REPLACING SAP TAO FOR

END-TO-END BUSINESS PROCESS VALIDATION

©2017 TurnKey Solutions Corp. cFactory™ is a trademark of TurnKey Solutions Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CASE STUDY

When you’re playing to win the bigger game of clean

energy, innovation becomes your middle name. It’s part of your organizational DNA, and plays a role in

every aspect of your business.

When the company’s SAP test team found SAP’s Test

Accelerator & Optimizer (TAO) to be confusing, error-prone and time consuming, they turned their

sights on a faster, more productive solution called cFactory from TurnKey Solutions.

SOLUTION Replaced SAP’s TAO with TurnKey Solutions, which

integrated into their existing HP ALM

CHALLENGE • SAP’s test automation tool (TAO) was

confusing, time consuming, and highly error

prone

• Tribal knowledge and manual effort left the

team with 720 hours of work to sort out TAO scripts when one employee left the company

• Updating data sheets was painful and took 660 hours to complete

(10 people, 2-3/4 weeks at 60% of their time)

RESULTS

Converted TAO scripts to cFactory in approximately 2.8 man weeks (2

people)2.8

Measured a 70% reduction

in man hours per test cycle (monthly)

70%

Eliminated high risk error-prone TAO processes

and maintenance

“We moved from the high risk, error-prone and resource intensive SAP TAO to TurnKey in 2015. Now we have high confidence in our releases, better coverage, and unbeatable ease-of-use with cFactory. And TurnKey provides the best support around!” IT Testing Team Lead

INDUSTRY: SOLAR ENERGY

HQ: TEMPE, AZ

CUSTOMER SINCE: 2013

USE CASE: SAP TAO REPLACEMENT

THE STORY Breaking world records in thin film cell conversion and module conversion efficiency, this company’s revenues of over $3 billion and 5400+ employees globally did not happen by accident. It requires an

organization that rigorously innovates, focuses on continuous improvement, and plays to win a bigger game for clean energy.

Their unique manufacturing processes generate clean electricity for 25+ years with no carbon emissions or

air pollutants. They have the smallest carbon footprint, lowest lifecycle water use, and the fastest energy payback time of any solar PV module on the market.

Applying these uncompromising principles to every aspect of their business is part of their success strategy. So when the SAP testing team experienced some struggles with their processes and their test automation

tool, they went searching for alternatives.

©2017 TurnKey Solutions Corp. cFactory™ is a trademark of TurnKey Solutions Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CASE STUDY

THE QUICK VERSION Leaving behind the tedious, risky and resource intensive TAO, the IT Testing Team Lead guided a small team

to automated test component creation and maintenance with pre-built content for SAP. It took two people just 2.8 weeks each to convert the company’s large library of TAO scripts to cFactory.

In the process, they reduced their already limited man hours for every monthly test cycle by 70%, eliminated a high-priced consultant, and created a repeatable streamlined process that gave them flexibility

“Executing test scripts with multiple sets of test data in cFactory was a game changer for us, since TAO restricted us to one set of test data per execution. Looking back, it was hugely inefficient and counterproductive.”

“Talking with you about our journey from SAP TAO to TurnKey has brought a realization of exactly how far we’ve come!”

IT Testing Team Lead

REPLACING SAP TAO FOR END-TO-END BUSINESS PROCESS VALIDATION

©2017 TurnKey Solutions Corp. cFactory™ is a trademark of TurnKey Solutions Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CASE STUDY

THE PAIN OF TAO As with most companies, SAP runs the business-critical processes that keeps things humming behind the

scenes. It is a highly complex system. When a change is made or an upgrade is deployed, testing to ensure that it is working as expected and didn’t break anything else in the process is absolutely essential.

In 2011, this company was using HP ALM as the base test automation solution and SAP’s native test automation tool, Test Accelerator & Optimizer (TAO). Unfortunately, HP still required time consuming

manual script writing and did not provide SAP domain knowledge, and TAO was both confusing and time consuming.

“Each time we refreshed the system, we had to refresh the data sheet,” says the IT Testing Team Lead. “If you didn’t understand what a script did, you wouldn’t understand the data elements, so we had to literally sit

and watch the script run to dissect exactly what it was doing just to be able to understand the data elements required to refresh the data sheet. It was less than optimal.”

The team often found themselves guessing at a data element because the scripts were so complicated. If they thought something looked like a Purchase Order number, they would spend the time to verify that. “It

was a constant back and forth between tools to ensure that we got it right,” recalls the team lead.

Staff with the specialized technical skills required for TAO were not available, so they hired an outside

consultant to write and maintain the VB scripts. “This presents a very real cost in dollars, time, and knowledge transfer.” The IT Testing Lead began to look for a different approach.

It really hit hard when one of their employees left. They were already a small team and had been divvying up

sections of SAP for each team member to learn and become the go-to expert. When one of the team left the

company, it took 4-5 people a month to figure out what was happening in TAO. The team leader recalls sitting in a conference room after several long days with her team. She and her boss looked at each other

and said, “let’s not do this ever again.”

REPLACING SAP TAO FOR END-TO-END BUSINESS PROCESS VALIDATION

©2017 TurnKey Solutions Corp. cFactory™ is a trademark of TurnKey Solutions Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CASE STUDY

REWRITING THE SCRIPT FOR TEST AUTOMATION Since this company already had HP ALM implemented, they took a look at TurnKey, a fully integrated

solution with ALM, to automate the creation of test components and the ongoing maintenance of test cases.

Between TurnKey’s exceptional training and support, their SAP Accelerator, and cFactory’s “learn” button

that automatically creates the test components, the transition was straightforward. Their team leveraged two people for 2.8 weeks each to convert what was needed from TAO as they created a full-coverage test

automation solution for SAP in cFactory. As they began their migration, they ran both products in parallel to ensure confidence in the results. As accuracy was confirmed, the script was dropped from TAO and officially

run from cFactory going forward. In January 2016, they officially cut over to TurnKey.

WINNING THE GAME When you play big, you measure and celebrate success along the way. For this team, the relief of cFactory was

palpable. Resource Flexibility: The ability to easily create test cases without coding made it possible for the team lead to use her resources more effectively by moving people in and out of the process depending on the need, and the need of other projects.

Multiple Scenario Execution: In most cases, one test case needs to be tested against multiple scenarios. With TAO, that meant a different test case for each scenario. With TurnKey, it was streamlined-a single test case could run infinite scenarios without any additional work.

Increased Confidence: The back and forth that was required in TAO to verify the accuracy of a data element was eliminated. TurnKey attaches a screen shot to the data sheet showing exactly which data elements map to which screens. There was no more error-prone guessing.

Better Investigative Tools: Any quality assurance professional will tell you that investigating errors is crucial, and often tedious, hard work. The insight provided by TurnKey gave them a clear view, along with a reference point of the old data, to get right to the issue.

Easy to Learn: The team was comprised of people with a variety of skill levels. Some knew TAO but not the business, some knew the business but not test automation, some were new to the company and didn’t know either. Yet they were able be fully functional in just 1-3 weeks.

“TurnKey, in conjunction with HP ALM, allowed the team to see the requirement, the test cases, the results, who

ran it, and track it all the way back with a single interface…and TurnKey’s Support is the best we’ve experienced.

When we submit a request, we know we’ll get the help we need.”

REPLACING SAP TAO FOR END-TO-END BUSINESS PROCESS VALIDATION