User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Excel Template & Examples
Typically concluding the software testing process, User Acceptance Testing is a critical step towards deployment. Interested in circling back to earlier testing phases to learn more about other methods before we cover UAT?
What is User Acceptance Testing?
User Acceptance Testing (UAT), also known as end-user acceptance testing, is the final phase of software testing. It involves working with potential end-users to validate that the system meets their requirements and is ready for production deployment. These users check that everything in the software behaves as expected in a real-world scenario and fulfills the predefined requirements specifications.
Note: Operational Readiness Testing is similar to UAT, but focuses primarily on performance under real-world conditions instead of functional requirements. ORT will verify areas like security, speed, and reliability.
Purpose & Objectives
The purpose of UAT is to evaluate the software from a user’s perspective to verify that:
- All business requirements are satisfied
- There aren’t any critical defects that inhibit usage
- It’s usable in day-to-day workflows
- Edge cases and real-world scenarios behave as intended
Think of User Acceptance Testing as the final checkpoint before go-live to confirm that the software is useful to end-users and operates as expected.
Who Performs User Acceptance Testing?
As the name suggests, end-users or business stakeholders are the ones to execute this stage of testing. These roles might include:
- Business analysts
- Operations teams
- Product owners
This is distinct from other testing phases, where the development team or QA engineers perform most (if not all) of the test planning and execution.
Differences from Usability Testing
Another testing type that involves end-users is Usability Testing. However, this is different from User Acceptance Testing because of its more abstract goal. UAT aims to validate specific business functionalities, while Usability Testing focuses on evaluating the overall user experience and how easy the system is to use.
|
Area |
User Acceptance Testing |
Usability Testing |
|
Purpose |
Validate business functionality |
Evaluate ease of use and UX |
|
Focus |
Business workflows and requirement compliance |
Application layout, navigation, intuitiveness, and responsiveness |
|
Timing |
After system/integration testing, before go-live |
During design/prototyping (and periodically moving forward) |
|
Output |
Acceptance or rejection of the system |
Suggestions for improving UX |
Benefits of User Acceptance Testing
The timing of UAT at the end of the process, once the software is nearly complete, means that it can be tested much more thoroughly in more representative environments. This enables developers to:
- Evaluate the business logic in production-like scenarios
- Confirm alignment between the system and actual business needs
- Catch gaps in functionality that may have been missed by system/integration testing
- Cut down on post-release bugs that require emergency fixes
- Improve stakeholder confidence and trust in the final product
- Uncover any potential edge cases or day-to-day workflow issues that may have been overlooked
UAT Process Steps
Although the exact steps and specifics of any testing method will depend on the team performing it and the project’s unique requirements, most UAT typically follows these six steps:
- Planning: Acceptance criteria and business scenarios are defined and testers are selected.
- Design: Test cases that map directly to business use cases and requirements are created.
- Setup: A staging environment that closely mirrors production is set up and seeded with data.
- Execution: Users run through test cases, documenting the results and logging defects.
- Resolution: Developers fix the logged defects and end-users or QA teams re-test to verify resolution.
- Sign-Off: Business stakeholders provide formal acceptance of the testing and the software is cleared for release.
Prerequisites
However, before starting User Acceptance Testing, it’s important to verify that all prerequisites are met. These will help you get the most out of UAT:
- All critical defects are resolved
- You have a stable testing environment that mimics production
- Acceptance criteria are clearly defined
- UAT testers are trained and have all necessary tools and data
- Test data covers expected and edge case business scenarios
Examples of User Acceptance Testing
Now that we have a good comprehension of what UAT is and how it works, let’s take a look at some real-world examples to solidify our understanding:
ERP System
- Scenario: A multinational company is deploying an SAP module for finance and procurement.
- UAT Focus Areas:
- Verify that multi-currency invoice approval workflows function across regions
- Validate that tax rules and reporting logic align with regional laws
- Test PO-to-Payment process across integrated modules
- Cross-check month-end closing process with finance teams
- Why UAT is Important: ERP systems are usually highly customized and deeply intertwined with business operations, so missing a validation step here can lead to major operational disruption.
Healthcare Case Management System
- Scenario: A hospital is implementing a custom-built web app to manage patient care plans, prescriptions, and treatment workflows.
- UAT Focus Areas:
- Simulate end-to-end patient onboarding to treatment discharge
- Check access controls (e.g. nurses can’t prescribe medication)
- Test insurance claim generation and authorization workflows
- Review alert systems for missed medication or conflicting treatments
- Why UAT is Important: When dealing with healthcare systems, lives can be at stake — because of this, there’s extra pressure for clinical workflows to be accurate and compliant with regulations (HIPAA, HL7, etc.).
CRM Custom Module Rollout
- Scenario: A SaaS company enhances its Salesforce CRM to automate lead qualification and escalation to support.
- UAT Focus Areas:
- Validate automation rules (e.g. if a lead scores above X, auto-assign to a sales rep)
- Simulate customer issue escalation from help desk platform
- Check email templates, time-based triggers, and workflow rules
- Verify analytics dashboards and permission-based visibility
- Why UAT is Important: Sales and support operations depend on these workflows, so a misfire in automation logic can cause lost leads or SLA violations.
Challenges & Limitations of UAT
While User Acceptance Testing is incredibly important and provides immense value before deployment, it needs to be used in conjunction with other testing methods to cover gaps. Some challenges and limitations of UAT effectiveness include:
- Incomplete/Ambiguous Acceptance Criteria: One of the biggest challenges for UAT is a lack of clearly defined criteria (e.g. “system should be user-friendly”). Ensure that every UAT case is tied to a user story with measurable acceptance criteria.
- Time/Resource Constraints: Delays earlier in the development or testing process can sometimes compress UAT because it occurs last. Meanwhile, end-users often have day jobs that limit their availability, so it’s wise to schedule buffer time in your UAT to avoid rushing or skipping through important tests.
- Unrepresentative Test Data: Using dummy data (like “John Doe, 12345”) may not expose the system to real-world scenarios, which is the purpose of UAT. For example, a system might break when tested with names that contain non-Latin characters, so try to use (anonymized) production-like datasets whenever possible.
- Environment Instability: If your UAT environment lacks parity with production or has performance bottlenecks, it can lead to false positives or negatives that don’t represent its true functionality. Invest in making your UAT environment as close to production as possible.
- Insufficient Tester Experience: If your testers lack technical understanding of the workflows in question, skip steps, misunderstand how to report bugs, or focus on cosmetic issues instead of functionality, UAT will not offer much value. Make sure to provide clear walkthroughs or explanations of what is expected from testers.
- Lack of Traceability: Without clear documentation from requirements to test cases to outcomes, it’s difficult to actually confirm that all business needs were covered. Use test management tools (like SpiraTest) to document UAT plans, defects, and approvals.
User Acceptance Testing Checklist
Pre-UAT Preparation
- Business requirements are finalized and signed off
- Functional and system/integration testing is complete with no critical open defects
- UAT entry and exit criteria are clearly defined
- Acceptance criteria for each business requirement are documented
- UAT scope is defined (in-scope vs. out-of-scope features)
- UAT test cases or scenarios are created and mapped to business requirements
- UAT test plan (timeline, resources, tools, communication, etc.) is prepared
- UAT testers (end-users, stakeholders, etc.) are selected and available
- Test data is prepared (production-like, sanitized if necessary)
- UAT environment is configured and mirrors production as closely as possible
- Access credentials and roles are set up for all testers
- Tools for defect logging, tracking, and test management are in place
- Orientation or training sessions for testers are conducted
During UAT Execution
- Testers validate each business scenario and mark pass/fail status
- Defects are logged with severity, reproduction steps, and environment details
- Duplicate or invalid issues are triaged and closed promptly
- Developers resolve issues, and testers confirm fixes via re-testing
- Business stakeholders review progress regularly and prioritize critical bugs
- Daily test execution reports or dashboards are shared with stakeholders
- Regression testing is performed on impacted areas when fixes are applied
- All high/critical defects are resolved before sign-off
Post-UAT Activities
- UAT test completion report is generated and reviewed
- Test logs, defect lists, and final outcomes are documented
- Formal sign-off is obtained from key business stakeholders
- Go/No-Go decision is clearly communicated to project leads
- Lessons learned or retrospectives are conducted to capture feedback
- UAT results and coverage are archived for audit or compliance purposes
How to Conduct UAT: Best Practices
When conducting your User Acceptance Testing, we recommend following these best practices to maximize its effectiveness:
- Define Acceptance Criteria Early: Every user story and requirement should have a clear, measurable, and testable acceptance criterion. We recommend using the “Given-When-Then” format from BDD (Behavior Driven Development) to express business rules.
- Use Real End-Users: Involve actual business users in UAT to bring domain-specific knowledge. We recommend segmenting users by role to assign them specific scenarios relevant to their actual workflows.
- Mirror Real Scenarios: Instead of testing isolated functions, test full end-to-end processes that mimic real business scenarios, ensuring the software supports integrations, workflows, and exceptions.
- Use Production-Like Data: The closer your test data is to real production data, the more insightful your testing will be. We recommend using a variety of anonymized production data that isn’t just “happy path” data.
- Control the UAT Environment: Your UAT environment should reflect production as closely as possible (configurations, data volume, and even integrations), but should still be isolated. We recommend avoiding testing in environments where it might affect stability.
- Support Your Testers: Not all businesses and users will be familiar with structured testing, so provide walkthroughs, reference guides, and clearly show them how to log issues. We recommend considering pairing each tester with a QA liaison to answer questions and provide support.
- Connect Defects to Impact: Different defects have varying levels of severity and can affect different business areas (revenue, compliance, productivity, etc.), so assign each defect in this way to prioritize fixes.
- Avoid Scope Creep: Stick to your predetermined UAT plan and save new features or change requests for future releases. We recommend defining a clear Change Control Process before UAT actually commences so you’re not coming up with it on the fly.
- Make Sign-Off Auditable: It’s important to get a formal sign-off in written or electronic sign-off from all stakeholders to facilitate compliance and post-release validation. We recommend including a test summary report as well in the sign-off package.
- Conduct a Retrospective: After UAT sign-off, perform a review to identify what worked well, what didn’t, what delayed testing, and how future UAT can be improved. We recommend feeding these insights into your next sprint/release planning.
Free User Acceptance Testing Template (Excel & PDF)
The template below covers the major components we’ve discussed, in an easy-to-use format to quickly input. Download the file for use here:
Using this template, we’ll fill it out with some example data to get a better picture of what a real UAT tracker might look like in this document:
Invest in the Right Tools for UAT
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