Technical connection: Integration testing

Overview

Purpose of this step

To carry out integration testing in the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) pre-production environment and demonstrate that you have completed and passed the integration testing stages.

This guidance explains the steps involved in integration testing and how to submit evidence of this.

This guidance covers integration testing for 2 separate connection types:

1. Onboarding – connection to the central digital architecture (CDA)

Integration testing uses a limited set of requests to test functional and non-functional aspects of the solutions used by directly connected organisations, such as pension providers, schemes, third-party administrators, or integrated service providers (ISPs), to connect directly to the ecosystem. These are designed to confirm that:

• the solution is compliant with the technical standards v2.0
• the solution successfully integrates with the CDA
• user journeys operate as expected

2. Reporting standards API

Integration testing uses a set of requests to validate successful submission of reporting data through each reporting API endpoint. These tests are designed to confirm that:

• The connecting organisation is successfully integrated with the CDA
• The solution is compliant with reporting standards v2.2

Who completes this step?

• test manager
• primary technical contact

Read the full list of roles and responsibilities.

1. Onboarding – connection to the CDA integration testing

Before you begin

• You will need to: confirm deployment of test crypto material through the connection portal
• be familiar with:
  • the integration test pack
  • PDP standards

What you need to do in this step

1. Confirm prerequisites outlined in the integration test pack have been met.
2. Connection proving.
3. Integration testing with PDP test team.
4. Upload your integration test report evidence.

Confirm prerequisites outlined in the integration test pack have been met

After you have deployed your test crypto material, PDP’s implementation manager will email you for confirmation that:

• you have read the integration test pack
• you have all the required test data
• you have set up the required test data (users and pension data) on your solution that is due to be tested

You must respond by email to confirm this.

Connection proving

Once you have confirmed that you have met the prerequisites, PDP will run a connectivity test to check that you are connected correctly to the preproduction environment. As part of this, your solution’s ability to process find and view requests will be tested.

If you fail connectivity testing, we will create a support ticket which records details of the failure. If we cannot resolve the issue through support ticket, we will arrange a call to provide support. It is recommended that IT security, infrastructure and development teams are in attendance. If we are still unable to solve the issue, we will escalate your issue to our technical development team.

Integration testing with PDP test team

Once you have passed connection proving, the PDP implementation manager will email you to schedule a 3-hour testing window.

Integration test execution is comprised of 3 parts:

1. Re-running connection proving.
2. Stage 1.
3. Stage 2.

During the integration testing window

Test execution consists of 3 phases. Once the connecting organisation passes a phase, they move on to the next one.

Connection proving: This phase executes a find request. This will confirm that the connecting organisation’s system has successfully connected with ours. The provider must then register a pension based on this find request and respond to a view request.

Stage 1: This phase runs all tests that can be completed without intervention from the connecting organisation. It will also execute code to set up the matches necessary prior to the required actions from the connecting organisation.

When stage 1 successfully completes, you will be emailed a file to update your matches in your system.

Stage 2: This phase verifies that your updates have achieved the expected results.

If you have passed, the results of both stages will be emailed to you as a single PDF.

If there’s a failure that cannot be addressed in the integration testing window, the test analysts will try to diagnose the failure. If they are unable to diagnose or fix the problem, it will be escalated to the technical development team for support. Once your issue has been resolved, we will schedule a new integration testing window. We will keep you updated on progress through the support ticket.

PDP may request the connecting organisations’ logs as part of this process.

2. Reporting standards API integration testing

Before you begin

You will need to:

• confirm deployment of test crypto material through the connection portal
• be familiar with:
  • the reporting integration test pack
  • reporting standards v2.2

What you need to do in this step

1. Confirm readiness following deployment of test crypto.
2. Integration testing with PDP test team.
3. Upload your integration test report evidence.

Confirm of readiness following deployment of test crypto

After you have deployed your test crypto material, PDP’s implementation manager will contact you via the support ticket to confirm that you are familiar with the reporting API integration test pack and when reporting data can be submitted.

You must respond via the support ticket to confirm this.

Integration testing with PDP test team

1. Once you have submitted reporting data to all 6 endpoints and confirmed via the support ticket, the PDP test team triggers the automated pipeline to execute the integration tests in the pre-production environment.
2. The pipeline processes only current day submissions (UTC calendar day) and validates the results. It then generates a PDF test report indicating overall pass or fail status.
3. Any issues identified during execution are logged and communicated via the support ticket, and if necessary, a support call will be arranged.
4. Once fixes are implemented, the pipeline is re-triggered to rerun the test.

Upload your reporting integration test report evidence

The test manager must:

1. Sign in to the connection portal.
2. Select ‘Start process’ on the home page.
3. Read what is required for integration testing and select continue.
4. Select ‘Upload files’ and select the integration testing report you received.
5. Once this has been uploaded, select ‘Continue’.
6. Check your answers and select ‘Confirm and submit’.

You will receive email confirmation of your submission.

What happens next

PDP will review the uploaded evidence of successful integration testing. Once PDP has approved it, we will email your service manager requesting they submit service acceptance.

How long will it take?

You should get a response from PDP confirming the outcome of your submission by email within 5 working days. If you have not heard from us by then, let us know via support.

All emails from PDP will come from [email protected] or from [email protected]. Check your junk or spam folder and ask your IT department to add this email to an allowed list of addresses.

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Changelog

Last updated:24/06/2026