Worksoft Certify Reviews

It is used for codeless automation. I am using its most recent version, and it is on-premises, but we are using it through some virtual machines. It is installed on some virtual machines, and by accessing those virtual machines, we're using Worksoft Certify.

It is codeless. Typically, you have to write code in Java, Python, or another language to automate web applications or ERP applications, but Worksoft Certify is completely different. You do not need to do any coding, and you do not need to know any coding language for automation. It is completely a techno-functional tool. You can just enable the application that you want and start automating. 

There are certain tools in the market for writing the code, but they are not supported with some of the ERP solutions available, such as SAP, Oracle, etc. Worksoft Certify is not like that. It supports each and every ERP solution available in the market.

An organization doesn't need to hire new people for automation. For example, if you already have people who are well versed in SAP, you can just train them on this particular tool, and they'll be able to do automation for you. You do not need to hire any new resources for this particular tool, and even if you are hiring, you would need a less number of people. It saves costs in terms of resources. 

Scheduling and lights-out testing are very easy. You can schedule any number of test cases on a recurring or on-demand basis. So, you can run any number of test cases. Test maintenance is very easy, and you can very easily manage all your tests, which also saves cost. So, it saves costs in terms of resources and maintenance.

The Worksoft Capture feature is most valuable. For example, if you are creating a sales order in SAP, you do not need to go to each field and do everything. You do not need to write code for each and every line. You can just turn on the Worksoft Capture feature and manually perform your actions. It will capture all manual actions, and it will give you the steps. It will write the steps for you. 

They have a scheduler in Execution Manager, but it is not customizable. Its UI needs a lot of improvement. The lights-out testing is a bit difficult with that particular tool, and it needs a lot of improvement. Of course, there are so many integration options with Worksoft for execution, but when it comes to Execution Manager, which is their own tool, there is a lot of scope for improvement.

The integration with mobile needs to be improved. Initially, they used to support certain applications, and now, they are supporting all the web applications, but with minimal knowledge, it's very difficult for any tester to automate web applications. That's where they need to improve a lot. They are already working on it. They have given additional features, and with the help of those features, you can easily automate, but they need to keep making it easier for business users who do not want to get into each and every technical aspect of it. They just want to capture the actions. It is working fine with SAP, but they have to concentrate on web applications. They also need to support Safari, as well as macOS, better.

If you keep on running it for a long time without removing unnecessary things, the load on the database increases, which impacts the performance of the tool. Sometimes, it hangs or is slow. We have faced this situation with the earlier versions, such as version 9, but in the current version, there is an improvement. The slowness has drastically reduced, but a lot of improvement is still required in this particular area.

Another negative of this tool is that its license is costly. It is a bit more expensive than other tools.

I have been using this solution for close to six years.

Its stability is very good. It is reliable.

Its scalability is very good. We are a very big organization. In my team, we have close to 14 automation engineers, but there are so many other projects where Worksoft is used. I don't know the exact number, but it would be very high. Its usage is not extensive because it is mostly being used for ERP applications. 

In my previous organization also, it was implemented for many projects.

Their support is excellent. When you raise a ticket, within a day, you get the solution. If they're not able to resolve the issue at their end, and it is on our side, they connect with us and show us what exactly is happening. They check everything. 

Its initial setup is very simple.

It was implemented in-house. We get some files that we can directly install, and that's it. We do not need to do anything other than double-clicking the given files, and it creates everything automatically.

It is costly. It is a bit more expensive than Tricentis Tosca and other tools. If they reduce its price going forward and have partnerships with other vendors, it will grow like anything.

Tricentis Tosca is a strong competitor. Worksoft Certify is more expensive than Tricentis Tosca. The solution that we use depends on a client's choice. 

In the long run, most people will prefer non-coding tools, where 0% coding is required. It is, for sure, a tool that would be useful, but there is only one hiccup. If you are executing tests multiple times, you'll have various results, such as pass, fail, etc. When you are running it for so long time, the file size on the database will keep on increasing. So, you have to keep on doing the maintenance. For example, if you need the results for 2018, you should download everything. You would need some kind of storage.

In many organizations, the managers think that if they hire one or two resources with Worksoft knowledge, they can train everyone in their team, and build a good team, but that's not going to happen in the short run. That's why I advise having two to three dedicated people to train other people and build a team. With only functional team members, it is very difficult to build a proper automation team. I have seen an automation team that wanted to train 20 people. Currently, we are training 100 people. There are three of us who are training 100 people, which doesn't work out very well. So, there should be a few dedicated people for training and implementation. 

I would rate Worksoft Certify an eight out of ten. It is a fantastic tool. Its maintenance is easy. Building test cases is easy, and planning is easy. Almost everything is easy, but the look-and-feel of the Execution Manager scheduler is not good, and currently, customization is not available, and product creation is not available.

We have been working on test automation for SAP-based platform for the last 15 years and leveraging Worksoft for SAP test automation in last 10 years. 

We have some fantastic use cases on how we can leverage Worksoft in large SAP transformation programs, especially for major global rollouts. If you look at some of the industries, like retail and logistics, we can see a lot of consolidation. When there is consolidation, we need to merge two SAP landscapes to a single landscape instance. It is a very complex transformation program. The testing is labor-intensive work in such a large scale IT landscape program. Worksoft has played a key role in delivering these complex integration programs on time, because we automated the core processes using Worksoft Certify. This helped us to automate the testing scenarios in new companies being integrated. At the same time, we test the existing company codes on the existing landscape to ensure that business as usual is not impacted.

If you look at the industry trend, the next six or seven years will be SAP S/4HANA migrations and adoptions of SAP cloud applications, whether it is SAP SuccessFactors, Ariba, or Fieldglass. We strongly believe that WorkSoft can play a pivotal role in delivering large-scale SAP S4 HANA programs since Worksoft can support the implementation of SAP cloud applications. We have delivered a couple of major SAP S/4HANA programs by leveraging Worksoft Certify. 

One of the key things that we have done is introduce test automation on day one in system integration testing (SIT). We don't want to wait until the program is over, then start the automation development. We start the automation right from the build phase, then we are able to deliver test automation on day one to the SIT.

If you look at the customer's experience, we have seen that if you take any testing engagement, whether it is large-scale system integration testing activities, UAT, or regression testing, and have seen that companies involve their business workforce to do lot of manual testing. Then, the business needs to take from the business critical activities and focus on testing. Worksoft significantly reduces the testing effort involved, so they can focus on their business critical activities. 

The company has been investing in a lot of new features. They are changing the trend in market demand, especially with their Worksoft Analyze features. These are important for customers when they have massive test case documentations. In addition, Worksoft is changing their direction towards Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

If you take any Robotic Process Automation, the key things you need are:

• The ability to automate SAP.
• The integrated software applications.
• Support for continuous testing or providing a platform to adopt DevOps.

I can see that Worksoft has been investing in these areas to make the product more relevant for SAP-centric platforms.

Another fantastic thing about Worksoft Certify is using it for end-to-end testing of packaged applications. We are able to automate, not just SAP, but the entire application ecosystem. If you take any company, SAP is the backbone, and if they use SAP ERP, then, there are multiple software applications, where some of them are SAP and some of them are non-SAP applications. Worksoft is one of the tools which can transcend across SAP and non-SAP applications. Non-SAP application include Java or .NET. Worksoft can seamlessly automate these applications.

If you take any ALM tool, Worksoft can be easily integrated, whether it is Micro Focus ALM or SAP Solution Manager. Another important thing is Worksoft's integration with SAP Solution Manager BPCA, this is helping customers to set up a risk-based testing platform. They can do impact assessment and identify test scripts to be tested based on the transports to be applied. Then, import that testing suite into Worksoft Certify and trigger the automation. We have seen that bi-directional integration between SAP solution manager and Worksoft Certify. This makes the product seamless, and if you take any company, they have their own ALM tool and the level of usage of Solution manager is varying. WIth the API that Worksoft provides, it can be easily integrated with the leading test management tools available in the market.

I would like Worksoft Certify to do automation at any layer (the UI layer, API layer, or database layer) and challenge competitors in the RPA industry, like UiPath and Automation Anywhere. 

A lot of customers are looking at testing, not just at the UI level, but testing the application or their ecosystem at the API layer. Worksoft could invest on testing on APIs. There are some open source tools available in market which do this, like SoapUI. 

The stability of the automation tool to run without any performance issues has improved with the use three-tier architecture. The three-tier architecture in Worksoft can help the customers access applications across globe. If global customers have geographically diverse teams, we recommend customers go with a three-tier architecture.

We have seen the customers starting their automation journey from zero test scripts to 8000 or 10,000 scripts. We have seen that Worksoft is able to scale up, then run thousands of test scripts concurrently and deliver value.

One of our customers has about 10 SAP applications with about 70 plus non-SAP applications. So, we automate approximately 80 SAP and non-SAP applications using Worksoft Certify.

A lot of our customers have used the technical support. Worksoft has a very good customer success team, as well as technical support team. When we started our first relationship with Worksoft, we had to build the integration between ALM and Worksoft Certify. So, Worksoft was agile enough to build that integration faster. We can see that the technical support team is fast enough to resolve some of the product bugs for any customer queries quickly. The team is open to build any type of new integrations to support the emerging tools available in the market.

As a partner, we help our customers to invest in the right tools and platform. So, we educate our customers to buy Worksoft Certify. We help them to build a business case or plan and do a joint PoC with Worksoft. We enable and empower our customers with enough details and help them to invest in the right automation tool for SAP, which is Worksoft Certify.

Some of our customers do not have any tools in their landscape. In that case, it is easy to position Worksoft Certify. Other customers already have other automation tools in their landscape in which they are experiencing a lot of pain points with their automation tool. They invested a lot of money in their automation tools and framework, but they did not realize the benefits. Therefore, we help those customers move away from their existing tools to Worksoft Certify. If they decide to build on their existing tool and use Worksoft Certify, it's a very complicated decision. We need to build a very strong business case and we also need to help the customers to migrate the automation test suite.

Worksoft installation is straightforward. They have a dedicated team to support the customers during the initial installation. It doesn't take more than couple of days to complete the installation. A lot of our customers are very happy with the way Worksoft completes the initial installations. 

Also, the professional services offered by Worksoft to help the customer to set up the test automation best practices using Worksoft has been helping the customers to roll out enterprise wide automation using Worksoft Certify.

Worksoft Capture 2.0 can help our customers to accelerate their automation development at least 40 percent faster than any other commercial tools available in the market.

We have seen that the initial Worksoft implementation has helped our customers reduce their testing cycle time by 50 percent. With further continuous improvement, we have seen cycle time reduced up to 75 percent. That is the level of productivity achieved using Worksoft Certify.

If I compare Worksoft Certify with other script-based automation tools, the test maintenance is relatively faster. We save about 60 to 70 percent of the maintenance effort by using it because it's model-based and scriptless. This helps the business team and the automation testers to quickly identify the changes needed to be introduced in the automation scripts.

The typical value realization takes about six to 12 months based on the number of scripts and how often the customer wants to execute.

Worksoft can help you to select the right automation platform, then deliver value quickly.

Our customers evaluate three or four major products along with Worksoft: Micro Focus UFT, Tricentis Tosca, Testimony from Basis Technologies, and then some of open source tools. Some of the customers evaluate all the tools, and some of the customers pick one of the other tools along with Worksoft Certify to make their decision.

There are a lot of tools available in the market. However, if you take any automation project, the lead time to implement an automation solution is typically, painfully longer. It may not give the right return on investments. 

We could have gone with any commercial tools available in the market or open source tools, but going with Worksoft gave us a few advantages. We were able to deliver and implement automation two and a half times faster than any other automation tools. Then, if you look at the total cost of effort to build, maintain, and run the scripts in the customer landscape, it is phenomenally low compared to other tools in the market.

Worksoft gives you return on investment faster than its competitors. It will make your QA organization more agile and nimble.

We recommend our customers be very serious about automation and not to experiment with too many tools. Start with a small PoC or pilot. Involve their business team to articulate the value of what Worksoft can deliver, not just within the IT department, but also the business. 

Worksoft Certify has ease of use, ease of maintenance, and value realization. Automation is not just completing testing faster, it's about reducing production support incidents, after go-live or ongoing production support incidents. It's a collective total cost of ownership and all about delivering value to the IT operations team, IT project team, and the business team.

With Capture 2.0, we have seen the product evolve. Worksoft Capture 2.0 is helping our customers to accelerate automation development. Introducing automation around day one is only possible because of Capture 2.0. When we are in the build phase, we can capture the important screens, whether it is in SAP Fiori apps, the SAP GUI, or SAP cloud apps. During the development phase, we can start building the automation scripts, then start leveraging automation on day one in SIT.

Worksoft can support modern UIs quite easily, such as SAP Fiori and Oracle Fusion. If you look at the modern UIs, it is all about the customer experience, and we have seen that Worksoft can evaluate that modern user interface and ensure that the customer experience is delivered as expected.

We use this solution mainly for SAP automation and for some web applications and we also use the reporting feature. I'm a quality assurance project manager.

I would recommend Worksoft mainly for SAP. It has all the in-built functionality and Worksoft is a wonderful tool. They've introduced the hook feature in this latest version and it's great. In general, the latest version is significantly better than the earlier ones. 

I would like the Worksoft web application to be more robust. For example, SRM has different modules in SAP. When we automate some of those objects in the web app, it's initially fine, but after a couple of executions, we need to again record that particular object or get Worksoft to identify that particular object again. It works well with the SAP R/3 or GUI but there are limitations with the web application and Worksoft needs to improve that area. In terms of additional features, we'd like to see the default report which we generally get after the execution is completed. There should be an option to customize reports according to our requirements. Tosca provides that feature but it's unavailable in Worksoft.

I've been using this solution for five years. 

The solution is stable. When we're undergoing upgrades or version changes, some maintenance is required but it's quite easy. 

The solution is scalable. In my project, we have a team of around 100 people, 20 of whom are using Worksoft. We have a dedicated automation team. To date, we have automated more than 3,000 test cases using Worksoft.

Worksoft provides good technical support. They've helped us resolve issues numerous times. It's wonderful. 

Positive

We have introduced other tools like Tosca which we use as a codeless tool because it wasn't possible for us to automate through Worksoft. Where there are web application limitations in Worksoft, we switch to Tosca.

Because we have a dedicated team that takes care of deployment, it's a smooth process for us. 

I believe licensing costs are based on the number of users and licensing is on an annual basis. 

Worksoft is a good tool to start with as it is a codeless tool. There's no requirement for coding language knowledge. 

We rate this solution eight out of 10. 

The primary use case is to automate their SAP and Web applications. We use Worksoft Certify for end-to-end regression and integration testing across our systems.

It helps us to implement automation testing as part of most projects, so the need for manual testing can be reduced. This really accelerates the testing process as a whole. Before, where it could take ten days to test a project, now it takes only one or two days to do the complete testing. So, it helps us to reduce our testing timelines.

We no longer need ten people sitting and manually testing something. We can just have one person running the entire regression automation testing suite, and this has saved us dollars.

I have found Capture 2.0 helpful compared to Capture 1.0. It allows you to have access to all the screenshots when you use it so you see what steps you are capturing, and if you are capturing it right or not. It is very user-friendly.

It is easy to use and learn the application. For example, I have an intern who joined me three months ago. Today, she delivers the same number of scripts as my experienced developers with great quality.

One feature that could be added to Capture 2.0 is generating a PDF file from your capture, so you can see your screenshots and steps. This will really help teams leverage the documents generated as part of requirement/training.

Right now, when we do regression testing, we manually have to generate all the reports and populate all the results in HP ALM. We really are looking for a solution to have send all the results to HP ALM once Execution Manager completes the execution, then automatically logs them.

Our offshore teams experience a lag/delay when using the Worksoft interface. As of now we use VPN and Remote Desktop to help us with this issues, it was be great to see how much Certify 11 has improved in terms to offshore accessibility.

Every time there is a new release of Worksoft, they present it in a conference. However, there is no training document nor one point of solution where I one see what new changes/feature have been implemented, like a portal. If I don't know how to use a feature, there is no training nor documentation available. When you reach out for support, it takes time for them to research it and get back to us.

I would like more use cases or at least a weekly email update to all the customers saying, "These are new features which have been included in the last week." That would really help.

Worksoft with SAP is pretty stable. 

When it comes to the web, you need a lot of extra effort in making sure that the tests are maintained, but that is the nature of the web application. You have stuff that is changing all the time, so you have to ensure that you maintain your tests regularly.

We have learned the scalability part over time. We were very successful with SAP, but not very successful with the web. Over the period of about two years, we were able to prove to our company that we can use Worksoft for different type of applications. While there is a learning curve, it is all about trying things out and failing few times before you get a success.

I would rate the technical support as a seven out of ten. There is a delay in time zones when we reach out to them. The response is not as quick as we expect it to be with the other solutions that we have. There is definitely a delay in timing, as the speed is lacking.

The initial setup was easy. We had all the information and the requirements that we needed to do the prep work before doing the implementation.

We have Worksoft help us each time that we do an upgrade or implementation. Our  upgrades have gone smoothly.

An example of saving time and dollars: We had project going on that used to require manual testing. The first time that they did manual regression testing, we had a group of about 15 testers who sat in our office for a period of two weeks to do the testing. Now, when we have to regression testing with automation scripts ready in our Worksoft Certify, we do it in a day or two. 

We looked at quite a few vendors and automation tools in the market. We chose Worksoft because of the ease of use and mentorship support they provide in making sure we were successful.

For a new customer who is to implement Worksoft Certify, I would suggest 'Start the right way'. Have a Worksoft mentor come in and help you with your automation journey specific to your organization so you can have expert support until you become successful with it. Once you are successful, you'll know what to do. E.g., we had a team of interns who got trained and they tried to work with it, but it did not work. Then, we had Worksoft help us (after two years), and it worked. 

My team and I do the regression testing. We are a team of three to four people. We are not working on just one project, we are working on five or six different projects.

What's next, well I hope we are able to present that next success story in next conference ;)

We have done one POC (proof of concept) for Worksoft Certify, for one application, for one of our clients. The POC was successful, so we implemented the solution. We did it for a pharmaceutical product, a pharmaceutical domain.

What I found most valuable in Worksoft Certify is its identification feature. I also found its automation feature valuable.

What could be improved in Worksoft Certify is its integration with other tools, for example, test management tools such as Jira, ALM, or any other test management tools. That integration is missing.

I've used Worksoft Certify for two years, and I've used it in the last twelve months.

Worksoft Certify is a stable solution. I'm rating it a four out of five in terms of stability.

Worksoft Certify is scalable, and I'm giving its stability a rating of four out of five.

The technical support for Worksoft Certify was really impressive. It was really good. We needed to create new controls, and we got a good response from their team. On a scale of one to five, with one being the worst and five being the best, I'm rating them a five.

The initial setup for Worksoft Certify was very simple. On a scale of one to five, with five being the best and one being the worst, I'm giving the initial setup a five.

Deploying Worksoft Certify took just one hour after getting the license. The implementation was done by our in-house team.

I'm not aware of any licensing costs for Worksoft Certify.

Worksoft Certify is in hybrid mode in terms of deployment.

Currently, there are 50 users of Worksoft Certify in the company.

My rating for Worksoft Certify is ten out of ten.

Worksoft Certify is being used to run automated weekly regression tests across some of our primary SAP systems in line with our Change and Release management strategy. These tests run every weekend without fail. The results are reviewed on every Monday morning to check for failures and to analyse if any failures are associated with the changes scheduled to be transported to the production environment that week. Failures (if any) are fixed and the tests re-run before transporting the associated changes into the Production environment.

We also utilize it for projects that need extensive business-user testing and functional testing. There can be testing requirements which come at short notice which can take three to four weeks of manual testing effort. By using Certify, we have been able to bring timescales down to a few hours of automated testing effort.

Our final goal is to utilise this for 'Unify', our new global solution which is currently being deployed, which will deliver common processes and systems to all sites and sectors, replacing all our existing legacy systems which will demand extensive regression testing. 

We have never had any systematic regression testing regime in the organisation. This has helped in building an automation framework across our SAP application landscape, thereby introducing mandatory regression testing across all our key systems and improving the overall quality across our production systems.

From an audit perspective, results generated from Certify (BPP reports) provides detailed test evidence which is also being utilized for internal training purposes/training guides, etc. The BPP reports also provide details on failures along with screenshots.

We have a variety of complex systems in our landscape, one of them being the Openlink Endur which is a commodity trading and risk management system. We are currently building an automated regression test suite to support application testing for Endur.

Our weekend regression tests are performed in 'lights-out; mode. Tests are scheduled to run at a certain time over the weekend using the Execution manager functionality. Usage of Certify has also prevented some major defects going into Production and we have seen significant savings in all manual testing activities as the business users/functional teams are getting more time to perform 'value- adding' activities.

Post our recent upgrade to Solution Manager 7.2, we are currently in the process of implementing the Test suite functionality and the integration of the same with Certify. We expect Solution manager to be the single source of truth bringing out all the results from Certify which is going to be extremely beneficial from an audit perspective. We have already implemented the integration of Certify with HP ALM in our landscape.

Moreover, we have this reusable asset now which can be run frequently to support all our projects and change requests across our legacy SAP systems. Even last-minute testing requests are being accommodated by utilising the automated regression suite without any dependency on business users/functional users for their efforts. We use it across the multiple projects which need immediate assistance and for our weekly regression cycles. To give an example of a recent project which was a major platform migration from a Data Centre in Asia to Europe which needed extensive Disaster recovery testing and Functional testing/User acceptance testing. The initial testing estimate was approximately five to six weeks, however with the use of Certify we could do extensive testing in less than three hours saving many weeks of manual testing effort.

It is very user-friendly with an appealing UI, unlike a lot of other automation tools that we have evaluated. With sufficient training and adoption of best practices, the tool will certainly help organisations to successfully implement an automated testing framework and eliminate manual testing activities.

The fact that it can be used across SAP and non-SAP applications (including web-based apps like Web Dynpro) is a big advantage for us because we have a variety of SAP and non-SAP applications across the Johnson Matthey IT landscape. Being a 200-year-old organisation, our variety of legacy systems have a lot to benefit from the use of automated testing.

Certify has many interesting features, e.g.: 'PRIMO' which is the image recognition functionality is a life saver in instances where Certify standard functionality cannot identify and learn objects within certain legacy applications.

Regarding end-to-end testing of packaged applications, Certify is primarily used across our SAP application landscape and the Openlink Endur (commodity trading and risk management system). We hope to realise more benefits by implementing Certify across our wider application landscape over the next few months.

We have been using the Capture feature, although not the latest version, the initial version, for process captures was used to create our test designs. It has been a life saver in many instances, without the need to spend any extra effort to create test designs and captures. The test steps get captured in the background which generates an XML file which can be easily imported into Certify, creating the basic test structure which can be improvised/modified to make it a repeatable reusable test. In terms of the amount of time it takes users to create documentation automation using this feature, it is the same amount one would spend to do a manual test. While a person is performing a manual test, Captures are automatically generated in the background. We have used it extensively to build our test designs.

We have requested for some minor new features which Worksoft is considering.

The PRIMO image recognition functionality has room for improvement, especially around its ability to work with java interfaces, Execution manager scheduling, etc. as we have observed. As we explore more of our legacy systems, I am certain there will be a need to use more of the PRIMO features to learn the objects.

Overall from a SAP perspective, it works almost seamlessly.

One to three years.

The version of Certify that we are using has been mostly stable and we have rarely encountered any problems. Our weekend regression test failures are often associated with environmental/system performance issues and not related to the stability of Certify. I have been happy with the overall performance of Certify and how it has helped to optimise our tests.

I am confident that Certify can scale to fit our automation testing needs as we expand the current automation testing framework across the wider Johnson Matthey application landscape. We are also exploring options to identify potential areas where Certify can help support mass data uploads, etc. to benefit other teams in their day to day operations.

We have several concurrent users accessing Certify in our environment, primarily automation engineers, test engineers and tech managers.

Our interactions with technical support has not been the best always and there is room for improvement especially with respect to the time taken to respond to cases. However, with the right contacts and reasonable escalations we have always managed to get quick attention on our issues.

We have always been heavily reliant on manual testing and as a result, regression testing was not systematic and we could never think of implementing frequent weekly regression test cycles which was challenging. We decided to go ahead with automated testing and use Certify because:

1. Manual regression testing takes a lot of time and resourcing is always a challenge.
2. Regression testing not being systematic, the quality was very difficult to measure as we did not have a standard set of manual regression test scripts/sufficient documentation.
3. There was a delay in our time-to-market because all the testing was being done manually and there was no way we could accommodate frequent, weekly, regression test cycles. That meant high business risk, that we would have more defects in the production environment/ more associated costs.

We had all these challenges and we started exploring options to mitigate these risks and automation was identified as the way forward, nearly two years ago. We evaluated various automation tools in the market. It was critical that we had to identify a strategic tool which would cater to our SAP and non-SAP application landscape. Worksoft Certify came in as a big winner ticking most of our requirements.

We went through a lot of initial challenges, mostly around internal resourcing issues. Looking back, I am happy to say that we could overcome these challenges and have managed to successfully implement an automation framework using Certify.

Early in 2017, we decided to go ahead with Worksoft Certify post evaluation of multiple automation tools. Our initial engagements with Worksoft consisted of several onsite workshops to explore the tool in detail along with technical feasibility assessments across our application landscape. These engagements were extremely beneficial and it gave us the overall confidence to adopt Worksoft Certify as our strategic test automation tool.  

We did a pilot implementation with Worksoft to see if we could take this ahead on a large scale before embarking on the major project to build the automated tests. Some key processes across our critical SAP systems were identified as candidates for this exercise. Test designs were created with support from the functional teams and taken ahead for automation build with Senior Worksoft consultants and our internal resources. This 7-week Automation Roadmap Engagement exercise was extremely successful and we learned a lot of lessons from it which helped us plan the next big phase of the automation roll out. It gave us overall confidence across the functional and management teams which subsequently led to securing the appropriate budget, etc.

One of the biggest lessons learned from this engagement was around the ways to structure our teams. This led to us going ahead with a Managed Services model with Worksoft. We have an offshore based Worksoft Automation Services Factory team who helps build our automated tests. The team can scale up/down based on our automation forecasts.

The automation deployment is still ongoing. The initial phase was completed across a five-month span. Currently we are rolling out the second phase of the automation build focusing primarily on our global Unify solution and the Openlink Endur application.

Regarding implementation strategy, we followed an agile two-week sprint approach. Our functional teams continuously created test designs and these were fed to the Automation Factory every two weeks, who in turn developed the automated tests. This was the most practical model, which worked well in our environment.

At its maximum capacity, we have had approx. 10 to 12 automation engineers in the Factory team. Our functional teams are spread across multiple global locations and we had between 3 to 6 resources working on test designs liaising with the business users as required.

From a script maintenance perspective, we spend an average of 4 to 5 hours every week with the current asset of nearly 800+ tests.

We have always worked directly with Worksoft, along with support from our internal resources. Worksoft has been delivering excellent services through their managed services model.

We have a res-usable re-runnable asset built which is saving a lot of time across the functional teams/business user community.

Our final goal is to utilise this for 'Unify', our new global solution which is currently being deployed, which will deliver common processes and systems to all sites and sectors, replacing all our existing legacy systems, which will demand extensive regression testing. 

It is expensive compared to some of the other automation tools in the market. However, the benefits and ROI has proved that it has been a good investment.

We have concurrent licenses.

SAP TAO and Micro Focus UFT.

It was critical to identify a strategic tool which would cater to the testing requirements across our SAP and non-SAP application (including web based apps like Web Dynpro) landscape. Worksoft Certify came in as a big winner ticking most of our requirements.

It is a great product and we have not seen anything which cannot be automated till date in our application landscape.

It is important to do sufficient technical feasibility assessments before deciding to go ahead with Certify and equally important to determine the best implementation approach which will work for your organisation. Functional teams/business users' buy in is critical as the test designs cannot be created without their continued support. Adoption of best practices around naming conventions/folder structures etc. will help in easy overall maintenance of the test assets, which will also help with the generation of development and execution dashboards/overall reporting.

I would rate Certify at eight out of ten. Worksoft has always been very supportive and responsive to our needs and this has certainly helped us achieve our initial milestones successfully. I am extremely proud of what has been achieved so far and looking forward to expanding the automation framework across our wider IT application landscape over the months ahead.

I primarily used the platform for SAP projects.

From a functional perspective, I found all the solution features quite useful. Excel automation was a valuable feature that was much more efficient than working with record sets. Using it helped significantly reduce time when dealing with large datasets. 

Another standout feature is the ease with which a non-coding professional can be trained to use it for automation. The codeless automation feature, especially for SAP applications, made the process simpler and more efficient.

The product could be improved in terms of web applications. One challenge I faced was that web application parameters often change in the back end, affecting the automation scripts. Small changes in the HTML page design can impact the automation process, unlike SAP, where the script remains stable unless there is a functional change. Therefore, maintaining automation for web applications requires more effort.

If my script is long and involves a large data set with over a hundred entries, it can slow down or become inefficient. I suggest improving how the platform handles large datasets during lengthy scripts.

I have worked with Worksoft Certify for over five years.

Worksoft Certify has good integration capabilities with third-party tools. For instance, I successfully integrated it with Excel and PDF. Although I haven't used the mobile features, it supports desktop applications well. In my projects, especially SAP, it handled invoicing and PDF verifications seamlessly. 

It is a codeless automation tool. It allows even freshers to be trained and become productive within a month. Regarding project cost, having a senior resource oversee the automation is feasible, while junior resources can handle the bulk of the work. Although it is a licensed product, it significantly saves time and effort, especially with its internal tools that allow testers to capture and automate steps efficiently.

Overall, I rate it a six out of ten. 

In my company, the solution is used for SAP automation.

The technical support of the product is an area of concern where certain improvements are required.

I have been using Worksoft Certify for more than three years.

I am satisfied with the tool's stability. There have been no issues with the product's stability.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven to eight out of ten.

The tool's scalability features did meet my company's goals. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven to eight out of ten.

The solution's technical support was pretty good. There is a ticketing system and a call system to contact the product's support team.

I rate the technical support a six to seven out of ten.

Neutral

For automation purposes, my company works with multiple open-source tools, like Selenium and Java, along with a few license-based tools, like Worksoft Certify, QuickTest Professional, HP ALM, LoadRunner, IBM Rational Performance Tester, and OpenText Silk Test.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

There is a separate team in my company who has taken care of the product's deployment phase.

I chose the tool for my company since it suits the purpose for which I use it.

A specific feature that I found to be the most valuable in the solution for our company's work processes stems from the fact that it is useful as a low-code automation tool.

The tool is good for dealing with end-to-end testing scenarios in our company, and in my organization, we use it for SAP testing.

The tool is useful for functional testing, and it did add some value to my company.

The tool is useful to automate business workflows. My company used the product to automate the test cases for whichever systems were under testing phases.

I used the low code automation functionalities provided by the product. I did not use the scriptless test automation feature of the tool.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.