As for more complex projects 2 weeks of UAT is not enough, here is an example of how longer UAT can look like and what it should contain. Note that 6 weeks of UAT mentioned here must be planned at the beginning of the project and it is just an example of longer UAT for bigger projects. The basic expectations here are the same - the customer should still have an overall responsibility for UAT, but QA analyst can help if it is required. Note that customer with customer is still crucial, he must be aware of his responsibilities and understand that they must be prepared for UAT before he really starts with testing. Otherwise he will find out that even 6 weeks is still not enough time for completing UAT tests on time.
Prerequisites before going into UAT
All unit testing during Feature Sprints has been properly done; the UAT is not a repetition of the unit tests. A UAT is an end-to-end test and customers should not find bugs that they should have uncovered during unit testing
Customer accepted all user stories in the scope - it means he confirmed they were developed and tested in Feature Sprints
All end-to-end tests scripts have been prepared
All production level data is loaded in the UAT environment, including all company parameter tables
Types of issues that can be found during UAT:
Data issues (master data or company parameter data)
End-to-end issues (typically these are requirements issues)
Regression issues
✅ All configuration bugs should have been found during the unit testing!
Tasks before UAT
These main tasks should be done after the last Feature Sprint and before UAT phase:
Training and preparation - final preparation for UAT, training of UAT testers, checking that everything is ready
System Integration testing - testing integration between Pfx sw and customer’s internal systems
Tasks during UAT
These main tasks should be done during UAT phase:
End to End testing - based on business cases , should cover main functionality and integration, this should not be just repetition of testing during Feature Sprints
Bug fixing and retesting - checking that all founded bugs were properly fixed
Final regression testing - final check should be done during Code Freeze after bugs were fix and retested, most important tests should be repeated here
End of project in details
→ from Feature Sprints to Go-Live
The last Feature Sprint
finish development of all user stories - mandatory for continuing to UAT
Pre - UAT
2 weeks
Preparation and UAT training week
testing of the latest user stories
accepting user stories in Jira - mandatory for continuing to UAT
finish preparation for UAT - mandatory for continuing to UAT
System Integration testing
final checking of all integrations
UAT testers are ready for testing
UAT (2 to 4 weeks)
E2E testing (up to 2 weeks)
functional testing based on prepared UAT test cases
logging bugs to JIRA
fixing reported bugs
all prepared test cases should be tested during this part
testing from top priority and the longest tests to less important and less complex tests
Bug retesting and bug fixing (up to 1 week)
Final regression testing (up to 1 week)
Code freeze in this time
for checking all critical test cases again
UAT phase should end by final acceptance and official Go-Live
The following tasks should be done during 6 weeks of UAT for a 5 sprints project (see the table at the bottom of the page for different project sizes):
Complete training for UAT (Kate’s team or project team?) - 1 w
finalize UAT test cases
show to UAT testers what is expected from them
demo for UAT testers on QA partition
show to UAT testers which test cases they will test
let UAT testers do first testing and help them with first questions or issues
choose test management tool and leader of UAT testing phase
make sure everything is ready for UAT - access to all tools and environments, login credentials for UAT testers
Pfx: finalize bug fixing from the last Feature Sprint
Complete initial data loads in QA & data verification
Complete Integration testing 1 w
check that all integration works correctly on QA partition
let UAT testers do first testing and help them with first questions or issues - they should feel comfortable about what is expected from them at the end of this week
make sure UAT testers have final version of E2E test cases and they are ready for testing
log bugs for integration issues to JIRA
Pfx: fix integration issues
retest bug fixes and confirm the integration is working at the end of this week
Complete E2E script testing 2 w
1st w:
start testing based on E2E test cases
top priority and long test cases first
log bugs to JIRA every day
report progress to UAT test leader every day
Pfx: bug fixing if possible - deployment should not be done during UAT testing
2nd w and all other weeks:
continue testing based on E2E test cases
all test cases should be finished this week
log bugs to JIRA every day
report progress to UAT test leader every day
Pfx: bug fixing if possible - deployment should not be done during UAT testing
Complete Bug fixing (requirements or regression issues) - 1w
Pfx: finish bug fixing, deploy all changes to QA partition
prepare scope of final week - bugs for retests, test cases to be tested again
Complete Bug testing - 1 w
final part of UAT
prepare scope for final regression
retest all reported bugs to verify they were fixed
retest selected UAT test cases to verify the application is working correctly on QA partition
log bugs to JIRA every day - there should not be any new issues this week, so just in case
report progress to UAT test leader every day
final regression testing after bugs were retested
Proposed timelines and allocations
Pre-UAT | Pre-UAT | UAT | UAT | ||
# of sprints | Training and prep | SIT | E2E testing | Bug fixing & testing | Total UAT weeks |
3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
4 or 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 7 |
6 or 7 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
Role | Allocation | ||||
PM | same as FS allocation | ||||
SA | 50 % of FS allocation | ||||
CE | 50-75 % of FS allocation | ||||
IE | 25% of FS allocation | ||||
QA | 50-75 % of FS allocation | ||||
Internal description as Packages
Customer can choose length of UAT based on his experience and size of the project:
small - 4 weeks (for 3 FS projects)
medium - 6 weeks (for 4-5 FS projects)
large - 7 weeks (for 6-7 FS projects)
Purpose of choosing the package is to involve customer in UAT phase and make sure the customer understands details about UAT. Size of the package must be selected before the final project timeline is created. Price of the selected package should be based on needed allocation for all project roles.
In case customer will not choose the size of UAT package, it will be selected based on number of Feature Sprints.