It’s always a pleasure to meet and talk with an engaged community of professionals – and this year’s Infor M3 User Group of America (MUGA) conference at the end of January was no exception. We met with a large number of Infor users over the three days of the conference, and rubbed elbows with other organizations supporting those users to get the most out of their software. We even got to host a breakout session, which we’re pleased to say was well attended!
We also conducted a little survey while we were at MUGA 2024, to understand how Infor users are approaching the issue of software testing and what their biggest challenges are. After all, in a complex environment like Infor it’s absolutely essential to test every software update to make sure that the update hasn’t broken anything. If it has, users may be unable to work, customers may be unable to deal with you, and (depending on your industry) you may find yourselves in hot water with regulators.
81% don’t use specialized software testing tools or a formal testing process
That’s the headline. Considering the importance of testing, it’s slightly mind-blowing to discover that many organizations are either still conducting software testing without any specialist tools, or don’t do formal testing. They’re just making do with emails, screenshots, spreadsheets, and (presumably) a large dose of hope.
Our audience at MUGA was also in for a surprise. Our session focused on the business case for testing – which, as we alluded to above, is pretty strong when you consider that software issues can bring organizations to their knees. In fact, we shared some statistics with our audience that caused jaws across the room to hit the floor:
- In 2022, the cost of poor software quality was $2.41 trillion, just in the US.
- Worldwide, the cost was $7 trillion.
- 75% of that was caused by operational software failures
Again: four out of five of our respondents have absolutely no specialist tools, or don’t do any formal testing, to help them avoid becoming part of those statistics. It’s like eating soup with a fork.
The proper tools do more than keep you safe
OK, let’s take a step back from the scary stuff for a moment. While risk management is a powerful and compelling reason to invest in software testing platforms like ours, there are other benefits that Infor users should find appealing.
Our survey also revealed that the most time-consuming aspect of software testing for nearly half of respondents was building new test cases. That’s especially true now that updates are coming more frequently than ever before, meaning your baselines are changing much more often than they used to.
Tools like the Original Software platform take this pain away by automatically updating your baselines whenever something changes. Our tools can recognize things like buttons moving and form fields changing, and automatically update your test scripts to match. You can even manually record test steps and turn them into automated scripts.
We also asked attendees what their biggest testing challenges were. The most popular answers were interesting:
- Over a third said that obtaining resources from different departments was the biggest challenge
- 29% said insufficient testing coverage was the biggest challenge
- Over a quarter said managing time constraints and deadlines was the biggest challenge
As you might expect, a built-for-purpose software testing platform can help with all three of those issues.
No more wrangling for resources
Instead of firing emails into the void asking for business users’ time or trying to get developers to fix issues your tests have highlighted, our platform handles all communications with business users and integrates with development tools such as Jira to automatically create tickets for issues.
Plus, because the actual testing tools are so simple to use, it’s easier and quicker for business users to run tests. In fact, we’ve had reports of business users actually being happy to do testing. Crazy, right?
Complete coverage is possible
Our platform manages every aspect of your testing, from test case creation to project management. This means you can eliminate tests being missed, or suddenly discovering that you don’t have a test for a vital piece of functionality and panicking. It’s all taken care of.
Better still, our platform gives you an audit trail of every test you’ve taken, every result, and every piece of feedback. Perfect for when the auditors come to call, or if you want to make sure everything is running as it should.
Speed up testing cycles
Ultimately, making testing simpler and more robust means it gets done faster. Fewer repeated tests, less time spent trying to decipher a user’s feedback (or getting them to replicate an issue), and less time managing your test library all help you keep up with the increasing volume of software updates you need to test without letting test quality slide. Which ultimately keeps the business running smoothly, and everyone happy. What more could you want?
Did we miss you?
If you weren’t able to attend MUGA this year but were planning to, we’re sorry we missed you. To help with the FOMO, we’ve created a short video with the key highlights from the conference – and, of course, we’re always happy to talk to you about your software testing challenges if that would be helpful.
If you were at MUGA, and attended our session, we’d love to know what you thought of it – just get in touch with us to share any feedback. Or start a conversation about your own testing setup, if you’d like some help with it.
