PROGRAM UPDATE

Greater Efficiency for Implementation and Upgrade Efforts

CGI and the AMS Advantage® Program are committed to helping our state and local government clients make improvements to their business operations through new government-specific features and functionality. However, the duration and frequency of upgrades does not always meet the demand for the new features and functionality that drive those improvements. Organizations are often reluctant to make a change because upgrades involve more than just new software; there are customizations, interfaces, reports and technical dependencies to consider, as well as critical business processes.

Now the same proven process used by the AMS Advantage Software Quality Assurance Group for all baseline and client specific releases is available to address these challenges. Whether upgrading on your own, or using CGI’s Upgrade Services or Managed Advantage service, Automated Testing Services (ATS) provides a customized, efficient and reusable testing package that accelerates the upgrade process.

What is Automated Testing Services?
ATS consists of automated test executions of baseline and custom scenarios, batch cycle testing, as well as performance and load testing – all with client specific data. It can also include other custom testing such as Adobe form and AMS infoAdvantage report verification. This testing process has proven to be significant in the overall betterment of the AMS Advantage solution, and has continuously increased the quality of the releases to which this rigorous validation process has been applied.

How does Automated Testing Services work?
A snapshot of the current production environment is upgraded to the desired release, including both the database and the code base. This environment would include all relevant AMS Advantage products in production and targeted for ATS delivery.

Once this upgrade is complete, the testing activities are applied in this environment and a consolidated, tested version of the corresponding database upgrade scripts and upgraded code base are provided. Also provided is a customized installation package, including Production and Developer Installers.

What are the benefits of Automated Testing Services?

There are many benefits to leveraging CGI’s ATS offering. These principally fall under three main benefits.

• Efficient, outcome oriented testing: ATS provides an efficient testing package, because the automated testing is tailored according to each organization’s business processes and requirements. Custom modifications can also be included in order to validate that upgraded software still allows for proper use of those customizations. If software issues are identified in relation to these custom modifications, they can be addressed and resolved by CGI before they are encountered as part of client testing efforts. This allows the client testing efforts to focus more on results validation in business behavior and less on any technical issues in the code or environment.
• Integrated, complete upgrade package: As part of this effort, an upgraded client environment will be created in order to perform the custom testing. This environment will be built and validated by CGI. The deliverable is a fully upgraded environment, with consolidated database upgrade scripts, and the upgraded code base with installers, including any client customizations that are required in the new release. This code base will serve as the new production code base and the upgraded database scripts will be executed during final cutover.
• Faster delivery and reduced spending: The upgraded environment, including customized, consolidated upgrade components and database upgrade scripts, is delivered to the client and serves as the starting point for production upgrade to expedite delivery and reduce spend on testing activities and post upgrade issues.

Automated Testing Services provides efficient, focused, automated testing within an upgraded client environment. The result is a faster delivery method, allowing more focus on downstream upgrade activities, such as go-live readiness and cutover preparation and less on testing activities and post upgrade issues.