IFS automated testing: How Mahara makes IFS Cloud testing simpler

Keeping IFS Cloud up to date brings access to new capabilities, improvements and innovation. But every update also brings an important responsibility: making sure the processes your organisation relies on continue to work as expected.

For many IFS teams, that means repeating the same tests across finance, procurement, supply chain, projects, service and other critical business processes. When much of this testing is performed manually, it can consume valuable time from people who already have demanding day-to-day roles.

IFS automated testing offers a more efficient approach.

With Platned Mahara, organisations can automate repetitive IFS Cloud testing, improve consistency and reduce the effort required to validate updates and changes.

 

Why is IFS automated testing becoming more important?

 

IFS Cloud is designed for continuous innovation. Rather than treating an ERP system as something that is implemented and then left largely unchanged for years, organisations can benefit from a regular flow of updates and new capabilities.

However, regular change means regular testing.

Before changes are introduced into a production environment, organisations need confidence that important processes still operate correctly. A change in one area can potentially affect workflows elsewhere, particularly in complex environments involving integrations, configurations and business-specific processes.

Traditional manual testing can therefore create several challenges:

IFS automated testing helps organisations address these challenges by turning repeatable business processes into automated test cases.

 

What is Mahara?

 

Mahara from Platned is an IFS test automation tool designed specifically for IFS Cloud.

Mahara automates IFS Cloud testing by capturing business processes and turning them into reusable automated test cases. These tests can then be run repeatedly to validate IFS Cloud updates, configuration changes, patches and critical business processes.

Unlike generic testing tools that need to be adapted to an IFS environment, Mahara has been developed with IFS processes and users in mind.

It uses a no-code approach, allowing users to create automated tests without writing scripts. This makes IFS test automation more accessible to business users who understand how processes should work, rather than making organisations dependent on specialist developers.

 

How does Mahara automate IFS Cloud testing?

 

Mahara allows organisations to capture business processes and turn them into reusable automated tests. Once created, the tests can be run repeatedly without requiring a user to manually work through every step.

This gives teams a more practical way to handle recurring IFS Cloud testing activities. Automated test cases can be reused when validating:

For example, a manual test might require a user to log in, navigate through several screens, enter information, perform an action and check the result. That process may then need to be repeated across different scenarios.

Mahara automates these repetitive steps, allowing multiple test cases to be executed without someone manually working through each process.

This can significantly reduce the repetitive workload associated with IFS Cloud testing and allow teams to focus more attention on exceptions, results and areas where human judgement is required.

 

What is no-code testing in IFS Cloud?

 

No-code testing allows users to create and run automated IFS Cloud tests without writing scripts or programming code.

Mahara takes a no-code approach to IFS automated testing. Users can capture processes through the IFS Cloud interface and use those recordings to build reusable automated test cases.

This means the people who understand the business process can play a more active role in defining how it should be tested.

Without no-code automation, organisations may depend on developers or technical specialists to create and maintain automated tests. Mahara helps reduce this dependency, making it easier for organisations to develop a broader and more sustainable IFS Cloud testing strategy.

For organisations with large or complex IFS environments, this approach can also help increase testing capacity without placing additional demands on already busy teams.

 

How does AI-driven self-healing improve IFS automated testing?

 

Automated testing also needs to adapt as systems change.

A test created against one version of an application can encounter problems when elements of the interface or process change. Traditionally, this can require someone to investigate the failure, update the automation and run the test again.

Mahara uses AI-driven self-healing capabilities to help address this challenge.

When Mahara encounters certain issues during test execution, it can attempt to resolve the problem and rerun the affected test in the background.

This helps reduce the amount of manual intervention required to keep automated testing running effectively as the IFS Cloud environment evolves.

By reducing the maintenance effort associated with automated tests, AI-driven self-healing can help organisations maintain a more reliable and sustainable testing approach.

 

How does automated testing support the evergreen approach to IFS Cloud?

 

Automated testing becomes particularly valuable when organisations want to keep closer pace with the IFS Cloud update cycle.

Testing should not become a barrier to adopting useful improvements.

By creating a reusable library of automated test cases, organisations can establish a more repeatable process for validating updates. Tests can be run when required rather than rebuilding the testing approach each time a change occurs.

For organisations planning an IFS Cloud upgrade, automated testing can also provide a stronger foundation for validating critical business processes before, during and after the transition.

Over time, this can help organisations move away from testing as a major periodic exercise towards testing as part of their normal IFS Cloud lifecycle.

This supports a more manageable approach to continuous change, helping organisations adopt new capabilities while maintaining confidence in their existing business processes.

 

What can you automate with an IFS test automation tool?

 

An IFS test automation tool such as Mahara can automate repetitive testing across IFS Cloud updates, regression testing, user acceptance testing, configuration changes, business processes and patches.

Mahara can support testing across a wide range of IFS Cloud processes and scenarios, including:

The objective is not simply to automate testing for the sake of automation. It is to apply automation where it can remove repetitive effort while improving the consistency of testing.

By building a reusable library of automated tests, organisations can establish a more structured approach to validating changes across their IFS Cloud environment.

 

What are the benefits of automating IFS Cloud testing?

 

Automating repetitive testing activities can deliver practical benefits for organisations managing complex IFS Cloud environments.

Reduced manual testing effort

Automated tests can execute repetitive processes without requiring employees to complete every step manually, freeing up time for other business priorities.

Improved testing consistency

Automated test cases follow defined steps, helping organisations maintain a consistent approach to validating important business processes.

Greater testing capacity

Teams can execute multiple automated tests, making it easier to validate a broader range of scenarios without increasing the same level of manual workload.

More efficient update validation

Reusable tests can be run following updates, patches and configuration changes, helping organisations validate important processes more efficiently.

Reduced test maintenance

Mahara’s AI-driven self-healing capabilities can help reduce the manual effort required to maintain automated tests when certain changes occur.

Together, these benefits can help organisations make testing a more manageable part of maintaining and improving their IFS Cloud environment.

 

Build confidence into IFS Cloud change with Platned Mahara

 

Organisations need to keep their enterprise systems moving forward without introducing unnecessary operational risk.

Testing is an essential part of achieving that balance, but it does not need to mean repeatedly asking valuable employees to work through the same processes manually.

With IFS automated testing through Platned Mahara, organisations can build repeatable automated test cases, run multiple tests efficiently and use AI-driven self-healing to reduce the effort involved in maintaining their automation.

Combined with Platned’s wider IFS services, Mahara can help organisations establish a more manageable approach to continuous IFS Cloud change.

The result is a testing approach designed to support the way modern IFS Cloud environments evolve.

Spend less time repeating tests and more time getting value from IFS Cloud.

Discover Platned Mahara and explore a smarter approach to IFS automated testing.