ETL Testing Life Cycle

Like any other testing process , ETL Testing also goes through various phases called ETL Testing Life Cycle

1. Business and Requirement Analysis :

This step involves reviewing and analyzing –

Business Requirement Document and Data Mapping Document  – This requires workaround with the business analyst to review as well as understand the business requirement document and data mapping document

• To understand the structure and usage of source data ,
• To clarify all the data related issues ,
• To identify all the issues ,
• Analyse the mappings , data transformation logics etc.

Technical Specification Document.

This involves  workaround on the technical specification document which also includes attending the Technical specification meetings and walkthroughs.

2. Validation :

Next step involves validating the business requirements with the business analyst in order to make sure there are no
gaps between the business requirement and the understanding.

3. Test Estimation :

This step involves estimation the time and effort required for the testing process to complete.

4. Test Planning :

Next step is the Test planning based on the inputs from the  test estimation and business requirement analysis.

5 . Preparation of the test cases :

This step involves preparing the test cases with all the possible test scenarios considering all the available inputs.

6. Pre – execution check :

After all the test cases are prepared , the testing team reviews the test cases with the business analyst.

7 . Test Data Creation :

After the test cases have been created and approved , next important step is creation of the test data. While preparing test data , it is very important that the testing team understands the structure of the source data and makes sure that all the source tables are updated with the referential data if source or target data is in one or more table. Also testing team should ensure that the test data is created in all the associated tables . It is very important to understand the data model nicely.

8 . Test Case Execution :

Lastly execution of test cases is performed until exit criteria is met.

9 . Test Result Reporting :

After successful execution of the test cases , A Test metrics is documented to summarize no of test cases ( passed , failed , rejected) , no of defects , source of defects etc.