Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the interchange of structured data between different vendors. EDI Testing is vital to make sure no hardware or software errors in vendor operations will affect the smooth transfer of products from the vendors to their intended retail outlets, sales to end-users and processing payments for a given vendor. This test also involves checking that your product file matches the Myer product files to verify alignment of keycodes, cost & item numbers where applicable, GTins where necessary. A high-quality EDI testing service ensures that all the necessary tests are properly conducted to avoid manual errors or incomplete tests that can result in invalid report results and consequently in failed transaction transactions.
EDI Testing acquires the latest testing technologies and tools. The goal is to obtain an automated result so that the EDI testing team can focus on its tasks without worrying about the results. However, even when the automated result comes out fine, the test engineers are still in charge of validating that the data set is complete and accurate so that it meets the requirements of the various EDI application servers. To avoid testing risks, the tests must be executed only by those experts who possess a thorough knowledge and experience in using the tools and technologies.
With the advent of various formats of EDI, it has become necessary for EDI testing to be performed on a regular basis to validate the data integrity. In the past, EDI testing required manual intervention from the test engineer. Today, EDI testing is made easy because of the various tools available in the market. Tool automation can ensure fast execution and provides significant cost savings because it can be scheduled to run on its own. Depending on the format of EDI being used, tool automation can perform EDI conversion, encryption, authentication, data extraction and validation as well as data manipulation.
Tool automation would take care of the repetitive jobs such as encryption, data extraction and validation while incorporating new and simplified rules into the existing ones. The EDI test automation system would take care of checking the application against the requirements in a smooth and error-free manner. Before application testing, the test engineer would take care of the following steps to make sure that the application meets the expectations of the end users.
First, he would test the EDI application against the required requirements. In case of a legacy system, the testing would be more complex because there are numerous file formats involved. Therefore, the test engineer would incorporate different types of testing in order to determine the EDI testing process results.
The next step involves the verification that the EDI software satisfies the requirements. This step involves several steps including verification of the application against the pre-defined database or against the collection of documents that are used to define the requirements. Once this step is successfully completed, the test engineer would validate the EDI against the current database to verify consistency and validity of the stored data. The next step would involve conversion of the EDI file formats to XML and then to application data models to define the database. Lastly, database updates could also be performed to provide an up-to-date view of the EDI file formats.
Another advantage of the automated testing is its ability to provide quick results. The automated tools available today are able to verify the entire application against all the different test cases in a very short time. This enables the test engineer to conduct more tests in a shorter period of time to find out bugs and defects. Moreover, the tools available today have enhanced tool support with higher level of automation. It can detect broken links, missing files, missing properties and other runtime issues.
To conclude, automated testing framework has helped test applications thoroughly. The tools available in the market are easy to use and understand. It supports different database platforms like Microsoft Access, SQL Server, Oracle, and so on. There are different workflows in these tools to perform the various test cases. With the help of these workflows, developers are able to achieve the maximum success in their projects.
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