Your UKG Dimensions, workforce management system plays a crucial role in ensuring your employees get paid correctly, so it’s imperative to test your system thoroughly. 

Testing is one of the most critical steps in any UKG project. But companies often mistakenly believe that testing should happen near the end of the project after the build is complete.  

As a result, these companies often fail to take the proper steps early enough in the project to prepare for testing. This lack of planning leads to not enough time later in the project for thorough testing, resulting in production defects, unhappy users, delayed rollouts, and unnecessary business risks.

To test your UKG workforce management system properly and minimize your business risks, you should have a good test strategy in place at the start of a project. 

In this article, we’ll explain what a test strategy is and how you can use it to streamline your UKG WFM project.

What is a UKG Test Strategy?

A test strategy is a set of guiding principles that define the testing approach and scope, identify roles and responsibilities, and ensure that everyone on the project is aligned. 

You should define your test strategy early on as part of the project initiation activities. It should be the first step in your testing process, which provides a foundation on which to build a detailed test plan. 

A good test strategy provides alignment with: 

• Scope of testing 
• High-level timelines 
• Test approach (including tools, environments, etc.) 
• Test data management 
• Defect management 
• Roles and responsibilities 
• Risks 

Key Components of a UKG Test Strategy

Now that we’ve covered what a test strategy is and why it’s important, we’re ready to look in more detail at the various components of a good test strategy. 

1. Testing Scope

The test scope defines the scope of testing activities i.e. what will be tested and why. For your UKG workforce management system, the test scope should define modules, employee populations, geographies, etc. that are in scope.

2. High-Level Timelines

The test strategy should define the key milestones such as: 

• Requirements Complete 
• Build Delivery 
• Solution Design Review (SDR) 
• Start/End Dates for Each Phase (Functional, Integration, Parallel, and UAT)
• Go Live 

These high-level timelines will provide the structure on which to build a more detailed test plan and schedule. 

3. Test Approach

Your test approach defines the types of testing to perform and the number of passes required for each one. It also specifies the test environments, whether each test will be automated or manual, and the tools you’ll use to test your UKG workforce management system e.g. a test management platform such as ALM/Quality Center or an automated testing platform such as TestAssure.

4. Test Data Management

Identifying, creating, and managing test data can be a cumbersome job. Your test strategy must define what data each test approach requires and who will create, manage, and clean the data.

5. Defect Management

This piece of your UKG testing strategy defines the process and tools for managing defects. It also identifies the members of your defect triage team, how often they will meet, and what tool they’ll use to capture defects. If you’re deploying a 3rd-party solution, your test strategy will also specify how to communicate defects found in that product to the vendor.

6. Roles and Responsibilities

You should also clearly identify the roles and skillsets needed to execute your test strategy.  

Be sure to also identify dependencies on other teams and external subject matter experts (SMEs). You’ll need to secure these resources’ capacity and availability well-before you begin testing to ensure they are available and can meet the specified timelines.  

Typically, a UKG workforce management system implementation requires guidance and support from human resources, payroll, finance, benefits, and IT. 

Even if you don’t have named resources at this time, it’s crucial to identify the roles that need to be filled and have an estimate of headcount required to meet your testing timelines. 

Pro Tip/Recommendation: Automated testing technologies, such as TestAssure are available to shrink projected timeframes for test execution. In practice, we have seen test cycles shrink by up to 12 weeks with the addition of test automation.  

Conclusion

Developing a good test strategy is an essential step toward successful project management of your UKG workforce management system. Creating a test strategy ensures alignment on the approach, promotes a shared understanding of timelines and dependencies, and helps secure the proper budget, resources, and tools to ensure success. 

Whether you’re implementing a new UKG workforce management system, upgrading to a new version, or releasing business-driven changes, we can help.  

TestAssure is committed to providing UKG customers with test strategy, planning, and automation to help you minimize the impact of your system changes, reduce your risks, and help you move faster with confidence.   

Contact us today for a test drive.