Hello!
I am curious if there are best practices when it comes to testing updates for cloud customers. We have our users go through their screens and run tests on their normal day to day functions, but I was curious if there are other tools available for testing things such as customizations and dashboards.
Should I be looking at things like customization maintenance? Are there similar tools for dashboards?
Thanks!
Some informal suggestions:
Epicor’s Webex’s on what’s new with this release.
Watch for new menu items added because they are not secured by default.
Test all your day to day stuff like printing Traveler’s, PO’s, Packing Slips, BOL, Invoices, daily production reports and maybe check printing. Maybe inventory pull list. Stuff you can’t live without each day. So you don’t walk into a mess on a Monday after going live.
You may also want a list of before and after reports to make sure things tie out.
I will say it even though I hate it when someone says it to me but this was discussed on the list in prior conversations you may want to search for that to add to your list.
Gotcha, thank you!
I have built a dashboard to track users to show that testing has been done.
Quotes, Orders, Jobs, PO’s etc to see that testing is happening.
Also EpicWeb has
A generic checklist for testing that is available under the upgrade sections.
I also found on EpicWeb testing guides by various roles
Can you expand on that Bruce?
Got a link for that @LarsonSolutions
@bbandrowski I would that Bruces info goes for On-Prem as well.
For users of M365, you can use a Planner. Plans are nice because they can be copied to a new plan for the next upgrade while keeping the user assignments. They also do a nice job of nagging gently reminding users when tasks are due.
Defend thyself, and for the love of all that is holy, do not utter the word Excel.
Heaven forbid we use the implementation checklist…
Well, played. Fixed.
Sure, it works until I blew away the database I kept it in to reload new data. 
@klincecum
I have been using this since 2012 - every implementation and testing scenario it’s been in place.
If you change the date range to be dynamic to just last month it gives you a sense of the amount of transactions each user is doing.
Interested in any improvements - would like to have a kinetic with charts in the future.
Here’s a shot of the dashboard
The subquery Datefilter (with no table) is a fixed date range that the other subqueries use to select the transactions.
The userCode - TranType - You must load this table for the parttran BAQ to work
TranTYpes_Place in UserCodes.xlsx (14.4 KB)
20240609Transactions.dbd (337.4 KB)
@Hally ,
The implementation checklist would also be great because you can copy the list from one to another list for each testing phase.
I have been using this for company builds since Vantage 8.03
Epicor does have it on the development list to make it a Kinetic process which is good news.
Thanks Bruce.
@Mark_Wonsil I thought you would keep in in the prod database, it’s always the starting point isn’t it?
@bruce. That is awesome… I would say that this would make a great Insights topic. With some tangible tools to work with
Over time, I started treating implementations like video games. Start with a blank database and do a checkpoint. If we make a mistake or change an implementation decision, restore to a previous known good state and rerun all subsequent DMTs. This would overwrite the checklist.
This method is more important when implementing new companies and sites while retaining the ability to roll back.
