AI-Driven Exploratory Testing (AET) – A Tester’s Point of View
By Akansha Bhadani
Team: Procurement Test Team, BS-F&S-CDX-ECF S/4HANA Test Engineering.
Introduction: Enhancing Test Efficiency with AI
The AI-Driven Exploratory Testing (AET) tool is an in-house innovation of the S/4HANA Test Engineering Team, developed to transform the way exploratory testing is performed. It leverages various Exploratory Test Tours along with application insights from the SAP What’s New page to automatically generate structured test instructions by seamlessly combining functionality with exploratory approaches.
In today’s fast-evolving testing landscape, improving efficiency and ensuring comprehensive coverage remain constant challenges. AI-Driven Exploratory Testing (AET) emerges as a solution aimed at addressing these gaps by bringing structure and intelligence into exploratory testing practices.
Before adopting AET, testing largely relied on manual, ad-hoc approaches without a defined methodology—leading to inconsistencies and inefficiencies.
Challenges with Traditional Testing Approaches
Manual testing relied on ad-hoc, unstructured approaches without a defined methodology. This created several problems:
- Onboarding Challenges: New team members struggled to identify starting points and navigate the various exploratory testing tours, resulting in incomplete test coverage and missed critical workflows.
- Knowledge gaps: Experienced testers who had plateaued in their engagement or were juggling multiple assignments often lost familiarity with the product. This required them to reacquaint themselves with testing tours, making it time-consuming to recall procedures and validate quality—ultimately delaying their ability to meet testing targets.
How AET Transforms Exploratory Testing
- New testers can easily identify testing entry points across exploratory testing tours, it provides testers with a structured checklist that serves as a guide, ensuring all key features are systematically covered during testing.
- The Novelty Score feature in Delta Test Flows is a good feature in understanding the gap in our automate. Testers can enhance their existing automate or test the functionalities manually which will ensure the product quality.
Key Advantages:
- Clear testing entry points
- Systematic feature coverage
- Standardized guidelines for all testers
- Reduced dependency on tester expertise
AET vs Traditional Testing: A Shift in Approach
While it's true that some UI and functional issues can be discovered through direct or exploratory testing but, AET provides a more structured, systematic, and guided approach to test execution and defect identification.
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Aspect |
Without AET |
With AET |
| Discovery |
Manual testing can still find issues |
Few issues can be common but, it provides more comprehensive coverage. |
| Approach |
Ad-hoc, intuition-based |
Structured, repeatable, methodology driven. |
| Consistency |
Variable across testers |
Standardized and consistent. |
Key Takeaway:
AI Tools such as AET are not mandatory for finding defects. These Tools enhance the testing methodology by providing:
- Systematic coverage tracking
- Regression test automation
- Consistent documentation
- Faster feedback loops
AI Tools complement human testing—they don't replace the need for tester expertise.
Hands-on Experience with AET in IET Cycles
IET4* – Some examples of issues that AET helped me unearth
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Example1: To Test the Delete feature of MPS |
Incident : DINC0841115 |
Priority : Medium |
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Brief Description about the Issue In the App Manage Model Product Specification, Select the MPS which is already Deleted and attempt to create a document (contract here). At first instance the option for document creation is disabled but if the user again navigates back from Object page to List Report the option to create document get enabled. |
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How AET is helpful You need to create MPS , mark it to delete and follow the approach which is suggested, or you can test with the existing values available. Here with the help of AET I got the exact use case to be tested. |
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Issue Encountered: |
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Example 2: To test the Item Details for the App Confirm Receipt of Goods |
Incident : DINC0845639 |
Priority: Medium |
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Brief Description of the issue: In the App Confirm Receipt of Goods, I am checking the details of the Items along with the Supplier details. upon hovering the cursor on supplier field the hyperlink is not functional. |
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How AET is helpful As per the recommended flow in AET , I need to check the Supplier name link, realized that the supplier detail is not in the hyperlink format. There are n number of links in an app which becomes challenging to validate sometimes. |
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Example 3: To Test the Status field for the app Manage Supplier Quotation |
Incident : DINC0846438 |
Priority- Low |
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Issue Encountered:
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Example 4: To test the Personalization for Limit Items PR |
Incident : DINC0845648 |
Priority- Medium |
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Brief Description of the issue: I uploaded the screenshot of the Create PR app and prompted to generate few test flows where I encountered an issue related to Limit Items settings. How AET is helpful Tried testing the upload feature in AET studio, created limit item PR and then encountered the issue because the already existing PR had only Items facet.
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Error Encountered :
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IET3*– Some examples of issues that AET helped me unearth
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Example 1 : To test the Sort options for App Sources of Supply for field Sources. |
Incident : DINC0799841 |
Priority : High |
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Brief Description of the issue: For the App Manage Sources of Supply as proposed by AET test flows , tried sorting the Supplier (Source) here and encountered the application crashed. How AET is helpful: The App Manage Sources of supply is quite stable and no major issues occur. As a tester, I explored sort option based on AET generated flows and could get valid issue which led to me to encounter an exception.
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Example 2 : To Test the generated List in App Manage Purchase Order |
Incident: DINC0799711 |
Priority: Very High |
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Brief Description of the issue: The App Manage Purchase order where the PO is created and navigated back to List report , upon clicking on Go the list looked empty which was a clear issue
How AET is helpful: The Automate for Manage Purchase Order include creation of PO , navigation back and forth is not included ,by following the steps proposed by flows could figure out the issue.
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Issue Encountered:
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Example 3: To Test the Value help for Purchasing group in App Redistribute Workload |
Incident : DINC0801782 |
Priority : Medium |
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Brief Description of the issue:
For the App Redistribute Workload I followed the proposed flows which suggested user to test the value help for Purchasing group field, upon testing it further encountered the issue with the improper filter count. How AET is helpful: The expected result mentioned in the AET flows asks the user to validate the column detail where I noticed that the details are getting populated but with incorrect item count. There are chances for Apps having multiple fields and F4 option, end user might miss testing it in detail. AET gave a direction here
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Issue Encountered:
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Improving Stakeholder Engagement
AET also contributes to better alignment with stakeholders:
- Helps prioritize critical issues over low-priority ones such as minor UI inconsistencies
- Enables testers to focus on issues aligned with stakeholder expectations
- Reduces unnecessary noise in defect reporting
AET Studio: Enabling Smarter Validation
AET Studio plays a crucial role in reducing ambiguity during testing by allowing independent validation.
Let me explain you with few examples how this is possible:
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Example 1 : trigger the Empty result behave for an app and check the generated result. |
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Brief Description (Supplier Evaluation Score Output): The Flow recommend user to test the app with values which will yield empty result, so upon entering the currency which can trigger empty result I found SQL error. Now, the Tester’s confusion is whether it is a valid issue or not. I used AET Studio where I entered prompt which can yield me same SQL error ,it generated a desired flow which is an expected behaviour . To some extent now there is a clarity that Analytical apps these kind of issue is expected as there is a mismatch in currency conversion and hence the error. |
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Example 2: To Test the Revoke Functionality for app Manage SES. |
Incident : DINC0846402 |
Priority : Medium |
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Brief Description (Manage Service Entry Sheet-Lean Services): Same approach is taken for the App SES whee I tried testing for one of the flow generated from AET .The Revoke Approval button found out to be in active state and also upon clicking it , the application was not responding. I cross checked with AET Studio about the active state of Revoke button and requested the dev team to validate the same(ideally without entering the values the button should not remain enabled). One side of AET studio is it could be helpful in validating Tester’s confusion and giving a clarity.
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Example 3: System is unable to do automatic assignment of processor through value help. |
Incident : To be created |
Priority: Medium |
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Brief Description (Process PR centrally). The Assignment of the Processor through value help should happen automatically when the user takes the control over there, here the cursor is already seen due to which user can easily modify values which is not expected. How AET Studio is helpful : Prompts can be provided to generate flows and test the application further as per user requirement.
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*(IET: Stands for Intelligent Exploratory Tests)
Conclusion :
AET continues to evolve and demonstrate strong potential. What initially seemed uncertain became a valuable asset through consistent usage across multiple IET cycles.
Today, it has become an integral part of the testing workflow—used alongside daily activities to guide, validate, and enhance testing efforts.
For testers adapting to AI-driven methodologies, AET represents a meaningful advancement and a reliable support system in navigating complex testing landscapes.
*Disclaimer: The observations and benefits quoted in this blog are entirely the experiential hands-on learnings by me. *
