What is Business Process Testing (BPT)? – Example

In this tutorial, we will give you a detailed explanation on business process testing. We explain how it works, what it includes, its significance, etc. So, let’s get started.

In today’s generation of automation testing, Business Process Testing (BPT) has changed the current testing industry standards.

Business process validation is the act of verifying end-to-end business processes. A step-by-step process is performed to confirm that all business rules are working correctly and when any deviation is found the defects are logged.

Business Process Testing

What is Business Process Testing

#1. BPT is a manual as well as automated testing solution for test design, creation, and execution. This will help reduce testing timelines.

#2. The BPT approach includes:

• Reusable business components
• Business Process Tests

#3. BPT is a role-based model that allows business analysts and non-technical Subject Matter Experts (SME) to work with business components in a script-free environment and create business process tests.

BC1: First Business Component that opens browser and enters login credentials
BC2: Second Business Component that navigates to the accounts screen and searches for accounts
BC3: Third Business Component that verifies field values

#4. The key concepts involved in BPT are as follows:

• Business Process: Business Process can be defined as the collection of related activities that are performed to achieve a predefined goal.
• Business Components: Business components are considered a set of small and reusable pieces of test cases.
• Business Process Tests: Business Process Tests are test cases that include business components.
• Application Area: It is a logical entity and a repository that contains testing resources such as shared object repository, function library etc.

#5. BPT helps you maintain a project with several test environments and tools such as UFT, Micro Focus ALM etc.

How does BPT work

1. BPT allows Subject Matter Experts to create tests
2. It is combined with Quality Center via a license
3. To work with BPT from QuickTest professional (QTP) it is necessary to connect Quality Center with BPT support
4. Subject Matter Experts define business process documents, business components, and business process tests
5. Automation Engineers, on the other hand, play and record the individual steps of business components
6. QA Testers run and debug the individual components

BPT Roles

The major user roles involved in BPT are the following:

Role #1) Subject Matter Expert (SME): A Subject Matter Expert is a person who is considered an authority in a particular area. There are two types of SMEs-

• Business Component Expert has a detailed understanding of individual elements
• Business Process Expert has sufficient and relevant knowledge of the logic implemented in an application

Role #2) Automation Engineer: An Automation Engineer is an expert in automation testing tools.

Role #3) QA Tester: QA Tester is a Quality Center user that defines values for business process test, executes them and reviews results.

Why BPT Methodology

BPT is a transformation that is used to solve traditional problems with automation testing, viz.

• Lack of coordination between manual testers/SMEs and automation engineers
• Lack of automation development standards
• Automation engineer’s insufficient knowledge of the application may cause inefficient scripts
• Huge maintenance efforts

How is BPT implemented

BPT methodology involves the following steps:

Step #1: Get The Tool: Companies purchase the license and install the tool

Step #2: Create Application Areas: Create, populate and maintain a logical repository for testing resources.

Step #3: Create Test Components: SMEs can create new components and define them in the business component module (Quality Center). The Business Component module includes-

• Details: General summary of purpose/goals, pre-conditions, and post-conditions
• Snapshots: Images that help visualize descriptions of the components (if required)
• Parameters: Specifies the input and output component parameter values that enable a component to receive data from external sources and pass it to other components.
• Design Steps: Create, view and automate manual steps for business components
• Used by: Includes currently selected business components
• Component Request Pane: Handling new component requests generated in the test plan module. Let’s say you are creating a test to identify the missing component, this is where you generate a request for it.

Step #4: Create Actual Business Process Tests: SMEs create a business process test. They select a component that can be applied to the business process. Each component can be used differently for different business processes.

Step #5: Automate Business Components: Once SMEs create a business process template, the components are ready for coding and can be forwarded to QA testers.

Components are categorized into two categories:

• Component shell: The outer layer of component- the information in this shell is available at the test level
• Component Implementation: The inner layer of component – The information in this layer is available only at the component level.

Step #6: Running Business Process Tests: Run business process tests like regular tests.

Common Differences between Components and Test

Tests and components are individual concepts of BPT.

The following guidelines are useful to differentiate between them:

• A component is a single entity that cannot contain multiple actions
• When working with components all external files are to be stored in the Quality Center project to which you are connected
• There is no individual repository for individual components. All components should use a shared repository
• The name of the component node cannot be changed, it should be the same as that of the saved component
• Resources can be added through the application repository and not directly to the component

Micro Focus Business Process Testing Business Process Testing Tool (Micro Focus BPT)

Micro Focus Business Process Testing is the industry’s first complete role-based test automation tool that enables SMEs to build, data-drive, execute and document test the use of any programming language.

Learn more about Micro Focus Business Process Testing Software here.

Benefits of Micro Focus BPT Tool: 

1. Simplifies and speeds up the test design process using components
2. Allow QA and testing teams to start the test design process much earlier i.e.; during system design or so
3. Generates automated test and test case documentation in a single step
4. Enables QA teams to use a combined package of test assets that were created adhering to best practices, thus making test automation better.
5. Increases productivity of SMEs and QA Engineers

Advantages of BPT

1. Eliminates the need to create a separate automation framework
2. Automation testing becomes structured with the use of business components
3. Reduces efforts required for writing and maintaining test automation scripts
4. BPT is independent of detailed testing scripts
5. High reusability with data-driven components
6. Testers do not require technical expertise in automation
7. Manual testers are free to remove unwanted components without affecting the code

Disadvantages of BPT

1. It is required to purchase additional license for BPT Framework for test scripts
2. BPT Framework can only be used when you have Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) access

Conclusion

Business Process Testing is an advanced testing technique. It is a happy medium between simplistic manual testing and complex automation testing.

It helps to create specifications for difficult business processes and makes automation suitable for high-level processes.

Quick, efficient, utilization of expertise, and easy implementation of standards are some of the strong features which make BPT a powerful testing technique.

Do you have any feedback or questions on BPT? Feel free to post in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you.