Defining Your Test Strategy
Although, you will not be performing the testing until a later time in your upgrade project, you will need to define the testing strategy before the project begins or soon after. Your testing strategy will provide the basis for understanding how you will test your newly upgraded applications. There are several points within the technical upgrade process where your developers will unit test programs, but the majority of testing will occur after your application has been upgraded. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a plan, early in the project, for the testing strategies that you will perform.

Why Test?
Testing your database after you have completed the upgrade ensures that you can still operate your day-to-day processes on your newly upgraded release of your application. Therefore, your testing strategy should be based on these day-to-day processes and you should involve the users and functional leads that perform these processes. But first, let’s talk strategy!

Testing Strategy
An effective testing strategy will require that you have a pretty solid understanding of the different stages of a PeopleSoft Upgrade. There are certain key stop-points or stages where certain testing should be performed. It is extremely important to know where these stages are, and when the testing should be performed. The project manager and upgrade specialist should identify these stages.

Some of the stages will include testing the integrity of the data and meta-data structures within the PeopleSoft applications, specifically after upgrading PeopleTools and also when copying upgrade projects from your demo database to your copy of production. These steps are outlined in the upgrade instructions and usually include running and reviewing your DDDAUDIT and SYSAUDIT reports from your copy of production. You will verify that the system is working properly by reviewing the system online. After you are comfortable that the system is working properly, you can perform the Test Move to Production.

Testing Requirements
There is more than one approach and method you can take for testing your upgrade and you should evaluate your requirements by gathering key information about your applications and environment. Here are some basic questions to ask:

How many products and modules do you currently have in your production database?
How many customizations you have in your production database?
What you need to test?


Define Your Testing Strategy
Once you have evaluated your testing requirements, you will determine the type of testing you need. Use the testing type definitions below, defined from the PeopleSoft upgrade instructions, to determine the levels of testing required for your applications in your organization. Sometimes, certain organizations may not require all testing stages listed. Every organization will develop their testing strategy slightly differently from others, as each organization is unique.

The testing types below do not necessarily run systematically, one after another. Different test conditions can sometimes run in parallel. Review the following testing types. Define what you will need for each testing type.

Unit Testing
In this stage of testing, you have completed your upgrade tasks. Your database is now at the new release level. However, you will want to unit test before you use the new system. You will test your logon process. In addition, you will test to ensure that you can access existing data and enter new data successfully.

System Testing
This stage of testing ensures that all your functionality works together. In addition, the test eliminates conflicts with old and new customizations.

Integration Testing
In this stage, you will test to ensure that your business processes work as designed. In addition, you will ensure that any design flaws are resolved before User Acceptance Testing.

Parallel Testing
This stage of testing is optional. During the upgrade, you would be performing parallel tests throughout all testing stages to ensure that your upgrade was successful.

Performance Testing
This stage of testing measures your current system performance against the new release level performance.

User Acceptance Testing
In this stage of testing, you validate your data, business rules, and business processes requirements. You will also define the acceptance criteria for your upgrade.

Regression Testing
This stage of testing validates the test move to production and move to production parts of the upgrade.

You have now finished developing your testing strategy and you should document this information thoroughly, because you will use it later in the upgrade process when you complete the upgrade of your copy of production