Provides management an overview of the system, applications, functions and features that are to be tested in the User Acceptance Test Plan (UAT) process. The plan and tests provide guidance to the management, staff and business owners that the application works as expected.

User Acceptance Testing is that phase of software development in which the software, which previously should have undergone both system and "Alpha" testing, is tested from the viewpoint of the targeted audience or business representation.

Utilization of the UAT accomplishes many goals, but most importantly, it measures the quality of the application being tested. Several factors contribute to the importance of making UAT testing absolutely mandatory for any software development effort, including the following:

	Reducing the cost of developing the application. Minimal savings that might occur in the early stages of the development cycle by delaying testing efforts are almost certainly bound to increase development costs later.
	Ensuring that the application behaves exactly as expected. For the vast majority of programs, unpredictability is the least desirable consequence of using an application.
	Reducing the total cost of ownership. By providing software that looks and behaves as shown in your documentation, your customers require fewer hours of training and less support from product experts.
	Developing loyalty and word-of-mouth market share. Finding success with a program that offers the kind of quality that only thorough testing can provide is much easier than trying to build a customer base on defect-riddled code.

The User Acceptance Test Plan contains the following topics:

  Purpose
        Reference Documents
  User Acceptance Test Description
        Test Goals and Objectives
        Test Entrance and Exit Criteria
              Entrance Criteria
              Exit Criteria
        Test Deliverables
  UAT Test Approach
        Scope of UAT Testing
        Test Categories
        Risks, Dependencies, Assumptions and Constraints
  Functional Testing
        Functionality Included
        Functionality Excluded
  Test Environment
        Hardware
        Software
        Tools
  Test Plan Schedule
        Roles and Responsibilities.

Scroll down to the IT User Acceptance Test Plan example below.