How and Where to Test your App or Product before Going Live

Now that you've started to build forms and workflows in Kuali, as a best practice, we recommend testing and verifying that it works as desired before publishing to your end users.  Below outlines how to test your form and some best practices and approaches on how to roll out a new form to your institution.

• How to Test a Form before Publishing
• New Product/App Deployment Strategies
• Approaches to User Testing Your Form
• Where to Test - Kuali Environments

How to Test a Form Before Publishing

Kuali allows you to test your form and workflow while you build it via the Draft Mode option before you publish - this is true when creating new forms or updating existing. Within the Form itself, you can use the Design/Preview toggle to switch between editing the form (Design) and what it will look like to the end user (Preview):

You can also test the entire form lifecycle with workflow via the Design/Test toggle in the Workflow tab:

The Publish screen will run a validation check on the form to verify if all workflow steps are configured with valid parameters and that any form fields referred to in the workflow are present in the form. If any errors are found, they will be listed and it will prevent publishing until they are resolved. This helps to prevents you from publishing an form that may not function correctly.

More information on using these options can be found in the below articles:

• What is Draft Mode?
• Testing Workflow

New Product/App Deployment Strategies

Depending on your use case, or the level of verification/testing you want to perform, you can handle new form verification and deployment in a couple of different ways when initially going live:

Test Using Draft Mode

As mentioned above, you can verify the form and workflow of a form via Draft Mode and the Workflow Simulator tools before you publish. If you feel confident it's behaving the way you desire, then you can assign the necessary permissions for the app and then publish - please refer to the Publishing a Form and App/Product Permissions articles for more information.

Test By Publishing and Sharing to only a Subset of Users

You can perform additional verification of a form with a subset of users to see how it will behave when creating documents, submitting into workflow, managing the Document List, etc. after you publish.  This may allow you to work out some scenarios or test cases that weren't apparent when using Draft Mode. This may also be beneficial if your workflow includes integrations that are sending data externally and you want to confirm it's posting as expected.  

This will require you to set the permissions of the form to only a subset of users that will be participating in the pilot testing/verification and then publish - please refer to the Publishing a Form and App/Product Permissions articles for more information.

Note: You will likely want to modify the workflow step recipients to those participating in the test (or a specific user/group you want to use when testing) so not to confuse end users with notifications when creating and submitting test documents.

Once you complete your verification and are ready to go live with the app to end users, you can publish in one of two ways:

Copy the App, then Publish (Build only):

You can simply duplicate the app you verified (see the How Do I Create, Duplicate and Delete an App? article). This will copy over the verified form/workflow but not any existing documents that were created during verification. Once you set the appropriate App Permissions, update workflow steps if changed for testing, and Publish you can then go back and delete the original app you used for verification. This method would be our best practice recommendation.

Publish the Existing Form/App:

Using the existing form, you could update the Permissions and update any necessary workflow recipients if you changed to users/groups participating in the testing and then publish. You may want to delete any test documents created during verification.

For Build apps, it is recommended to copy the app prior to publishing to have a fresh start.

Approaches to User Testing Your Form

User testing is like fine-tuning an instrument—we want forms to perform seamlessly and hit all the right notes. Here’s a simple yet effective approach to ensure your forms deliver a top-notch user experience:

1. Define Clear Goals
   Identify what success looks like for your form. For example, "Ensuring the department clearly understands budget needs for the coming year."
2. Create Realistic Scenarios
   Craft tasks that mirror real-world usage. Use non-leading prompts like "Submit a leave request" or "Complete a grant application." These allow users to interact naturally, providing authentic feedback without being steered in a particular direction.
3. Select the Right Participants
   Choose 3 to 5 individuals who represent your target audience. Consider factors like their role or experience level, especially if your form serves multiple user groups. Avoid relying solely on colleagues unless they fit the intended user profile.
4. Test in Short Sessions
   Keep each session under 30 minutes to maintain focus and gather meaningful insights without overwhelming participants.
5. Collaborate During Testing
   If possible, involve a colleague. One person can conduct the test while the other observes and takes notes, ensuring nothing important is missed.
6. Set the Scene
   Before starting, encourage participants to think out loud as they interact with the form. Reassure them that the test evaluates the form, not their performance, and emphasize that there are no wrong answers or mistakes.
7. Observe and Listen
   Pay close attention to both user actions and feedback. Watching their interactions will help pinpoint areas where they face friction, such as confusing navigation, unclear labels, or difficulties completing tasks.
8. Analyze and Iterate
   Immediately after testing, debrief with your team to review findings. Is your form meeting your earlier stated goal? Then, prioritize issues and plan improvements. Retest your refinements to ensure they are hitting the mark.

Keep in Mind — as you create and refine your form, have a bias towards simplicity. The simpler the form the easier it will be for users to understand and complete it. Start simple; you can always add complexity later as you get feedback on the form over time.

By following these steps, you’ll create Kuali forms that are intuitive, efficient, and user-friendly. Happy testing!

Where to Test - Kuali Environments

Typically most testing can be done in your Production (PRD) environment - and we recommend you build/modify/verify your apps within this environment using Draft Mode and the above mentioned methods to test your form. Draft Mode enables an app/product creator to create a draft of a new version, test the form using the form preview, test the workflow in the workflow simulator and once validated publish those changes.

We do provide test environments for each institution that can be utilized if desired:

Production (PRD):

Live environment where all users live.  Although Kuali provides 3 environments, best practices have shown that creating, testing, and deploying in the Production environment offers the greatest efficiency.

Sandbox (SBX):

Set your permissions in this environment to allow individual users to play and workout ideas without going live. This can also be utilized for training sessions locally.

Staging (STG):

Use this environment to stage a limited testing environment wherein only a few users are added to test an app. This can also be utilized for training session locally.

Note: At this time, apps created within the Sandbox or Staging environments can not be copied into the Production environment.