Testing. Testing. 123…..

                 You are planning for your implementation, and it is time to create your testing strategy.  Do you know what to test?  Do you know when to test?  Do you know how to test?  If you have a technical background, you are probably thinking of several types of testing that you perform (Quality Assurance, Performance, etc.).  But if you are a functional user, do you know what it means to test?  While there are major testing events that occur during the implementation (think mock semester testing), the actual testing of a new ERP system should be ongoing throughout the implementation.  Unit Testing, Life Cycle Testing (or End to End Testing), and Full Application Testing (or User Acceptance Testing) should be components within your testing strategy.  Using an example of testing the configuration of a term GPA in your system, let’s talk about how you might create a testing plan using the three components of a testing strategy.  Remember, this is only a few examples for testing a semester or term undergraduate GPA and is not considered a comprehensive test.

(1)     Unit Test the Term GPA

                  A functional implementation team and their implementation partner will build the rules around the calculation of an undergraduate GPA for a semester or term.  Run the GPA calculation process, does the GPA calculate correctly?  Change a few of the grades. Did the GPA still calculate correctly? Great! Run a few more tests! Did you get the outcomes you were expecting? Excellent! Your Unit Testing is complete.

(2)     Life Cycle Testing the Term GPA

                  While the Unit testing was very simple testing of one aspect of the GPA, it’s now time to think through everything that can happen with a term GPA.  Let’s talk transfer work.  If a student brings in transfer work that applies to the same semester of course work completed at your institution, should the transfer work be calculated in the term GPA?   Or should the term GPA for your institutional work and the transfer work be calculated separately?   Enter transfer work with new grades and check the term calculation, did it work?  How about receiving transfer work after the term GPA has been calculated.  Enter the late work and recalculate the GPA.  Did this give the desired outcome? 

                  Next, let’s move to the second semester and enter grades with a course that is completed and contains a repeated course from the previous semester.  When the repeat rules are processed, what happened to the previous term GPA?  Did it change?  Is it higher?  Is it lower?  How does it show on the transcript?  (Remember – this is testing only the GPA of a term, even though there are several other aspects of a configured system that are part of this test). 

                  Next, we have received a grade change (maybe it’s an instructor, maybe it’s a late withdrawal, or maybe it’s academic clemency).  Once you make the grade change or changes, what happens to that term GPA?  There are other items to test here (academic status, for example) but we will stop here to keep this blog to an appropriate length.

                 Notice that these are all aspects of GPA testing that are internal to academics or the Registrar.  The point is that the testing in this phase is about determining that if the key processes work for this aspect of a module before we ask other offices and modules to begin testing their processes that are reliant on a term GPA. 

(3)    Full Application or End to End Testing the Term GPA

                  It is now time to determine if what we have deemed working with term GPA calculation works for the other offices that rely on term GPA.  Financial Aid will run the processes that use the term GPA and determine if the expected outcomes occurred.  There are other processes as well such as semester honor calculations and reporting (think NCAA, Veterans, Greek life, etc.) that should also be part of this testing.  Are these grades completed by transient students and should be reported to their home institution?  Are these grades for high school students and need to be reported back to the proper high school?  Do these courses show up correctly for institutional research reporting?  What happens when a grade change occurs, how does the financial aid office receive notification to re-run term GPA applicable processes?  Don’t forget data conversion and integrations in your testing as well!

                 Once you have determined that these all work as expected, you can now mark that the configuration of the term GPA is complete and ready to move to your pre-production holding area or perhaps ready to move to production, depending on your testing strategy.  Although there are other configurations that were tested here, this is only referring to the term GPA so it is this piece only that you can mark as complete.  As you can see, testing a term GPA is so much more than entering grades and confirming that the math calculates correctly. 

                 This probably seems overwhelming.  However, think about the importance of the GPA and what can happen if it is calculated wrong at your conversion and go live.  There are institutions that have converted grades and were surprised when students GPAs were different than in their legacy system.  That is why this type of testing should be included in every aspect of your implementation. And remember, this is just one example of one configurable item. Your implementation team should understand what other offices use which pieces of information and confirm that the configuration works for all stakeholders, both direct and indirect.  Having a complete testing strategy is key to not only a successful implementation, but to address regression testing as new functionality is introduced throughout the lifetime of your ERP.