Five essential steps to testing WD2023R2 release window
The countdown is on for the next highly anticipated Workday update. As a trusted Workday partner, we've got your organisation covered with a comprehensive guide to ensure your testing strategy is successful.
Our experienced team of Workday test specialists outline essential tips to ensure your organisation is well-prepared and ready to adopt Workday’s new functionalities - from test plans and building a specialist testing team, to reviewing Workday’s update collateral. Stay ahead of the curve with our five testing tips.
1. Assemble your testing team
In the weeks leading up to the release window, it’s essential that your organisation assembles a core testing team. This includes getting Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and Business Analysts on board, along with seasoned Workday users who know the ins-and-outs of your organisation's business processes (BPs).
Having this A-team established in advance will give you the confidence to tackle any unexpected changes that may arise. Once the key players are in place, it's time to create a project plan that will supercharge testing efforts. By bringing together a talented team in advance, your organisation can tap into Workday resources and prepare for the action-packed weeks ahead. Don't forget to schedule regular project meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page and fully primed to tackle whatever comes their way.
2. Create your test plans
Test plans are an effective way of progressing through a new Workday release and a great method to keep you and your team on track throughout the busy period. Start by exploring the Tenant Management section of the Workday support book which highlights your tenant’s history, reports, and management requests. Teams will also need to plan tenant management activities. Fortunately, the Tenant Management timeline provides a detailed overview of Workday’s upcoming events, unavailable dates for maintenance requests, and much more so that you can build these into your test plan schedule.
Our experts always encourage organisations to take a ‘risk-based’ approach to testing. With this in mind, it is good practice to create a test schedule in order of priority to test integrations first, followed by payroll, then security and finally BPs.
While preparing for a new Workday update, it's crucial to ensure that your business runs smoothly by verifying expected outcomes in critical areas. We recommend focusing on testing integrations, system data, critical business processes, and custom reports to avoid any unexpected changes or issues. During this period, your organisation’s day-to-day operations don’t stop, so as part of this planning process, we recommend that you consider what projects may be underway and whether they will be affected by the release enabling you to plan and communicate effectively.
To help save you time, we suggest that if you are a new Workday customer, repurpose your User Acceptance Test plan for your first feature release test. For the more experienced Workday users, then you could reuse the test plan from your last feature release. Don't forget to revisit and adjust your plan after each release to ensure the right test coverage is carried out every time.
3. Check what new features are being released
Take a moment to anticipate the upcoming features that are scheduled to be released as part of the update. Our experts highly recommend checking both the 'Announcing' and 'Feature considerations' lists.
It is also important to pay attention to the finer details, so take note of which features are 'Automatically available' and which require 'Set-up'. This will help your testing teams prioritise which features to test first. Stay well-informed, by reading the ‘Announcing’ document, as it provides a preview of some of the most highly anticipated enhancements planned for the upcoming release and help you assess if they will impact your tenant configuration.
It's important to note that Workday’s delivery plans may occasionally change between the publishing of the ‘Announcing’ document and the delivery of features to your Sandbox Preview tenant. However, don’t let that discourage you, the key to optimising each release is to prepare, prepare, prepare!
4. Complete additional practice testing
Now is the right time for your organisation to perform extra practice testing as a trial. This will help prepare for the Sandbox-to-Preview Sandbox testing carried out during week one of the release window. To stay on top of all the necessary testing tasks, utilising Workday’s Adoption Security and dashboards is recommended so you can easily track and analyse critical features for your business.
This is also a good opportunity to review the ‘What's new in Workday report’ as this is your go-to source for all the new features and enhancements that are being rolled out to your Preview tenants every week.
You can access the report at any point as long as you have access on the Workday ‘What's new’ domain. Workday updates the report a week before each feature release, giving your team time to prepare for testing and fine-tuning with each new roll out.
5. Review Workday’s adoption planning dashboard
With your core team prepped and ready to go, now is the time to tick off those final preparations. With Workday's adoption planning dashboard, teams can take advantage of multiple worklets, which are available to help plan and manage testing efficiently. In particular, stay in the loop with the "What’s new in the last 7 days" worklet, which showcases the latest features delivered in the past week. This means ensuring testing plans are modified and updated according to the changes to help you stay ahead of the game.
At this stage, we also suggest reviewing Workday’s videos showcasing the newly added features as they have the potential to impact tenant configurations and BPs. The detailed videos are valuable resource for understanding for those complex features that need particular attention.
Overcoming the challenges of manual testing
Workday updates ensure your organisation remains innovative with instant access to the latest functionality. However, configuration changes may impact the performance of your BPs, which are unique to every organisation’s business needs. This explains why testing is so important and is the responsibility of each individual company.
Manually testing BPs can be time-consuming and labour-intensive for teams. At times, this can mean business-critical tasks are put on hold to accommodate testing efforts, or even the lack of new feature adoption.
Automated solutions can be used to alleviate the pressures of manual testing, reducing manual effort by up to 90%. With automation in place, users can turn their attention to evaluating the new features available during an update release. This also gives core testing teams time back to focus on what really matters; business-as-usual operations.
If you would like practical 2023R2 testing strategies, or to find out more about the advantages of automated testing, then join our upcoming live Q&A on August 2nd.
This session is designed to empower your testing teams with hints and tips to feel confident and prepare for a successful release. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions on key topics to our panel of experts.