Testing in QA!

This is a real incident form my second on site assignment, lets call it LFP. We were in the integration test cycle 3 phase of our project and just one month away from go-live. Unlike my first on site assignment where I was just part of the interfaces PI team, here I was working as both an ABAP and PI resource. I need to be honest here, my colleagues in this project are experienced ABAPers who have been on multiple on site assignments.

As you can imagine, being a month away from the project go-live, everyone was working hard to get the objects tested in the quality boxes, fixing the issues and testing to make sure everything looked perfect.  We had some smartforms i.e. in non-technology term it is just any other form which is like an order quotation, invoice etc that can be printed from the transactions in SAP and can even be sent electronically via emails / faxes. One of my colleagues here was responsible in developing this object in the project and was the single point of contact for all the issues related to smartforms and there sending mechanism. I have to admit he did a splendid job of getting this functionality achieved. 

When one of the forms was tested in the QA box the heading column in the form was blacked out and the rest of the form was getting printed with expected values. Now that was our top priority to quickly check why we were having the issue. We thought lets take a print and validate for other type of form. We did that and found the document had the same issue as the previous one. Then we thought, ok lets send it electronically to once of our email accounts and check if the document appears with the heading column in black. We triggered the same transactions in our QA box this time by selecting the email options. Better idea isn't it?  Before the emails are finally sent out from the system these get stacked up in the buffer and a separate transaction needs to be executed to release the buffer. Since we were in testing; the technology folks (we) had the access to release the buffer in the QA box. I logged into the transaction on my friends request and found that there were about 23 other emails/faxes queued up in the buffer.Without any hesitation, we executed the transaction to release all the emails from the queue. Finally got the email to our account and validated that the issue was with the printer drivers not with our program as the document that we received in the email was perfect. Please contact basis team, that is not our issue.

I (Tec1) and my other friend (Tec2) who tested this application went around with our business. In about 15-20 minutes after the testing we did, one of the functional consultant stops by my desk and asks me the whereabouts of my other friend who tested the application. And the conversation went on something like this:

FC1 (Functional Consultant1): "Hey dude, have you seen Tec2? I have an important issue that I need help on."

Tec1: "What's the problem? Is there anything I can help you?"

FC1: "There is a problem with some of our form application prints and emails. Can you help me with that?"

Tec1: "What kind of problem?"

FC1: "The emails of some of the invoice documents have been sent to the customers. The help desk folks are receiving calls from the customers enquiring about the emails they received. Do you have any idea who sent it?"

I completely forgot about the transaction that I executed to trigger emails and coolly answered the guy, "Hey you know what, I am not into this email / fax applications. Please check with Tec2, you should find him in the other cubicle. Anyways, I will pass on the word to him."

FC1 makes a move from that place looking for Tec2.

In the meantime, the director of the project walks down from his office in the second floor to the ground floor looks for the technology folks and the basis team. The place where technology team sits is actually a small corner in the office where the printers are placed. No one ever will imagine that people will be sitting in that corner and working. The directors face was red with anger and was searching for the technology team leads. We were surprised to find him at our place, and someone gave him a good news about the testing they were doing with some third party systems. The director had nothing to say on hearing the news and walked away from our place.

In another 15 mins, I go about my business and was looking for FC2 to test one of my other objects. There I find FC1 and FC2 working together and trying to find the documents that were sent to customers.

Tec1 to Fc2: "Sir, can you please test my other objects that is pending approval to QA?"

Fc2: "Nopes dude, we are debugging an important issue. Some one had sent invoices to customers from our QA system? We need to get the person identified ASAP. PMO is damn serious about this."

Tec1: "Oh did the emails actual got sent to the real customers? Hmm..when did this happen?"

Fc1: "About 30 mins back."

Then the bulb glows in my mind and I (Tec1) says,,"You know what, I think I executed the buffer to debug my print issue. Anyways, this is QA box right, why will the emails go to the actual customers?"

Fc1: "Dude, as part of the mock cut over task performed in QA box the real data was loaded. All the customer details and email addresses maintained are real."

Hmm...concern..then I (Tec1) says, "Ok fine, anyways I will confirm you back; if the emails were sent because of my execution or is it the work of some other guy."

After couple of minutes, I find Fc1 and Fc2 at my desk enquiring the updates. I get into the transactions and find that it was me who sent the emails to the customers. I thought God what did I do!!?? 

While we were debugging the director sends an email to the basis team asking them to send the names of all the folks who had executed the transaction to release the mails from the buffer. My friend in the basis team sends my name and some other folks who executed the transaction that day.

In the mean time Fc1, Fc2 and Tc1 (me) went to my TL (Team Lead) and explained him the whole story. His face turned red in no-time and had his hands to his head. He too received the email from the director of the project with all the other team leads in CC regarding the incident. 

He calls the other guy i.e. Tc2 to his room and seeks explanation. He visits the director and explains him the circumstances in which we had to execute the transaction to release the emails from the buffer. We get an earful for doing that and the immediate consequence of the incident is no access to that particular transaction.

This was only one of the experiences that got messed up when Tc1 and Tc2 worked together.