Pros and Cons of Using Salesforce as an Integral Part of Your Testing Strategy

In this blog, we’ll be looking at the benefits and drawbacks of Salesforce testing, covering why this type of testing is beneficial for companies. In addition, we’ll also be looking at how to automate Salesforce testing protocols, reducing human errors and expediting the process.

What Is Salesforce Testing? 

Salesforce testing involves the use of complicated test methodologies to navigate most of Salesforce’s features. These features are built-in to the Salesforce agency platform and can be customized, which presents some difficulty to developers and testers.

Salesforce is built on a development language known as APEX. This language offers built-in test cases. Developers can use these test cases to test their own code. When using Salesforce, a developer must achieve 75% code coverage with these unit test cases. However, testers should always try to reach 100% coverage in a single test cycle.

There are two types of Salesforce testing: manual and automated.

Manual testing involves testing a Salesforce app via traditional testing methods. The team can execute happy path testing, functional testing, integration testing, system testing, and more.

Automated Salesforce testing involves using a program like Selenium, GTP, Functionize, or more to automate testing processes.

What Is the Role of a Salesforce Tester?

A Salesforce tester is sometimes referred to as a Quality Engineer (rather than Quality Assurance people). This is because Salesforce testing demands QEs to build test frameworks, have in-depth knowledge of application functionality, and be able to work alongside the developers to come up with solutions.

While some Salesforce functionalities cannot be altered or removed (even if not in use), testers must ignore those default functions and work on the customized functionality and processes built by the app developers.

In addition, a QE must follow these roles and responsibilities:

• Ensure clear communication with the devs, understand their customizations in-depth
• Understand the complexities of the Salesforce app and the business’s vision. The complex nature of Salesforce and the knowledge required to be a Salesforce tester could be seen as a drawback in some cases.
• Ensure code coverage stays over 75%
• Follow role-based testing to make sure data is consistent with different user roles.
• The tester must perform compatibility tests of third-party apps integrated with the Salesforce platform (if applicable).
• The QE must understand various concepts and load testing tools (including JMeter) to validate complex flows producing issues and inconsistencies in the Salesforce app.
• Be comfortable with multiple application flows.

What Are The Benefits of Salesforce Testing?

There are numerous benefits to using Salesforce as part of your testing strategy. This includes:

• You can check code and configuration are functional
• Testers can verify the system meets the company’s business requirements
• Salesforce testing can catch problems before they arise, while they are still easy to rectify
• You can obtain functional flow reports concerning the status of test cases, allowing the testing team to create functional flows for understanding application functionality.
• You can use Salesforce testing to check the functionality of various time-based events
• You can use the process builders feature to check the behavior and working conditions of the Salesforce system.

What Are the Drawbacks of Salesforce Testing?

There are numerous drawbacks to using Salesforce as part of your testing strategy. These include:

• One of the main cons about using Salesforce is that the developer must ensure they are testing customized code rather than the in-built Sales functionality.
• In addition, automated Salesforce testing is very challenging. Most Salesforce platform web pages are dynamic. As such, Salesforce requires testers to build their own automation framework and sustain it for future use. As such, Salesforce testing must be achieved by using specific third-party tools. These include Selenium web driver, HP Unified Functional Testing (UFT), Provar, or test frameworks like Cucumber.
• Salesforce testers should also expect frequent updates to on-cloud applications.
• Salesforce has many customizations and a huge network of third-party integrations. Many Salesforce platforms can easily have more than 50 applications connected. As such, this can make testing automation through the likes of Selenium very difficult. Luckily, you can use AI tools like Functionize to cover numerous tests, such as end-to-end scenarios. Some of these tests can include:

• Web and Mobile Web UI testing
• Database testing
• API testing
• Text / Two Factor Authentication testing
• Business process validation (such as ERP and point-of-sale apps)
• Word, Excel, PDF validation

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are numerous pros and cons regarding Salesforce testing. While the Salesforce program offers many positives to companies looking for a reliable CRM, it presents some difficulties to testers, especially testers who seek to automate protocols with the likes of Selenium. However, when Salesforce is used in conjunction with an automated testing tool like Functionize, it can be a valuable asset to testers.