What is our primary use case?
We have been working on test automation for SAP-based platform for the last 15 years and leveraging Worksoft for SAP test automation in last 10 years.
We have some fantastic use cases on how we can leverage Worksoft in large SAP transformation programs, especially for major global rollouts. If you look at some of the industries, like retail and logistics, we can see a lot of consolidation. When there is consolidation, we need to merge two SAP landscapes to a single landscape instance. It is a very complex transformation program. The testing is labor-intensive work in such a large scale IT landscape program. Worksoft has played a key role in delivering these complex integration programs on time, because we automated the core processes using Worksoft Certify. This helped us to automate the testing scenarios in new companies being integrated. At the same time, we test the existing company codes on the existing landscape to ensure that business as usual is not impacted.
If you look at the industry trend, the next six or seven years will be SAP S/4HANA migrations and adoptions of SAP cloud applications, whether it is SAP SuccessFactors, Ariba, or Fieldglass. We strongly believe that WorkSoft can play a pivotal role in delivering large-scale SAP S4 HANA programs since Worksoft can support the implementation of SAP cloud applications. We have delivered a couple of major SAP S/4HANA programs by leveraging Worksoft Certify.
One of the key things that we have done is introduce test automation on day one in system integration testing (SIT). We don't want to wait until the program is over, then start the automation development. We start the automation right from the build phase, then we are able to deliver test automation on day one to the SIT.
How has it helped my organization?
If you look at the customer's experience, we have seen that if you take any testing engagement, whether it is large-scale system integration testing activities, UAT, or regression testing, and have seen that companies involve their business workforce to do lot of manual testing. Then, the business needs to take from the business critical activities and focus on testing. Worksoft significantly reduces the testing effort involved, so they can focus on their business critical activities.
What is most valuable?
The company has been investing in a lot of new features. They are changing the trend in market demand, especially with their Worksoft Analyze features. These are important for customers when they have massive test case documentations. In addition, Worksoft is changing their direction towards Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
If you take any Robotic Process Automation, the key things you need are:
- The ability to automate SAP.
- The integrated software applications.
- Support for continuous testing or providing a platform to adopt DevOps.
I can see that Worksoft has been investing in these areas to make the product more relevant for SAP-centric platforms.
Another fantastic thing about Worksoft Certify is using it for end-to-end testing of packaged applications. We are able to automate, not just SAP, but the entire application ecosystem. If you take any company, SAP is the backbone, and if they use SAP ERP, then, there are multiple software applications, where some of them are SAP and some of them are non-SAP applications. Worksoft is one of the tools which can transcend across SAP and non-SAP applications. Non-SAP application include Java or .NET. Worksoft can seamlessly automate these applications.
If you take any ALM tool, Worksoft can be easily integrated, whether it is Micro Focus ALM or SAP Solution Manager. Another important thing is Worksoft's integration with SAP Solution Manager BPCA, this is helping customers to set up a risk-based testing platform. They can do impact assessment and identify test scripts to be tested based on the transports to be applied. Then, import that testing suite into Worksoft Certify and trigger the automation. We have seen that bi-directional integration between SAP solution manager and Worksoft Certify. This makes the product seamless, and if you take any company, they have their own ALM tool and the level of usage of Solution manager is varying. WIth the API that Worksoft provides, it can be easily integrated with the leading test management tools available in the market.
What needs improvement?
I would like Worksoft Certify to do automation at any layer (the UI layer, API layer, or database layer) and challenge competitors in the RPA industry, like UiPath and Automation Anywhere.
A lot of customers are looking at testing, not just at the UI level, but testing the application or their ecosystem at the API layer. Worksoft could invest on testing on APIs. There are some open source tools available in market which do this, like SoapUI.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the automation tool to run without any performance issues has improved with the use three-tier architecture. The three-tier architecture in Worksoft can help the customers access applications across globe. If global customers have geographically diverse teams, we recommend customers go with a three-tier architecture.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have seen the customers starting their automation journey from zero test scripts to 8000 or 10,000 scripts. We have seen that Worksoft is able to scale up, then run thousands of test scripts concurrently and deliver value.
One of our customers has about 10 SAP applications with about 70 plus non-SAP applications. So, we automate approximately 80 SAP and non-SAP applications using Worksoft Certify.
How are customer service and technical support?
A lot of our customers have used the technical support. Worksoft has a very good customer success team, as well as technical support team. When we started our first relationship with Worksoft, we had to build the integration between ALM and Worksoft Certify. So, Worksoft was agile enough to build that integration faster. We can see that the technical support team is fast enough to resolve some of the product bugs for any customer queries quickly. The team is open to build any type of new integrations to support the emerging tools available in the market.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
As a partner, we help our customers to invest in the right tools and platform. So, we educate our customers to buy Worksoft Certify. We help them to build a business case or plan and do a joint PoC with Worksoft. We enable and empower our customers with enough details and help them to invest in the right automation tool for SAP, which is Worksoft Certify.
Some of our customers do not have any tools in their landscape. In that case, it is easy to position Worksoft Certify. Other customers already have other automation tools in their landscape in which they are experiencing a lot of pain points with their automation tool. They invested a lot of money in their automation tools and framework, but they did not realize the benefits. Therefore, we help those customers move away from their existing tools to Worksoft Certify. If they decide to build on their existing tool and use Worksoft Certify, it's a very complicated decision. We need to build a very strong business case and we also need to help the customers to migrate the automation test suite.
How was the initial setup?
Worksoft installation is straightforward. They have a dedicated team to support the customers during the initial installation. It doesn't take more than couple of days to complete the installation. A lot of our customers are very happy with the way Worksoft completes the initial installations.
Also, the professional services offered by Worksoft to help the customer to set up the test automation best practices using Worksoft has been helping the customers to roll out enterprise wide automation using Worksoft Certify.
What was our ROI?
Worksoft Capture 2.0 can help our customers to accelerate their automation development at least 40 percent faster than any other commercial tools available in the market.
We have seen that the initial Worksoft implementation has helped our customers reduce their testing cycle time by 50 percent. With further continuous improvement, we have seen cycle time reduced up to 75 percent. That is the level of productivity achieved using Worksoft Certify.
If I compare Worksoft Certify with other script-based automation tools, the test maintenance is relatively faster. We save about 60 to 70 percent of the maintenance effort by using it because it's model-based and scriptless. This helps the business team and the automation testers to quickly identify the changes needed to be introduced in the automation scripts.
The typical value realization takes about six to 12 months based on the number of scripts and how often the customer wants to execute.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Worksoft can help you to select the right automation platform, then deliver value quickly.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Our customers evaluate three or four major products along with Worksoft: Micro Focus UFT, Tricentis Tosca, Testimony from Basis Technologies, and then some of open source tools. Some of the customers evaluate all the tools, and some of the customers pick one of the other tools along with Worksoft Certify to make their decision.
There are a lot of tools available in the market. However, if you take any automation project, the lead time to implement an automation solution is typically, painfully longer. It may not give the right return on investments.
We could have gone with any commercial tools available in the market or open source tools, but going with Worksoft gave us a few advantages. We were able to deliver and implement automation two and a half times faster than any other automation tools. Then, if you look at the total cost of effort to build, maintain, and run the scripts in the customer landscape, it is phenomenally low compared to other tools in the market.
Worksoft gives you return on investment faster than its competitors. It will make your QA organization more agile and nimble.
What other advice do I have?
We recommend our customers be very serious about automation and not to experiment with too many tools. Start with a small PoC or pilot. Involve their business team to articulate the value of what Worksoft can deliver, not just within the IT department, but also the business.
Worksoft Certify has ease of use, ease of maintenance, and value realization. Automation is not just completing testing faster, it's about reducing production support incidents, after go-live or ongoing production support incidents. It's a collective total cost of ownership and all about delivering value to the IT operations team, IT project team, and the business team.
With Capture 2.0, we have seen the product evolve. Worksoft Capture 2.0 is helping our customers to accelerate automation development. Introducing automation around day one is only possible because of Capture 2.0. When we are in the build phase, we can capture the important screens, whether it is in SAP Fiori apps, the SAP GUI, or SAP cloud apps. During the development phase, we can start building the automation scripts, then start leveraging automation on day one in SIT.
Worksoft can support modern UIs quite easily, such as SAP Fiori and Oracle Fusion. If you look at the modern UIs, it is all about the customer experience, and we have seen that Worksoft can evaluate that modern user interface and ensure that the customer experience is delivered as expected.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.