A major component of RPA (robotic process automation) migrations—that is, migrating RPA estates from a legacy automation platform to a more modern one—is testing and deploying migrated automations in the destination platform and environment.
There is technology available, like Blueprint’s RPA Migration solution, that does the majority of the conversion and mapping work for you. Purpose-built RPA migration tools dramatically reduce the effort and resources needed to transition automation estates from one platform to another, however, those same automations still need to be tested and deployed in the RPA platform you’re switching to.
This article outlines how to test and deploy migrated automations in your destination RPA platform.
Step-by-Step Guide: Testing and Deploying Migrated Automations
Migrating automations from legacy RPA tools to new intelligent automation platforms is different than developing net-new automations. Even though development may be different, your organization’s RPA-SDLC (software development life cycle) should be applied and followed as closely as possible to ensure consistency, standardization, and quality.
Typically, most or all of the development activities after code completion for the destination RPA platform should be the same as that of a new development which would include the following steps:
#1 – Integration Testing
In terms of testing your migrated automations, the first activity you will want to perform is an integration test. In other words, end-to-end testing of all the automation components and systems that your bots interact with.
Integration testing checks for adherence to both functional and non-functional requirements such as performance, security, and reliability requirements.
#2 – User Acceptance Testing
As with any piece of software development, you will also want to perform user acceptance testing, validating your solution with end users, a business client, or one of their representatives.
#3 – Documentation
One of the major pain points of RPA lifecycle management has been the lack of documentation. Organizations struggle to completely understand what they have in their automation estates because there hasn’t been a committed practice to document RPA design and delivery.
RPA migrations offer an opportunity to remedy this challenge. As part of testing and deploying your migrated automations, documentation is a must.
In the documentation step, you should ensure that all relevant documentation is completed for operations and ongoing maintenance. This might take the form of Process Design Documents (PDD), Solution Design Documents (SDD), Technical User Manual, Support User Manuals, and any other documents as needed according to an organization’s SDLC standards.
#4 – Signoff
Before deployment, you will want to gather approvals from all your required RPA migration and automation stakeholders such as your business client, security officials, compliance officers, and operations team members.
#5 – Deployment
The final step of your testing and deployment automation process as part of your RPA migration project is the actual deployment of your migrated automations. This involves the launch of your automations in the destination platform’s production environment with the validation of all associated operations.
Even though testing and deploying migrated automations are not net-new software development initiatives, they should still follow the steps your SDLC protocols your organization requires. Essential procedures that should be observed include:
- Integration Testing
- User Acceptance Testing
- Documentation
- Signoff
- Deployment.
