Pacejet Benefits by using Macro Scheduler for Automated Load Testing of their ERP Solutions.
By Ron Lee.
Pacejet makes a Transportation Management (TMS) software suite that helps manufactures/distributors ship product via LTL, Truckload, Parcel, etc, and executes their warehouse pick-pack-ship as part of the process. Our software integrates with ERP systems so the customer has one end-to-end process flow in their business from customer to invoice.
One of the challenges we had with one customer was to benchmark our shipment planning performance for large blanket orders with their specific ERP. They would enter orders with 600-800 lines into the ERP system all at one particular time during the day – where most of the lines went to different ship-tos on different dates, etc. Our software would look at the orders and schedule all the shipments and then handle all the execution when the orders were ready to ship (wireless/RF, etc).
The technical issue was how to be able to “pound” multiple 800 line orders into the ERP system repeatedly to push a continuous wave of transactions at our software. That’s where Macro Scheduler came into play. I put together a relatively small set of macros to simulate the user’s data entry into the ERP’s order entry screen so we could validate our planning performance.
The input parameters on the orders could be varied enough to stress test different planning scenarios. With Macro Scheduler we also were able to drive the ERP application screens directly to make this as real-world a test as possible. And lastly, we didn’t have to spend a lot of time coding this as a more complex application.
The result was great for our planning performance, since we can plan orders almost faster than they can be entered into the ERP. But the result was also great for Macro Scheduler since we were able to use it to test out the scenario(s), make our customer comfortable with the result, and ensure we’re in a good spot with our product for the future.
Macro Scheduler is a great product. I appreciate all the flexibility in it. And the option to compile macros is awesome!