requirements and regulations.
Panaya’s solution
We look at our solution as having two main pillars; code automation and test automation. These align quite precisely to what customers are looking for as part of their S/4HANA journey, or for that matter, as part of any business project or ongoing changes.
Let’s take a closer look.
Our new automatic code correction
This is an exciting new solution. It is in fact our third-generation automatic code correction (ACC), which means that we are incorporating all our SAP domain expertise, vast experience, as well as understanding of customers’ code and customers’ business processes.
What does this solution include?
- This solution has fully automatic code fixes. Other solutions on the market are mostly only partially automatic, while our solution provides completely automatic code fixes. With our solution we reduce more than 90% of code correction efforts as part of an S/4HANA project.
- A major pillar is understanding and reducing the scope of the project through compatibility. This means that through code analysis, Panaya automatically identifies any code which will work as is, meaning it is compatible to S/4HANA and will immediately mark it as ready to be moved to S/4HANA. This can significantly reduce the complexity of the project and is therefore invaluable.
- Automatic code cleansing is a solution for technical debt. . Our solution automatically cleans unused custom code, technical debt untouched for years, as an integral part of their S/4HANA project, supporting the SAP clean-core methodology.
- Submitting directly to SAP Transport. SAP can be complex at times and to ease this, we strive to offer the simplest and most intuitive tools. Everything can be done easily with Panaya, from automatic code fixes to automatic code cleansing and scope production, and then you are able to simply submit to SAP transport, to your dev environment and then later to QA and production.
- Based on our deep domain expertise, we provide a fully guided project methodology embedded within the product, which maximizes resources and efficiency. One of the benefits of having vast experience with SAP, is understanding what will work best for customers, and which order of the project phases they should follow. This is an integral functionality in our solution.
What are the benefits of code correction automation?
First and foremost, we cut project costs. This is done via our new Automatic Code Correction solution which focuses on two key aspects:
1. Automatic code cleansing – this is intended for unused code, otherwise known as technical debt, which must be deactivated as part of the project.
2. Automatic code fixing – this relates to active, relevant code which needs to be fixed in order to work in S/4HANA.
Risk elimination is a key benefit too. Panaya replaces manual fixes with our automatic tool that is submitted directly to transport, avoiding any human errors that may happen during manual corrections. This of course releases your ABAP developers to work on business innovation activities rather than working on code that needs to be moved to S/4.
A key benefit is that everything is based on the same platform, rather than having separate, stand-alone tools that don’t necessarily integrate well. Once you have all your project activities on one platform, everything is simpler. As a manager: a Project Manager, a Testing or Development manager, you can clearly see the precise status of the project, whether there are any bottlenecks and whether you are on time, on budget, on scope.
Just a few numbers for you
With these solutions we have some impressive numbers to share. We pride ourselves on having all customers achieve over 90% automation for all code correction activities as part of an S/4HANA project. And you can just imagine the time, effort, and budget this saves.
Interested in hearing more about optimizing test automation as part of your S/4HANA journey? Let’s talk.