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Why have a full SAP PI/PO regression test case is needed

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Do you have a full set of regression test cases of your SAP PI/PO system and can run them when needed to ensure that nothing is broken.

This week I was talking with a potential customer about our testing tool and the newest feature where they did not need to install anything on the PI system. They did, unfortunately, have a too old version of one of the components to allow us to read the log messages. It was added with OSS 2437778.

It is the standard way out to add new features to patches or service packs to give customers there the features which are required. Most of all the time you want to be able to leverage the new functions in some scenarios to solve a business need.

With the way SAP is delivering the Java code is it cumulative patches. This mean that patch 3 contains updates from patch 2 plus some more changes. So you cannot just get the fix you want as you can with ABAP.

They are also linked with dependencies so if you upgrade one, some part will stop function because it is missing a dependent library. So most of the time you have to update quite a bit of component and you have no idea about how this will affect everything else. You can read the release notes, but it is difficult or close to impossible to predict how this will impact your system.

And to make matters even worse, you probably need to upgrade all components to the latest to ensure all dependencies are met.  

In a normal company it will take a long time to validate these things, so if you’re just adding a simple feature it is really a no go to do this. The business case is difficult to explain, we want this feature to do X, but it will cost a lot of testing. So you have to wait for the business to ask for a new feature and then that project would have to pay for the upgrade/patch.

That’s the reason why I want to have a full set of regression test cases that you can just run whenever there is any patch or an upgrade that you have to ensure that everything works as expected without involving people in the testing of the new features.

The price for an upgrade is a partial basis to get them to upgrade the system and then a part to test the component. The biggest cost is the tests that you need to perform to ensure that everything works as expected. It makes, therefore, sense that to be able to automate that part if it is possible.

With most test tools that take a long time to set up these the test cases and that’s why we’ve created a tool to enable you to set up these test cases fast.  We had a customer Anadarko Petroleum Corporation that could set up 300 test cases in just 3 weeks.

Since then we have optimized the process a lot making it a lot faster to set up test cases. So I would assume you will be able to set up test cases a lot faster than now.

The cost of running the test for the full system is close to zero, so you can run them daily to get information about how the system performs or if anything is broken.

So you can apply the latest support packs if you want to have an updated system with the latest features and fixes.

You can download Figaf IRT tool and use the tool for free upto 10 ICO’s to test on your own SAP PI/PO system. You can request a trial license to get more tests done. If you already have the patch mentioned then you don’t need to install anything on your system and in many cases use your own use for the testing.

 

IRT feature: Monitor SAP Cloud Platform Integration Content (CPI)

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A few weeks ago we added an option to monitor your SAP PI/PO repository content, so you could see what was changed in any objects. And based on the changes you registered you could test the scenarios.

We have also enabled users to test SAP Cloud Integration so it made a lot of sense also to monitor the content so we could support full cycle development. So we can now monitor all changes to the content. So you can see what was changed in a script and what areas were changed in an iflow. The output may be a little technical but it will allow you to see that something was changed.

We also have the ticket content that allows you to register the changes that you are doing and ensuring that you are testing all of the changes that you are making. It is a way to ensure that enables you to document the changes in a better way than using Word documents for the information. You can then link your existing ticket/helpdesk system to the IRT tickets as an extra data source.

You can see a short demo here.

 

There is some features that we will improve in the comparison, so you can see the message mappings content and see the part that was changed. And also improve the comparison of scripts. It will come in a future release.

If you have other wishes to future development do let us know.

First I recommed you to try to install IRT and try it out. You can get started within 30 minutes. Watch the Cloud Platform Integration installation and configuration guide video .

Try IRT FREE

 

Support for you SAP PI/PO development process

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I’m pretty thrilled about our latest development of the Figaf IRT tool for SAP Integration.

When I started doing XI 3.0 work I was really frustrated with the way things were documented. It was a really manual process that users needed to follow. The documentation was never updated. Now 14 years later I can see that we got a tool that can help in the cases. We can now help you really document what has changed automatically.

So a month ago I found that we could leverage the tools we had created for the IRT tool to support the full development lifecycle. Today we are releasing the first version of it. It is not perfect and there are some holes but it clearly shows which direction we can do with it. Hopefully, you will also be able to see the benefit of it.

The different steps in the process are the following:

  • Alerts are raised from a PI Message using standard alerting.
    • Create rules for how to handle alerts
  • Perform your development in Repository/NWDS
  • Create a ticket to with a link to the incident
    • Assign the changes to the ticket
    • You can see the differences I the mappings
  • The test is performed to ensure it works
    • Base on the Figaf IRT test tool that allows users to create test case fast based on i.e. production data

I have created a video to show what we are able to do with the tool.

We still have a few things to work with to with making it better and cover more of the development cycle, but it is always better with customer feedback. So if you have any things that would help in your process do let us know.

You can download the tool for free at https://figaf.com/irt

 

 

Latest Figaf IRT tool and Roadmap

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Updated 2018-06-03

With the newest release of Figaf IRT tool, we have been adding a lot of new functionality.

In this presentation, you will see how to test SAP PI/PO and SAP Cloud Integration.

  • The testing of SAP PI/PO is stable for collecting and getting test messages. It is fast to record messages for testing and running them is also fast.
  • Testing SAP Cloud Platform Integration is possible
  • Development Supporting is now in the system that allows you to create tickets and assign any object version to it.
  • Change Tracking now have a deep comparison of Repository Objects so you can see what is changed with a message mapping and contains a link so you can see the affected ICO, that should be tested.
  • Support tool to monitor errors in the SAP PI CMBA and setup triggers for it.

In the current roadmap, we have the ability to fetch test data on SAP PI/PO without installing a module. And to perform object change and the support on Cloud Integration.

Everything has been build into one application that allows users to develop faster and have better tracking of what will happen.

You can start a free trial of the IRT tool by going to https://figaf.com/irt

If you have any questions please reach out to us.

 

 

The future of SAP PI/PO development

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SAP PI/PO developer are normally spending a lot of time documenting what they have been making of changes. We want to make the process much simpler for the end to end development. And capture the correct information. Not just information that cannot be used.

We have created a mock prototype of a feature we are working on. We would really appreciate some input about if this fits your organization. Please share a comment or write to dgr@figaf.com

We have the following process.

  • An incident that is triggered by the component based message alerting in SAP PI. You can easily setup rules to handle the different alerts and how to react to them.
  • Then we create a ticket, which is a new concept in the IRT tool. A ticket is what you could refere to as an Incident, Change Request, Service Request or Gap. It can have a list of status like, in development, in testing or done. You will be able to configure the list and if there should be auto numbers or you have the values in a separate helpdesk system. You can create tickets without an incident if it, for instance, is a business requirement
  • The ticket can get PI object assigned. So you can add any PI Repository or Repository object to the ticket, for instance, a message mapping or channel that has been changed for solving the ticket. When you look at a message mapping you can see which ticket it has been assigned to and thereby get information about why something was changed.
  • Testing from the ticket. It is then possible to calculate which Interfaces/ICOs to do testing on. If you are missing some tests you can add them. And then run all the tests.

You can get more information of the future of the tool by signing up for it at http://figaf.com/irt 

I have two videos about the concept. One that features the overall perspective and along with more explanation along the way.

The short direct to the point video

 

The long version with more explanation

You can get more information of the future of the tool by signing up to it at http://figaf.com/irt