Epicor Prophet 21 Testing

Heather Brooks

Epicor Prophet 21 (P21) is an ERP system that caters to wholesale distributors. It is a system that can be cloud-based or on-premises and that integrates various business functions, such as inventory management, order processing, procurement, customer relationship management (CRM), and financial management. P21 is the only distributor system built on a modern technology stack and an open API framework that enables distributors to streamline overall operations, maximize efficiency, and scale their businesses rapidly.

The software also provides built-in functionalities for advanced inventory control, demand forecasting, and automated purchasing, allowing companies to lower carrying costs while keeping the optimal stock level available.

Epicor Prophet 21 is best known for its flexibility and customization capabilities, making it a great fit for multiple distribution industries, including industrial supplies, medical equipment, electrical components, and HVAC systems.

The software is capable of multi-location warehouses, advanced pricing rules, and automated workflows to streamline processes and minimize manual interventions. Companies gain real-time insights into sales trends, profitability, and operational performance with built-in analytics and reporting tools.

We will now take a closer look at Epicor Prophet 21’s functional features.

• Cloud-Ready ERP: Prophet 21 features a contemporary, cloud-based architecture, allowing distributors to access real-time business data from virtually anywhere while cutting IT overhead costs.
• Advanced Inventory Management: Allows maximizing stock levels with demand forecasting, auto-ordering, and multi-warehouse management features to reduce cost and eliminate stockouts.
• Integrated CRM: Users can track customer interactions as well as manage the sales pipeline with built-in Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
• Robust Order Management: Simplifies the order-to-cash cycle through real-time order tracking, intricate pricing management, and automated workflows that boost efficiency.
• Flexible Pricing & Rebate Management: Enables contract pricing, volume discounts, and rebate tracking so that customers bill accurately and profitability is maximized.
• E-Commerce & Mobile Capabilities: Facilitates online sales for B2B and B2C through a connected e-commerce platform with mobile access for field sales and warehouse operations.
• Financial Management: Provides accounting, invoice, and financial reporting tools that help track profitability, cash flow, and expense control.
• Workflow Automation: Automates recurring tasks like approvals, purchasing, and invoicing to cut manual work and stop working at a higher operational efficiency.
• Customizable Dashboards & Reporting: Provides key business intelligence, analytics, and customizable dashboards for monitoring trends and KPIs.
• Open API & Third-Party Integrations: Offers an open API framework for integration to external applications such as a CRM, shipping solutions, and advanced analytics tools.

Epicor Prophet 21: Testing & Automation

Testing Epicor Prophet 21 is crucial to ensure its modules function seamlessly, meet business requirements, and perform reliably in real-world scenarios. The platform’s robust architecture includes key modules such as manufacturing management, supply chain management (SCM), financial management, customer relationship management (CRM), and human capital management (HCM), all of which require thorough testing.

To maintain efficiency and ensure smooth operations, several types of testing must be conducted for Epicor Prophet 21, including:

• End-to-End (E2E) Testing: Required to validate the complete business workflows, such as order management, inventory updates, and financial reporting. It ensures all modules and systems work together seamlessly in real-world scenarios.
• Integration Testing: Verifies the seamless interaction between Epicor modules, such as CRM and financial systems, and external third-party integrations. This maintains smooth data flow and accurate communication across all interconnected components.
• Security Testing: Checks the protection of sensitive data within Epicor Prophet 21 by identifying vulnerabilities and validating access controls. It also ensures compliance with industry security standards and protocols.
• Data Migration Testing: Verifies that data transferred from legacy systems to Epicor Prophet 21 is accurate and complete. It ensures proper mapping, transformation, and integrity of the migrated data.
• Cross-Platform Testing: Validates that Epicor Prophet 21 performs consistently across different browsers, devices, and operating systems. This ensures a smooth user experience regardless of the platform used.

Manual and automated testing can both be performed on Epicor, but considering the huge number of scenarios to validate with multiple combinations of browsers and platforms, manual testing has limited efficiency. It is not practical to run things like performance and load tests by hand as well. Using automated testing is, therefore why, a better solution as it should provide complete, repeatable, and efficient validation of all the important features.

E2E Testing Strategies for Epicor Prophet 21

End-to-End (E2E) tests for Epicor Prophet 21 validate complete business workflows for seamless operation across interconnected modules like manufacturing, supply chain, and financial management. These tests replicate real-world scenarios, such as processing a customer order from creation to inventory adjustment and final invoicing. E2E testing ensures accurate data flow and communication between modules, verifying that the entire system operates as expected. By identifying potential issues in cross-module interactions, E2E tests help in smooth and reliable business operations.

Automating Epicor Prophet 21 Tests with testRigor

Epicor as a robust and intricate system. You may face challenges when relying on traditional automation tools, as they often lead to higher maintenance costs and effort, offering limited benefits for automation. This is where modern AI-enabled automation tools make a significant difference. Among these tools, testRigor stands out with its advanced features and capabilities. Let’s explore how testRigor enhances the effectiveness of End-to-End (E2E) testing for Epicor.

• Natural Language Automation: testRigor allows you to write test scripts in plain English, making it accessible to non-technical team members like manual testers, management, and business analysts. This broadens participation in test creation, increasing test coverage, and addressing more scenarios.
• Stable Element Locators: Instead of using traditional XPath or CSS locators, testRigor identifies elements based on visible text on the screen using advanced AI. This AI-powered approach reduces maintenance effort and lets teams focus on building use cases rather than fixing flaky tests. For example:

  click "cart"
  enter "Peter" into "Section" below "Type" and on the right of "Description"

• Comprehensive Testing: testRigor handles a wide range of testing needs, including web, mobile apps, desktop apps, APIs, visual testing, accessibility testing, all within a single tool.
• Reduced Test Maintenance: By focusing on the end-user perspective and minimizing reliance on locators, testRigor reduces the time spent on test maintenance, especially for rapidly changing products. Read: Decrease Test Maintenance Time by 99.5% with testRigor.
• Seamless Integrations: With built-in integrations for CI/CD tools like Jenkins and CircleCI, test management systems like TestRail, defect trackers like Jira, and communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, testRigor easily fits into your existing workflows.

Now let’s see a sample script written in testRigor for Epicor Prophet 21:

login //Reusable rule
click "Order Entry"
enter stored value "Saved Order Number" into "Order Number"
enter stored value "Saved Customer ID" into "Customer ID"
enter stored value "Saved Ship id" into "Ship To ID"
enter stored value "Saved contact id" into "Contact ID"
click Save

You can understand from the above script that creating automation scripts is very easy with testRigor. You can create functions (Reusable Rules) for the test steps you use repeatedly. Call them in test cases by simply writing their names. The points above highlight just a few of the many powerful features testRigor offers.

To discover all its capabilities, explore more details here or sign up for a demo to start your journey.

“We spent so much time on maintenance when using Selenium, and we spend nearly zero time with maintenance using testRigor.”

Keith Powe VP Of Engineering - IDT