Lesson 4 of 5
Monitoring apps as a test tool
9 min
During a test cycle, hundreds of test orders flow through the system. Testers look at the documents they created; nobody looks at the ones that stopped half way. The monitoring apps from lesson 2 are the fastest way to find test documents that are stuck between steps, which are often defects nobody has reported.
A daily stuck-document check
Priya asks Maria to run a 15-minute check every morning of the test cycle in QAS client 100, filtered to the test sales organization and the cycle's date range. Each step looks for documents that should have moved on but did not.
- Orders with issuesFulfillment issue app: credit, delivery and billing blocks; incomplete; not confirmed
- Orders due but not deliveredSales order items due for delivery past their date
- Deliveries without goods issueOutbound delivery monitor: picked or created, goods movement not posted
- Due but not billedBilling due list: deliveries and order-related items not yet invoiced
- Billed but not postedBilling documents not released to accounting (VFX3 in SAP GUI)
- InterfacesFailed outputs and inbound messages for orders, deliveries and invoices
Each line the check finds goes into one of three buckets: an open test step (the tester simply has not done it yet), an expected block (part of a negative test), or an unexplained stop, which becomes a defect or a question for the scenario owner. After a few days the list shrinks to the genuinely interesting cases.
- Does the document belong to an active test case?Yes → ask the tester whether the next step is still to come · No → orphan test data; clean up or investigate
- Is the stop expected by the test case (for example, a credit block test)?Yes → record as expected · No → continue
- Is there an error message or log explaining the stop?Yes → raise a defect with the message and document number · No → raise a question to the scenario owner
- Has the same stop appeared on several documents?Yes → link them to one defect; likely configuration or interface · No → treat individually
Why this finds defects scripts miss
Test scripts end where their author stopped thinking. A script that ends at "create invoice" never notices the invoice did not post to accounting. A script for a quotation never checks whether the order created from it was later blocked for credit. The monitoring check looks at the whole population of test documents, regardless of which script created them, and it looks at the state after every step, not just the last one.
| Stuck state found | Contoso example | Defect it revealed |
|---|---|---|
| Billing documents not posted | Seven invoices with no journal entry | Revenue account determination missing for a new material group |
| Deliveries without goods issue | Twelve deliveries for plant 1720 | Storage location 172A not assigned for picking |
| Incomplete orders | All EDI orders from one customer | Interface mapping missing the purchase order date |
| Due but not billed | Third-party items never billed | Billing due list variant excluded order-related items |
Defects found by Contoso's daily check in the first test cycle. Examples are illustrative.
What would you do?
At the end of cycle 2, Priya reports a 98% pass rate. Maria's daily check, however, shows 23 billing documents not posted to accounting, all marked "pass" by their testers because the invoice was created. What should Priya do before reporting to Grace?
- Use monitoring apps daily during test cycles to find documents stuck between steps.
- Check blocks, undelivered orders, deliveries without goods issue, unbilled and unposted documents, and interfaces.
- Triage each stuck document: open step, expected stop or defect.
- Many documents with the same stop usually means configuration or an interface.
- Sign off a cycle only when nothing is left in limbo unexplained.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Why does a daily stuck-document check find defects that scripts miss?
2. What is the right first question for a stuck test document?
3. Many documents with the same stuck state appeared overnight. What is likely?
4. Which SAP GUI transaction helps find billing documents not released to accounting?