SAP TAO Tutorial for Business Processing Testing

What is SAP TAO?

SAP TAO (Test Acceleration and Optimization) is an automation testing tool for SAP software systems. It helps automate test cases for end-to-end scenarios in SAP systems. The purpose of SAP TAO is to break down whole software into small components in order to integrate automated test cases using a simple interface.

SAP released the automation tool SAP TAO in collaboration with Focus Frame (now acquired by Hexaware). It is used to automatically create test components, upload them to QC (Quality Center), and run automated tests on SAP systems.

SAP TAO wraps up QTP (Quick Test Professional) and QC, where QTP acts as the execution engine while test scenarios are created and driven from QC through business components.

SAP TAO streamlines the creation and maintenance of ERP business process testing. Using SAP TAO and HP tools has added benefits compared to other testing tools, as there is massive corporate support for both SAP and HP products.

The SAP TAO client application performs three functions:

1. Inspecting transactions from an SAP server.
2. Exporting the transactions to HP Quality Center.
3. Consolidating components or scripts from HP Quality Center.

SAP TAO performs end-to-end business process testing that accelerates testing and runs alongside QC. It helps change the testing process from manual testing to testing by composition. For selected SAP transactions and SAP GUI, it automates the management of Transaction Screen Inspections, and facilitates the migration of testing components in and out of Quality Center.

SAP TAO Framework

The Windows operating system supports the SAP TAO client application. It performs its function in the following manner.

1. Connect: the Connect module establishes a connection between the SAP system you are using and the Quality Center project.
2. Inspect: with the help of Inspection and the UI Scanner, you can generate components locally and upload them to Quality Center.

• In this module, you add the T-code to the transactions list.
• TAO returns all the screens associated with that transaction.
• Select the appropriate screen and click “Inspect”.

3. Process Flow Analyzer: the Process Flow Analyzer (PFA) records a sequence of screens and all user interactions in a business process and stores it in the SAP TAO repository. It automates the creation of components, the retrieval of dynamic SAP GUI properties at run time, and inspection.

• Add the T-code to the transaction code field by clicking the Add Transaction button and then click “OK”.
• To start the Process Flow Analyzer, click the Start button.
• TAO launches SAP for you and logs you into the SAP transaction.
• When the transaction process is complete, click “Stop the PFA”.
• TAO creates the analysis and returns all SAP screens used to create the flow.
• Click the Upload button to upload the analysis to QC.

4. Consolidate: for fast execution of test scripts, this function combines all business processes or components into a single component.
5. Import/Export: this function transfers components from SAP QC (Quality Center) to a SAP TAO client. If you are new to SAP testing, the guide on how to create your first SAP test case is helpful.

Walk-Through to SAP TAO

1. In the SAP TAO client, on the left-hand side of the menu bar, click the “Connect” icon.

Select the SAP system you wish to log on to and click “Test SAP Connection”.

2. The next step is a connection to the HP QC server. Fill in all the information as shown. Once you are connected to the project, you will see the “connected to project” icon.

3. Available TAO configuration settings are Inspect, Import and Export, Consolidate, Log, License, and Expert setting. Click the Import/Export button, navigate to the location of the RTL component library, and click Save.

4. Now you can import/export components to Quality Center (QC) using the import/export icon on the left side menu bar.

5. Once you export components to Quality Center (QC), you will see the component library (Buttons, Body Screen Buttons, Header Buttons, and so on).

6. When you click the “Button” library, you will see a screen, for example a sales order screen, with various toolbars such as Standard Toolbar, Allocation Toolbar, and Body Screen Buttons.

7. To create test components, use the “Inspect” tool. On the right-hand side you will see rows that represent screens configured in the system and that are part of a T-code. For example, VA01 has 283 screens that can be inspected.

8. You can select a screen individually, by clicking a checkbox on a row, or use “select all”. Once you make your selection, click the Inspection button. You can view the log report of an automated test case by clicking the “View Report” link to see which test cases passed or failed.

9. The naming convention of a component created in Quality Center for the inspection is Tcode_screenNumber_Name, for example VA01_0101_SalesdocInitialscreenCreate.

SAP TAO Integration with Other Tools

1. SAP Solution Manager Adapter: transfers the requirement to HP Quality Center and the HP QC result back to Solution Manager.
2. HP Quality Center, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM): a test management tool used for automation and manual testing. Its Business Process Testing module consolidates the components created from SAP TAO.
3. HP Quick Test Professional (QTP): required to execute the test scripts.

Object Spy is another tool that retrieves the information identifying the UI elements.

Test Automation Approach with SAP TAO

1. Through inspection, SAP TAO generates test components, or by scanning sub-screens of a SAP business process (SAP GUI frontend only), the fields are parameterized.
2. Automated test cases are composed out of test components, not single command lines.
3. Through auto-created Microsoft Excel files, test data can be applied to input parameters, including parameterized columns and test data for the first iterations.
4. Draft test cases and generated test components are uploaded to SAP Quality Center.

Benefits of SAP TAO

1. Testing deployment: reduces the time required to build and execute test scripts.
2. Reuse test: eliminates the need to create new tests whenever a component changes. If one component changes in a group of tests, you replace that component and re-consolidate the test.
3. Maintenance: eliminates record/replay activities and significantly reduces maintenance cost.
4. No SME requirement: subject matter experts are not required to develop the automated test cases.
5. Robustness: the inspection process makes SAP TAO tests more robust during changes, checking the data content of a component and not just the screen object behavior.

FAQs