Top Global Manufacturer

Top global manufacturer automates ServiceNow testing for faster, safer updates

Company overview

From test automation zero to continuous testing heroes

ServiceNow is a key enabler for a $100B+ manufacturing company’s digitalization and automation. An IT team that’s 6500 strong relies on ServiceNow to power their IT portal, streamline IT management across hundreds of countries, and optimize collaboration with a multitude of IT service providers. Their ServiceNow platform is continuously updated—in response to the company’s highly dynamic needs as well as the vendor’s biannual upgrades.

With 350K users and so much of the business riding on the Now platform, it’s essential to ensure that continuous enhancements do not disrupt business continuity. However, their existing testing processes was 100% manual, and no amount of manual testing could support the growing scope and pace of updates.

That’s why the team responsible for de-risking ServiceNow updates recognized that it was time for a digital transformation of their own. In addition to running faster and more rigorous regression testing on each release, they also wanted to free resources for the creative “exploratory” testing known for uncovering elusive yet insidious issues before they reach production. They had a clear vision for the what they should be doing—but they needed a solution that would empower them to jumpstart automation with minimal disruption.

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Tricentis helped this top global manufacturer jumpstart ServiceNow test automation and de-risk continuous updates for a massive ServiceNow deployment.

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Challenges

  • Highly-customized ServiceNow footprint including Service Catalog, ITSM, Change Management, Knowledge Management, etc. interacting with legacy and custom systems
  • Many stakeholders, including 80 product owners distributed around the world
  • Manual testing could not achieve the coverage and speed that stakeholders required
  • Repetitive regression testing consumed all available testing resources, preventing the team from performing the creative, analytical testing that exposes complex change impacts
  • Manual efforts for defect management was extremely time consuming
  • It was a constant struggle for testing efforts to keep pace with weekly deployments
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Solution

Searching for a test automation solution that was suitable for their highly-customized ServiceNow applications and workflows—as well as intuitive for their team of non-technical testers—they considered 7 different test automation tools. After comparing the options on both technical capabilities and vendor support, they selected Tricentis Test Automation for ServiceNow. The combination of industry-leading ServiceNow automation, native integration into ServiceNow, and flexible, intuitive test creation capabilities made it their top choice. The company’s testers were eager to extend their testing reach with test automation, and adopted the solution immediately. Although they had no previous experience with test automation, they understood its power and were ready to uplevel their testing efforts. In just weeks, they were creating over a hundred automated tests using the 450+ out of the box commands as well as an intuitive test recorder. The team is now automatically regression testing each update to ensure that their business-critical IT processes continue to meet business expectations as the ecosystem evolves. Their next project: applying their growing test automation expertise to perform in-sprint test automation of each user story as it’s completed—including unit testing as well as functional testing.

Product Mix

“Test automation frees testers from the simple and repetitive tests so they can focus on complex testing scenarios and ‘bug hunting.'”

— Test Manager       case-studies-Manufacting-plant-illustration-300x281
  • Arrow Icon“ServiceNow is our company’s speed dial for digital transformation. It positions IT to provide better support and generate more value for the business. Our business evolves fast—and so must our ServiceNow deployment. Getting it right the first time is absolutely essential for us.” – Program director

Results

  • Weekly releases and upgrades are tested rigorously and released with high confidence
  • Daily testing is embedded within their delivery process—providing fast feedback on change impacts and exposing defects that would have otherwise gone unnoticed
  • Test coverage gaps were identified and addressed
  • 100% of core functionality is tested before each release is deployed
  • All stakeholders have real-time visibility into release readiness
  • Developers and testers are relieved from mind-numbing repetitive checking—freeing more time for creative and analytical work
  • Automated screenshots and video capture expedite defect reproduction and mitigation
  • Increased collaboration and productivity by having all testing activities centralized within ServiceNow
  • Business users without previous test automation experience began creating automation with minimal training using a point-and-click recorder