What are the best methods and techniques for testing and debugging the automated processes?

Business process automation (BPA) can help you streamline your workflows, reduce errors, and save time and money. But before you launch your automated processes, you need to test and debug them to ensure they work as expected and meet your quality standards. In this article, you'll learn some of the best methods and techniques for testing and debugging the automated processes, such as:

1 Define clear objectives and criteria

Before you start testing and debugging, you need to define what you want to achieve with your automated processes and how you will measure their success. For example, you might want to specify the expected inputs, outputs, triggers, exceptions, and performance indicators of your processes. Having clear objectives and criteria will help you design your test cases, identify potential issues, and evaluate the results.

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JL Suarez, MBA

🏆 50+ Awarded LinkedIn Top Voice Badges: 🚀Manager of Enterprise Data Services at Holiday Inn Club Vacations🌐: Inspiring Innovation & Leadership in Business Intelligence📊
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Defining clear objectives and criteria is like setting the destination for a road trip 🚗💨. Without a clear destination, you might end up driving in circles. Similarly, in business process automation, knowing exactly what you want to achieve ensures that you're not just automating for the sake of it, but actually driving efficiency and value. Set those KPIs and make sure your automated processes are hitting the mark! 🎯📈 #BusinessIntelligence #AutomationGoals #EfficiencyMatters

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Imrul Kayes

Co-Founder, Camel Tech | Business Automation Expert
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Defining clear objectives and criteria is key to effectively testing and debugging automated processes. You need to know exactly what success looks like, such as reduced error rates or faster processing times. In one project, we set specific goals for our automated customer service system, like answering queries within 10 seconds. By having this target, it was easier to test if the automation worked as expected. Clear objectives help you focus on what's important during testing, ensuring the automation aligns with your business goals and functions properly before going live. This approach leads to smoother implementations and fewer surprises.

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2 Use a test environment and data

One of the best practices for testing and debugging the automated processes is to use a separate test environment and data that mimic the real production environment and data as closely as possible. This will help you avoid interfering with your live processes, data, and systems, and prevent any unwanted consequences or errors. You can also use tools like mock services, stubs, or simulators to simulate the external dependencies or integrations of your processes.

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JL Suarez, MBA

🏆 50+ Awarded LinkedIn Top Voice Badges: 🚀Manager of Enterprise Data Services at Holiday Inn Club Vacations🌐: Inspiring Innovation & Leadership in Business Intelligence📊
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Using a separate test environment that closely mimics your production setup is crucial for effective testing and debugging of automated processes. This practice ensures that your live systems remain unaffected by potential errors during testing. 🛠️ Additionally, leveraging tools like mock services, stubs, or simulators can help you replicate external dependencies, providing a comprehensive testing scenario. 🌟 This approach not only safeguards your operational integrity but also enhances the reliability of your automation efforts. 🚀

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3 Apply different types of testing

Depending on the complexity and scope of your automated processes, you might need to apply different types of testing to verify their functionality, reliability, usability, and security. For instance, unit testing can be utilized to check individual components or steps of your processes. Integration testing can be used to confirm how your processes interact with other systems or processes. Regression testing is helpful for determining if your processes still work after any changes or updates. User acceptance testing helps ensure that your processes meet the end-user expectations and requirements. Load testing can be used to evaluate how your processes handle high volumes of data or requests, while security testing can be done to verify that your processes are protected from unauthorized access or attacks.

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4 Use debugging tools and techniques

Even after testing, you might encounter some errors or bugs in your automated processes that need to be fixed. To do that, you can use various debugging tools and techniques, such as logs to track the events and activities of your processes, breakpoints to pause and inspect the execution of your processes at specific points, step over, step into, and step out commands to control and navigate the execution of your processes, watch expressions to monitor and evaluate the values of variables or parameters in your processes, and error handling and recovery mechanisms to catch and resolve any exceptions or failures in your processes.

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Patrick Kool

Monday.com Expert | Your Shortcut to a Custom Monday.com CRM
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Start by using logs to track what’s happening during the process. They give you a clear view of events and errors. Then, set breakpoints to pause the process and inspect it closely at specific points. Use step over and step into commands to control execution and see exactly where things go wrong. Keep an eye on watch expressions to monitor variables in real-time. Finally, always have error handling in place to catch and fix any exceptions.

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5 Document and review the results

The final step of testing and debugging the automated processes is to document and review the results. You should record the test cases, scenarios, data, outcomes, issues, and fixes of your testing and debugging activities. You should also review the results against your objectives and criteria, and analyze the performance, quality, and efficiency of your processes. This will help you identify any gaps, improvements, or opportunities for your processes, and ensure they are ready for deployment.

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6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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What are the best methods and techniques for testing and debugging the automated processes?

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1 Define clear objectives and criteria

2 Use a test environment and data

3 Apply different types of testing

4 Use debugging tools and techniques

5 Document and review the results

6 Here’s what else to consider

Business Process Automation

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