Stage 2: Testing the Business Implementation

Now that you have all the requirements and have decided on the structures, you have a model of your proposed AAI environment. The next step is to test and refine this model.

Prerequisites and resourcing

Before starting the steps in this stage, ensure that you have competed all the steps of the previous planning stage. For information, see Stage 1: Planning the Business Implementation.

In this stage you will work primarily with a select sample of the following people to test your sample data set during actual execution times:

• Operators
• The new jobstream administrators for AAI
• Business process owners and analysts

Understanding the Goal and Scope of This Testing

The most important thing that you want to establish in the initial test rounds is that the operations staff can find their jobstreams, can understand what they see and that they know how to change the views they are looking at, and find further details on specific executions, how to compare executions, and, importantly, how to recognize and handle alerts. You want to also confirm that you have provided the right filters, and that the operators recognize what the filters are for and how to modify them to change the focus of what they see.

As the test environment evolves, you can broaden the focus of the testing to include the reporting and analysis functions. With these tests, you want to confirm that the reports provide the required aggregates and that the information and its presentation are helpful and self explanatory. You want to ensure that analysis teams understand how to interpret and mine the execution data that AAI provides. As these are less immediate needs, you can even test them much later in the implementation and then modify them more in Stage 4: Adapting and Refining the AAI Implementation.

Step 2a: Create the Initial Test Set

Choose two or three key business SLAs to create a small test set of jobstreams. Good choices for test SLAs are ones that have processes behind them which are typical in your environment.

Make sure to define all aspects of the jobstream execution and all the possible touchpoints. For example, define the following:

• The jobstreams, including:
  • The late criterion (based on the related SLA requirement)
  • The alerts
  • Trimming
• Alert recipients
• Filters for monitoring, for analysis, and for reporting
• Dashboards
• Reports

Best Practice for Learning

As the business area coordinator you are also the company's primary contact person for user questions about AAI. While you define the test set is the best time to build up your understanding and prepare to train others. Dedicate adequate time for this.

Hands on

At this stage, it is important that you create and configure the objects for this small test set manually in the AAI user interface. This hands-on experience will give you a deep understanding of what AAI offers and how your users will interact with AAI in their daily work. You will need this to know how to support your users as they learn and while they work.

After your test stage is complete and you are ready to bring in all the scheduler jobs you want to visualize in AAI, use batch scripting to handle the large initial volume.

Learning from Broadcom resources

Also use this time to familiarize yourself with the Broadcom learning resources, so you can identify what you can use when training your testers and users. You find learning resources

Step 2b: Prepare the Testers

To get the most from the testing exercise, ensure that you have the right people and that they know how to work with AAI to the extent that what they to do their daily tasks to test your sample jobstreams.

1. Identify the testers. Include operators of all kinds, shift supervisors, night shift operators.

   Who: For more information, see Operations Staff.

2. Ensure that testers have the necessary user privileges to at least the business areas and processes that they test, as well as any related process areas.

   How: For more information about this, see User Management.

3. Provide basic AAI training to the testers.

   How: You can teach the testers yourself to show them the features they need to know for their test. For example, teach everyone how to log in and navigate around AAI and then teach operators how to work with the Monitoring screens and with alerts. One important aspect that people need to learn about what a jobstream is and how to recognize
   

   Alternatively or additionally, point them to the following Broadcom sources:

   • In education offerings: To get a good, overall understanding of AAI capabilities, use the free, online education for Automation Analytics & Intelligence. For information, see Free Online Courses.
   • In this documentation: Start with the topics in the introductory sections, that is, see Welcome to Automation Analytics & Intelligence and Getting Started with AAI, which directs users to further information related to their responsibilities based on their user role.
     

Step 2c: Test the Initial Jobstream Set

This step is best done in an iterative process. Typically, you need about three test iterations to gather results and make adjustments until you are confident with your AAI configuration. For more complex organizations, you might need more iterations.

Each test iteration entails the following:

1. Allow the testers to use the AAI test environment for a full daily cycle. This way you can run the executions over different shifts, learn about each shift as well about the handover experiences.
2. Gather feedback from your testers.
3. Make adjustments to the configuration of the test set.

Continue testing iterations until you are satisfied that you have a solid, usable specifications that will serve your workload automation teams and provide a foundation for further evolution.

Next step:

Stage 3: Rolling Out AAI