The challenges and risks of ensuring ongoing MS D365 quality
Introduction
Traditional development approaches introduce bottlenecks to releasing quality software at speed. Agile methods are helping to address that issue. However, newly-created product teams using Agile and DevOps methods for delivery, commonly experience difficulty in completing testing in Sprints. On top of that, the IT skills shortage is affecting firms globally. In a competitive market, these factors are having a negative impact on getting quality products and services to market.
Many companies have found Microsoft Dynamics 365 to be an invaluable tool. It can be customized and configured according to the business's specific needs. Dynamics 365 (D365), however, is a complex suite of applications that requires continuous verification of thousands of business-critical processes. To ensure a high-quality D365 system, companies must incorporate testing and quality assurance into their product lifecycles. In fact, Microsoft recommends testing as the first step in their solution lifecycle model.
There are several best practices to ensure that D365 remains up to date with the latest feature releases and bug fixes. Still, testing can be challenging for companies that are new to D365 or have limited resources.
Watch the video to hear the insights shared from our Testhouse experts and clients
What are the challenges organisations must overcome to ensure D365 quality?
The first challenge is to identify the areas where quality needs to be considered. “If you don't think of these things at the beginning, they will come back and damage the program and the organisation once delivery has taken place,” says Steve Williams, CRM Programme Manager at Barratt Homes.
Some of these challenges arise because inexperienced companies over-engineer their D365 implementation. Unnecessary complexity results in testing and quality issues. Jermy Jose Director – Delivery Excellence and Innovations at Testhouse, says: “Some of the key challenges we have encountered with customers on their Dynamics journey is a limited knowledge of functionalities that exist within Dynamics. Due to this, customers tend to over-engineer their workflows via customisations and integrations.”
What key risks should be considered?
One of the key risks that need to be considered in your QA approach is risk of failure if the impact of Microsoft changes and updates are not analysed properly. “Just when you think your system is stable, a change comes along which needs to be implemented,” says Jermy Jose.
He adds: “The second risk is a failure in integration… (if) the integration and customization in your workflows are not validated from a functional as well as a non-functional angle. The third risk is the risk of security breaches due to inaccurate role-based security configurations which are not validated properly.”