Guide: Testing your Workday Deployment for Go-Live Success
Setting up a new cloud-based system, converting legacy data, managing change and training end-users are critical deliverables for any Workday deployment. But testing is often overlooked and can make the difference between a successful go-live that’s on-time and on-budget, or one that’s fraught with delays–or worse–configuration failure before your teams even begin to explore their brand-new system.
Why is testing during deployment so important?
During the early stage of your deployment project, you’ll make decisions on how you want and need Workday to be configured to meet your business (and legislative) requirements. This includes how Workday interacts with your third-party and internal systems. The reason for testing is not to test the Workday product itself, but to test that your instance of Workday has been configured for your specific requirements.
Testing throughout your deployment project will give you the confidence that your configuration is fit-for-purpose and ready for live operation, especially in regard to business-critical areas like Payroll, Security and the various integrations that fit alongside your Workday system.
Sounds complicated, where do I begin?
Planning! Testing Workday during your deployment doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. It does however have to be structured, dependable and accurate to ensure your system is fit for purpose as you approach the light at the end of the deployment tunnel.
That’s why we’ve put together this overview of the steps to take when testing during your Workday deployment, so your teams can be confident that a successful go-live is achievable. First thing’s first:
Understand what you’re testing and why
Workday’s Deployment Methodology consists of five phases: Plan, Architect, Configure and Prototype, Test, and Deploy. Test planning and preparation occurs during the Planning and Architect stages, with the key testing activities taking place during the Configuration and Prototype and Test stages of the methodology.
Test Preparation is critical
The purpose of Test Preparation is to plan and organise the testing activities during your Workday deployment.
The key artefacts that you need to produce at this stage include:
- a Test Strategy (overview of testing approach);
- a Test Project Plan (detailed list of testing activities);
- Testing Scenarios (high level test cases for the testers to follow); and
- a Training Plan for the team (when users are new to Workday).
If this sounds like a lot of work, it doesn’t have to be if your team is on board, knows what to do and when, and has the knowledge to properly carry out their responsibilities.
Defining your Test strategy—it’s critical too
Your Workday Testing Strategy outlines the testing approach your organisation will use during deployment, including the scope, timeline, roles and responsibilities, tools, processes, and standards you’ll use during each test stage. It acts as the reference point for all members of the Project Team and provides information on what will be tested, and how, during your deployment. Your strategy should take account of your broader technical landscape (integration points, data security) and assess the impact.
Team preparation
At each stage of your deployment journey, it’s important to share the load as testing can become overwhelming when clearly defined roles, responsibilities and timelines aren’t considered. Activities should typically be performed by the Test Lead, Project Manager, and one or more Test Analysts. Each should be responsible for the following:
- Test Manager/Test Lead: Producing the test strategy, approving test scenarios, producing the test plan, and preparing other team members for configuration review.
- Project Manager: Liaising with the test manager on scope and timelines, working with the test manager to produce the test plan, adding key test plan activities into the Master Project Plan, and identifying and assigning appropriate resources for test activities.
- Test Analysts: Preparing a suite of test scenarios.
For team members who are new to Workday, basic training should be planned before the testing begins.
What’s next?
Let the testing activities commence! With an understanding of how your testing activities and timeline matches the Workday deployment methodology, a team ready to go, and a strategy that outlines your overall plan and approach, you should be in a good place to begin:
The configuration review
Your Project Team reviews the tenant and validates that the design requirements captured during the Architect Stage were communicated correctly and have been accurately applied. The test-related activities primarily consist of data validation and unit testing of the configuration, identifying by way of predefined test scenarios any errors or differences that are likely to have an impact.
The Test stage
This is a second round of configuration testing, against a more complete tenant build with additional data migrated to the tenant.
This phase tends to be longer and includes a broader set of representatives from your business beyond the core Project Team. It’s more comprehensive, including testing of Organisational Set Up, Business Processes—unit testing any updated configuration and end-to-end transactional testing (including related integration points), Integrations—including testing upstream and downstream system impact, and Security.
User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
This is to validate from an end user’s perspective that your system is fit for purpose. As such, it’s more of a review of the processes built and a period of activity to enable exposure to the Workday system to the broader business. At this point the business processes have already been through two rounds of thorough testing (Configuration Review Testing and End-to-End testing), so most defects and issues should be resolved. UAT requires engagement from individuals from key areas of the business to review and confirm scenarios that relate to their typical daily interaction with the system. The User Acceptance Test Team is responsible for completing UAT scenarios as delivered; and giving feedback on any critical issues on completion of scenarios.
Beyond that…
Your team needs to factor in Payroll Parallel testing to ensure that the payroll processes and integration(s) configured in and with Workday provide the same outputs as your existing payroll process. It can be disastrous if not approached with due diligence and attention.
You’ll also need to coordinate and manage your Tenant strategy, outlining the purpose and activities of each tenant at each stage of the deployment, whether that’s the master, training, or parallel tenants. As each tenant is refreshed at various milestones during the project it’s important to plan ahead to ensure that any test data that will be required during the testing stages is prepared before each test window. On each of the tenants, you should also consider how you are going to use proxy to assist with the testing activities or if access to sensitive information is accounted for and mitigated.
Furthermore, you’ve got Defect Management to factor in and a structured, comprehensive reporting cycle to communicate progress, issues, blockers, or areas uncovered by your testing activities throughout the entire deployment that require further attention and / or resolution.
Automation can transform Workday deployment testing
While deployment testing is a huge project and a necessity for a successful go-live, it’s easily achievable with proper planning, communication, and a helping hand from a partner or automated solution. Given the complexity of Workday deployments and the amount of effort required to thoroughly test all the various components, Workday customers are increasingly looking to automated testing solutions to help reduce the workload, free up SMEs and ensure a seamless path to go-live success.
Outcomes to bear in mind:
Ensure go-live dates don’t slip: Insufficient time and resource to execute test events is a big cause for go-live delays—so plan the work to work the plan!
Encourage user adoption: Production errors erode confidence, impacting the success of your Workday investment. Improving test coverage ensures higher quality testing and reduced effort, so time can be spent getting to explore and enjoy a new Workday system.
Keep staff focused on value tasks: Training and freeing enough people to do the required testing can be a huge drain, but it’s essential for go-live success. Ringfence your team or supplement resources with automation to execute thousands of tests with minimum effort.
Safeguard compliance: Regulations require greater control and due diligence of worker data. Thorough testing can minimise data risk while capturing and storing evidence of every test executed, instilling auditing confidence.
Verify your new configuration: Testing helps you to verify your configuration quickly and efficiently at every stage of your journey to go-live. This ensures your business processes and security configuration meet the needs of your organisation and workers.
Of course, this guide only scratches the surface of what’s required at each stage of a deployment test strategy to ensure a successful go-live.