Cloud-first, AI-Powered test automation in SAP Cloud ALM
SmartBear participated in and won first prize at the ALMathon, the annual hackathon for SAP Partners. The challenge: Create innovative use cases to extend SAP Cloud ALM. So, we integrated Reflect, our AI-powered test automation product, into SAP Cloud ALM to enable users to automate their manual testing process.
The urgent need for test automation
As organizations accelerate cloud adoption using RISE with SAP and as they keep up with frequent S/4HANA Cloud updates, testing early and often becomes essential. SAP’s own guidance highlights continuous delivery with frequent updates, which raises the bar on repeatable, reliable testing at scale.
Manual testing can be time-consuming, error-prone, and costly. It often becomes a bottleneck that delays releases and increases business risk. Studies have shown that embracing test automation can accelerate application delivery by up to 4× while reducing errors and risk. Teams moving from mostly manual testing to more automated approaches often save thousands of person-hours and cut testing costs by 25% or more. These benefits translate into faster, more confident deployments and fewer firefights in production.
A new approach to solving this problem
Reflect brings a cloud-first, AI-native experience directly into SAP Cloud ALM for test creation, execution, and results, while aligning with existing workflows that business stakeholders, IT leaders and software teams already use. Test creation, execution, and result reporting all happen within the familiar SAP Cloud ALM interface, so there’s no context-switching to external tools. Automated test results flow back into SAP Cloud ALM’s Test Management, so stakeholders can see pass/fail status and reports alongside processes, requirements, and manual tests.
Why is Reflect better than existing solutions?
First of all, there’s zero configuration, Reflect truly is cloud-first. No installations or browser extensions are required to start automating. There is no need to download any .exe files or Chrome extensions; you simply open SAP Cloud ALM and start creating tests. The solution runs entirely on a cloud platform, and all the heavy lifting (test execution engines, browsers, etc.) is handled in the cloud. There’s no need to set up local machines or maintain VMs for test runs because the infrastructure scales for you.
Reflect has no-code automation with AI-powered test creation, and there are two intuitive ways to create tests without writing a single script.
- Record and play: This approach allows users to simply hit “Record” and then interact with the SAP application (or any web/mobile app) just as an end-user would. The tool captures each action and creates an automated test without the need for any manual scanning of objects to create models.
- AI-powered: This approach enables users to automatically generate automated tests from existing manual test cases documented in SAP Cloud ALM with a click of a button. This capability shortens the path to automating existing tests and makes it easy to build new ones from scratch.
Lastly, Reflect’s application coverage is broad. Reflect supports test automation for all SAP cloud applications out of the box. Whether you’re testing SAP Fiori apps, S/4HANA transactions, SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur, or any SAP application built with SAPUI5, Reflect can handle it. Reflect also supports non-SAP web applications and even mobile apps, enabling true end-to-end testing across hybrid workflows. In one platform, you get UI testing, API testing, and visual testing capabilities for web and mobile.
Reflects’s critical capabilities
To further streamline test automation, Reflect provides several advanced capabilities that are worth highlighting. These include:
- Reusable segments: Capture repeatable flows as reusable building blocks to speed up authoring and keep tests consistent
- AI assisted self-healing: When the application UI updates or the underlying technology changes, tests continue to run, reducing maintenance effort over time
- Simple and easy debugging: Users can troubleshoot their tests directly within the recording experience in case of errors vs going back and forth between the test modules and test execution
- Execution suites: Users can create a playlist of tests using an easy-to-use flowchart, schedule them directly from the automation interface, and run as many tests as needed in parallel
- Email and Slack notifications: When tests are complete, results are updated in SAP Cloud ALM, and users can configure them to be sent to their email, Slack, or MS Teams
Accelerate your SAP testing with Reflect
As SAP continues to accelerate its update cycle, organizations that can adapt quickly will be best positioned to succeed. By integrating Reflect’s cloud-first, AI-powered test automation directly into SAP Cloud ALM, businesses can significantly reduce the friction associated with frequent updates. This integration enables teams to test earlier and more frequently, ensuring that their SAP environments remain stable and performant. With Reflect, organizations can achieve faster time-to-market, improved quality, and reduced testing costs.
Find us on the SAP Cloud ALM Partners – Extensions page to learn more or try it free yourself!