Your Top 3 2020R1 Testing Questions Answered

Date posted
6 February 2020
Reading time
8 Minutes
Keri McWilliams

What are the common issues or recurring mistakes from companies when testing new updates?

We've found that companies are underestimating the time commitment involved, and then waiting too long to begin testing. The 5-week period seems like a long time, but you can run out of that time very quickly. You won't be able to test everything within a 5-week window, so prioritise and test based on level of risk. Also consider testing Integrations first, as they could take the longest time to fix. Test Business Processes (BPs) towards the end, as they may still roll out fixes over the 5-week preview. Another point is to be fully aware of your current configuration. Test scenarios need to be continuously maintained, or they may not reflect the current configuration. Testers may be unaware of the expected results and pass a test that is actually incorrect.  

What is the recommended way to test Payroll?

There are 3 ways to test Payroll:

Sandbox and Preview calculation comparison - this will need to be done when all transactions are aligned across both tenants.

This is best performed as early as possible, before you start running BP tests that could affect your payroll outputs. To do this, you can run a payroll calculation on Sandbox and Preview and compare the payroll results. You may wish to create a specific report for the comparison of payroll results across tenants to make it easier to analyse. Automated testing can help here, by performing tenant to tenant comparisons and saving you time in the process.

Pay component testing - some of the testing that you will already be doing during the update window will have a benefit for payroll testing for example, your compensation testing.

We would recommend that you perform some tests focussing specifically on eligibility and calculation of your pay components and retro calculations. Future period testing will also form part of this testing, as it allows you to assess the impact of the Workday update on future pay periods.

Integration testing - where your payroll relies on inbound integrations from upstream systems or where data is sent downstream, these integrations should also be tested during the update window.

One of the biggest benefits of automation in payroll testing is speed, as it allows for calculation, component and integration testing for payroll to be completed on a weekly basis through the update window. To test manually, it would take significant effort from your test team and it would be extremely difficult to repeat a cycle during the update window. We explore Payroll testing in greater depth here.  

When is the best time to introduce automation? And how does it fit into the overall test strategy?

Automation definitely helps you do more testing, in less time, with better quality. In terms of 'when', there is some setup required for automated tests. However, we can get clients up and running with Kainos Smart and create 2000 tests in around 4-6 weeks. Typically, automation setup will include investigating the configuration of your tenant to agree on the tests that should be carried out, then the creation of the test packs and initial setup of the automation platform etc. At this moment in time, if you are testing manually, you should continue to do so for 2020R1, but once that is into production, you should start looking at how automation can help you with weekly regression. This is something that most organisations don 't have the manpower to test well, but something we recommend you take seriously due to the constant improving nature of Workday. Here are a few additional reasons why you should test weekly:

  • It gives you the opportunity to identify any issues that could result from a Workday feature update
  • When leveraged as part of an internal release management process for your Business as Usual changes, it allows you to proactively identify bugs BEFORE they make it into the production tenant
  • During the preparation time for a Workday major release, you'll already have test scripts that reflect your current configuration and won't have to spend a significant amount of time getting them up to date prior to testing the new release.

For more top tips to help prepare you for Workday 2020R1, watch the recording of the webinar here.

Learn how automation has improved velocity, resourcing and employee peace of mind for Zynga here 's our recent case study with the gaming giant.

About the author

Keri McWilliams