Why Infor M3 Apps Need Testing + Automation Benefits

Infor recently announced its latest updates to the Infor ecosystem. These ‘planned features releases’ are released every year in April and October and include new functionality, and technical innovations that enable Infor M3 and CloudSuite users to make the most of their investments. In addition to these semi-annual updates, Infor users also have to contend with monthly ‘service releases’ and this includes bug fixes, security updates, and date-sensitive localized statutory requirements. Take for example, the introduction of the new OS portal which represented a significant change in user interaction with the system.

Given the continuous stream of updates to the Infor ecosystem, regular testing is not just a best practice but a necessity to ensure that your Infor ERP applications perform optimally and remain stable. This blog explores why a comprehensive testing strategy is crucial to keeping your ERP system running in peak condition, and how test automation tools like Fortest can help simplify this process.

Testing your Infor ERP applications is essential to maintain their optimal functionality and reliability. Regular testing helps identify and resolve issues before deployment, ensuring smooth and efficient operations. Scheduled maintenance and updates keep your system up-to-date with the latest improvements, minimizing disruptions while enhancing user satisfaction.

• Ensure system reliability
  Testing your Infor ERP applications is critical for verifying system functionality and ensuring a reliable platform for daily business operations. This process includes functionality, performance, integration, and security tests. Functionality tests ensure each feature works as expected, while performance tests verify the system can handle current and future workloads. Integration tests confirm seamless communication between your ERP and other business systems, and security tests identify potential vulnerabilities, ensuring data protection.




• Identify and resolve issues
  Pre-deployment testing is essential for identifying and resolving bugs. This is an iterative process where defects are found, addressed, and the system is retested to confirm proper functioning. Regular testing minimizes the risk of system failures, ensuring a smooth user experience and reducing post-deployment fixes. This proactive approach helps maintain high reliability and enhances overall user satisfaction.




• Get the most of Infor’s monthly maintenance updates
  Infor’s multi-tenant solution undergoes a monthly maintenance window. During this period, essential updates such as bug fixes, security patches, and other maintenance tasks are implemented. This regular maintenance ensures the system remains secure and performs optimally, preventing service disruptions. The process also includes uploading new code for upcoming releases, providing toggles for customers to test new functionalities in different environments before full deployment. While some features are mandatory and do not come with toggles, some features can be toggled to test new functionalities once the release is live.
  
  However, any additions or alterations to the code brings with it the risk of introducing new glitches or disrupting existing functionality, so timely testing is key. New features must be tested across non-production and production environments before full deployment. This step-by-step approach ensures that changes are robust, reliable, and seamlessly integrated into the system.

Testing your Infor ERP applications should be a continuous process throughout the system’s life cycle. This ensures that the system functions correctly and remains reliable, accommodating updates, upgrades, bug fixes, customizations, and integration changes. Regular testing helps in identifying potential issues early, maintaining system stability, and ensuring a seamless user experience. Here are the key instances when testing is essential:

• New Infor M3/CloudSuite implementations
  For new Infor M3/CloudSuite implementations, thorough testing is necessary to ensure the system meets business requirements and integrates seamlessly into existing workflows. This involves validating system configurations, performing integration tests with other enterprise applications, and conducting performance tests to ensure the system can handle expected loads.
• Updates or upgrades
  Whenever the ERP system undergoes updates or upgrades, regression testing is critical to ensure changes do not negatively impact existing functionality or introduce new issues. This involves retesting previously validated functionalities to confirm they work as intended after being updated. Automated regression testing tools streamline this process, providing quick feedback and ensuring extensive coverage across all system modules, thereby maintaining system stability.
• Bug fixes
  After fixing bugs or issues identified during testing or in production, regression testing is essential to verify that the fixes were successful and did not inadvertently disrupt other parts of the system. This ensures the system remains stable and functional. Automated testing expedites this process by retesting affected areas, ensuring bug fixes do not introduce new problems, and maintaining system reliability.
• Functional and configuration changes
  When customizations or configurations are made to the ERP system, regression testing ensures these changes do not cause issues in other areas. Thorough testing is necessary to validate new configurations and confirm they work correctly without impacting existing functionalities. This involves functional testing to ensure individual features and interactions between ERP components are intact. Automated testing tools manage these tests efficiently, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring comprehensive coverage.
• Integration changes
  Changes to integrated systems or modules interacting with the ERP require regression testing to ensure seamless integration and correct data flow. This helps verify the interaction between the ERP and other systems, ensuring data consistency and functional interoperability.
• Periodic maintenance
  Conducting periodic regression testing, even without specific changes, helps identify potential issues that may arise over time due to system updates, data growth, or environmental changes. Regular testing maintains system reliability and performance, addressing issues before they impact business operations. Automated testing frameworks can schedule and execute these tests regularly, ensuring ongoing system health and minimizing the risk of unexpected failures.

Manual ERP testing presents numerous challenges that can significantly hinder the efficiency and effectiveness of the testing process. These include being time-consuming, error-prone, resource-intensive, having limited coverage, scalability issues, and difficulties in maintaining repeatability. Addressing these challenges is crucial to ensuring thorough and reliable testing of ERP systems.

• Time-consuming
  Manual testing of ERP systems is time-consuming, especially with complex business processes and large datasets. Creating, executing, and validating extensive test cases requires significant time and effort, delaying critical issue detection and affecting project timelines.
• Error-prone
  Manual testing is highly susceptible to human errors, such as overlooking test cases and inconsistent testing approaches. These errors can lead to inaccurate test results and missed defects. Standardized procedures and automated tools reduce these risks, ensuring more accurate and consistent results.
• Resource-intensive
  Manual ERP testing demands a significant investment in human resources for planning, execution, and documentation. This can strain testing teams and prolong cycles. Automated testing tools alleviate this burden by automating repetitive tasks and reducing reliance on human resources.
• Limited coverage
  Manual testing may not cover all scenarios due to time and resource constraints, especially regression testing. ERP systems’ complexity makes manual testing challenging, leading to undetected defects and compromised reliability. Automated testing enhances coverage by efficiently executing more test cases.
• Scalability
  Scaling manual testing to meet evolving business needs and system complexity is challenging. As ERP systems grow, manual testing struggles to keep pace, causing delays and gaps in test coverage. Automated testing tools scale more effectively, ensuring comprehensive testing regardless of complexity.
• Repeatability
  Ensuring consistency and repeatability in manual tests across different cycles and environments is difficult. Variations in test execution and data entry result in inconsistent outcomes, undermining test credibility. Automated frameworks ensure consistent, repeatable test execution, enhancing reliability.