Acumatica Testing

Heather Brooks

Nucleus Research positions 17 SMB-focused vendors within its SMB ERP Value Matrix Quadrant, and Acumatica ranks #1 in usability. The paramount benefits of Acumatica lie in its nearly boundless capacity for customization. It provides supplementary solutions, role-tailored dashboards, accessible APIs, and industry-specific functionalities to businesses. These features help companies gain unmatched data clarity, potent tools for informed decision-making, and a resilient foundation for enduring success.

During the Acumatica implementation, you will perform numerous intricate modifications to align the system’s default behavior with your specific processes. Subsequently, it requires validation to ensure the system’s continued proper operation.

As the volume of validation tasks grows, you might encounter a slowdown in the process if done manually, hampering the progress and efficiency. Automation testing is required to achieve efficient, correct, and fast results.

How to Perform Acumatica Testing?

Below are the testing types required to achieve the necessary speed and consistency in the Acumatica platform.

Static Code Analysis

It is a software development practice involving analyzing source code without executing the program. It aims to identify potential issues, bugs, vulnerabilities, and code quality problems in the codebase before the program is run or deployed.

Static code analysis is precious during development as it helps catch issues early, reducing the likelihood of bugs entering the final product. Static code analysis of Acumatica can be performed using the Acuminator tool.

Acuminator

Acuminator is a static code analysis and colorization utility within Visual Studio. It assists in code review and quality assurance, including unit testing. It can colorize and format BQL(Business Query Language) statements while facilitating the collapse of attributes and sections within BQL queries.

Acuminator helps you to perform the following:

• Diagnostics and code fixes, such as incorrect signatures of PXAction handlers or typos in the names of view delegates, are supported.
• Code coloring, formatting, and outlining of BQL statements to increase readability.
• Code navigation between an action and its handler and between a data view declaration and delegate.

Unit Testing

Unit testing focuses on testing the software’s most minor individual components or modules in isolation to ensure their correctness. Below are the testing tools which can aid the unit testing in Acumatica.

Acumatica Unit Test Framework

Acumatica has a built-in testing framework for unit testing. You can create and run tests in Acumatica’s customization area using Acumatica Unit Test Framework. This framework helps you to test your custom changes, screens, graphs (code-behind logic), and other components. It can test PXGraph behavior and has a code similar to Acumatica Framework. It is based on Xunit, and the selection of records from the database is easy to mock up.

public void Test_Calculation_UnitPrice()
{
  // Preparing the data
  SOOrderEntry graph = PrepareGraph();
  
  // Perform an action
  var orderLine = graph.Transactions.Insert();
  orderLine.InventoryID = stockItem.InventoryID;
  orderLine.Qty = 1;
  orderLine = graph.Transactions.Update(orderLine);
  
  // Check the result
  Assert.Equal("LBS", orderLine.UOM);
  Assert.InRange(orderLine.CuryUnitPrice.Value, 227m, 228m);
}

Mocking Frameworks

Mocking frameworks like Moq or NSubstitute can help you create mock objects to simulate interactions with external components, databases, or APIs. It ensures that your tests focus solely on the code being tested during unit testing.

Integration Testing

Integration testing in Acumatica ensures that the components work seamlessly together and data is accurately exchanged. Use appropriate tools and follow a structured testing process to identify and address integration issues early. Below are a few frameworks that support Acumatica integration testing:

Acumatica Test Framework

Acumatica provides a built-in test framework that supports unit and integration testing, as mentioned in the previous section. You can create test scenarios involving interactions between screens, graphs, and processes within the Acumatica customization environment.

Automation Testing Frameworks

You can use automation testing tools to simulate user interactions with Acumatica screens. These tools can help automate workflows and verify data flow between various modules.

API Testing Tools

Integrating Acumatica with other systems using APIs requires you to deploy API testing tools such as Postman to test API endpoints and verify data exchange.

Security Testing

Security testing in Acumatica is essential to identify and address vulnerabilities that could compromise your ERP system’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Acumatica’s Security team leverages various resources when formulating strategies for implementing preventive measures.

However, some testing types below can help ensure the security of your Acumatica-based products and services.

Vulnerability Scanning

You can perform vulnerability scanning to identify security threats for Acumatica products by using below tools:

• Burp Suite: It is a powerful web vulnerability scanner and penetration testing tool that can identify common security issues like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), etc.
• OWASP ZAP: It is an open-source security testing tool that helps you find vulnerabilities in web applications.
• Nessus: Nessus is a comprehensive vulnerability assessment tool that can scan your network, systems, and applications for security weaknesses, including known vulnerabilities in Acumatica.

Authentication and Authorization Testing

Leverage authentication testing mechanisms to ensure they prevent unauthorized access (check who the user is). Verify that authorization mechanisms can prevent unauthorized actions by users (check what they have access to).

Data Protection Testing

Verify data encryption mechanisms and data storage practices are in place to protect sensitive customer and business information. You should test for vulnerabilities related to data leakage or insecure data storage.

Performance Testing

Performance testing in Acumatica involves evaluating your ERP system’s responsiveness, stability, and scalability under various conditions.

• Load Testing: Conduct tests to evaluate Acumatica’s performance under expected and peak loads. Monitor and analyze response times, server CPU, memory usage, and database performance.
• Stress Testing: Perform stress tests to push the system beyond its average capacity and identify its breaking point. Monitor system behavior and resource consumption under extreme conditions.
• Scalability Testing: Test the scalability of Acumatica by gradually increasing the number of users, transactions, or loads and observing how the system responds.
• Data Volume Testing: Test the system’s performance with different sizes of data sets to ensure consistent performance as data grows.

Data Integrity Testing

Data integrity testing in Acumatica involves verifying the accuracy, consistency, and reliability of the data stored and processed within the ERP system. Below validations can be carried out to ensure the data integrity:

• Data Verification: Use SQL queries or scripts to validate data integrity directly in the database. Check for missing, inconsistent, or duplicate data. Use reports and analytical tools within Acumatica to compare data across different modules and screens.
• Transaction Verification: Process typical transactions within Acumatica and verify that data is correctly captured, updated, and reflected in relevant screens and reports.
• Business Rules Validation: Validate that data adheres to defined business rules and validations within Acumatica. Test scenarios where specific actions trigger automated processes, ensuring that data integrity is maintained throughout.
• Error Handling Testing: Test how Acumatica handles errors related to data integrity, such as input validation, constraint violations, or data reconciliation issues.

Tools to Perform Data Integrity Testing

• SQL Queries and Scripts: Utilize SQL queries and scripts to perform data integrity checks directly on the database. These checks can help identify inconsistencies, duplicates, or missing data.
• Acumatica Reports: Leverage built-in or customized Acumatica reports to analyze data discrepancies and ensure data integrity.
• Automated Testing Tools: You can use test automation tools to validate data integrity by automating interactions with Acumatica screens and verifying data at different stages.

System or End-to-End Testing

End-to-end testing in Acumatica involves validating the entire workflow of business processes across different modules and functionalities, ensuring the system behaves correctly as a complete solution. During Acumatica E2E testing, the UI, business process workflows, data entry and validation, business logic calculations, reporting, notifications, compliance, etc, must be verified.

Example: Verify the end-to-end process of creating, processing, invoicing, and fulfilling a sales order in Acumatica.

Selenium is a popular automation testing framework for performing E2E testing of web applications. It allows you to create and execute automated test scripts to interact with your application’s user interface, simulate user actions, and verify expected behaviors.

Tools to Perform End-to-End Testing

Acumatica provides an automation testing framework called Acumatica Test SDK. To create and run tests using the Acumatica Test SDK, you will need the following components:

• A web browser for conducting your tests.
• A page wrapper generation tool to craft wrappers.
• A test framework for producing the testing scripts.
• Selenium WebDriver to facilitate browser interactions.

It’s evident that Acumatica Test SDK, like many other test automation tools in the market, is based on Selenium. While Selenium enjoys popularity, it also comes with its set of drawbacks. Issues such as flaky tests, high maintenance costs, extensive man-hours, and delayed ROI are primary concerns.

In the demanding world of CI/CD environments, organizations cannot afford to squander time, effort, or funds. They seek efficient and cost-effective alternatives that align with the swift pace of the DevOps lifecycle. testRigor presents itself as a solution to these challenges. This cutting-edge no-code automation tool, fortified with integrated AI, expedites test creation and significantly curtails test maintenance.

Why Use testRigor for Acumatica Testing

Below are advantages that set testRigor apart from other tools:

Versatile Test Creation

ERP systems, like Acumatica, often come with intricate user interfaces featuring grids, tables, tree views, and custom controls. Legacy test automation tools can find it challenging to interact with these UI elements accurately.

testRigor offers three user-friendly methods for test creation:

1. Simply provide the test case title, and testRigor’s generative AI engine will generate test steps within seconds.
2. Compose test scripts in plain English without needing any programming language expertise. The tool’s AI then translates these scripts into actionable code using advanced NLP techniques.
3. Utilize the test recorder to record actions and effortlessly draft the test case. The outputted tests are in plain English, eliminating the need for coding knowledge. Moreover, without XPath dependence, these tests become highly stable and easy to maintain.

Self-healing Tests

Applications, especially those with frequent updates, grapple with constant changes and test maintenance. testRigor tackles these issues with its self-healing feature. Any changes in element attributes or the application itself are automatically incorporated into test scripts, saving considerable maintenance time.

Automatic Wait Times

Acumatica’s dynamic content loading and AJAX-driven updates can result in synchronization challenges. testRigor intuitively handles wait times, preventing the common “element not found” errors.

Unwavering Stability and Reliability

As a no-code platform, testRigor sidesteps the need for specific coding languages. Elements are recognized based on their visible text, minimizing dependence on intricate implementation details. This simplifies test development, maintenance, and troubleshooting.

Effortlessly Cloud-Hosted

Avoid the hassle of infrastructure setup, conserving time and resources. With testRigor, you can instantly draft test scripts, achieving speeds up to 15 times faster than other automation tools.

Supports 2FA, Email, and SMS

Acumatica ERP systems may implement robust security measures like CAPTCHA, multi-factor authentication, or token-based authentication. testRigor supports CAPTCHA resolution, as well as 2FA login, including methods such as email, SMS, and Google Authenticator.

Comprehensive Testing Coverage

testRigor accommodates all primary testing types and supports cross-browser and cross-platform tests.

Seamless Integrations

Built-in integrations with CI/CD, issue management, and test management tools guarantee a streamlined testing process.

login
create new lead
go to leads
check that table at row containing stored value "lastName" and column "Status" contains "Created”

Note the clarity and simplicity. The integrated login command manages the login seamlessly. Describe visual elements using plain English to serve as efficient element locators, eliminating the inconsistency of CSS and XPath element locators. With testRigor, your Acumatica testing needs are met with ease, empowering all team members to participate in testing.

Explore testRigor’s phenomenal features, enabling you to achieve expansive test coverage before deadlines and within budget. No need for separate testing tools or additional integrations for Acumatica testing.

Conclusion

The complex interplay of modules, customizations, data integrations, and workflows within the Acumatica ERP ecosystem demands rigorous and systematic testing. Testing helps businesses to identify and rectify potential issues, ensuring data accuracy, system stability, and optimal performance.

On the other hand, a lack of extensive testing may cause operational disruptions, financial losses, compromised customer experiences, and regulatory non-compliance. By embracing intelligent test automation tools such as testRigor, businesses pave the way for the successful implementation of Acumatica without missing deadlines and within budget.