Best practices for Salesforce Integration Testing

 
 

 Enterprises are digitizing in a big way to streamline their operations and deliver the best quality products to their customers. And when customers are the main force behind the success of an enterprise, ignoring their interests or downplaying their queries/issues can be an unmitigated disaster. Salesforce is a powerful Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that helps enterprises to recognize and manage customer interactions throughout the product lifecycle. As a popular CRM tool, Salesforce is highly robust, customizable, configurable, and extensible. Comprising several applications, Salesforce helps businesses to reinforce customer relations and interactions, and client retention thereby leading to their growth.

Any CRM platform like Salesforce has become important in today’s business milieu where enterprises need to manage their relationship with customers once a product is delivered. The platform provides systems, technologies, strategies, and practices to reinforce customer interaction throughout the product lifecycle. Salesforce has myriad applications with which it needs robust integration and interoperability to run various functionalities. This calls for executing Salesforce integration testing covering all modules namely, accounts, campaigns, reports, leads, and contacts, among others.

Why Salesforce testing?

The CRM suite ensures proper management of customer interactions with the organization. It is only by understanding and addressing the concerns of the customers that organizations can ensure customer satisfaction and stay competitive. Salesforce application testing helps to validate the functionalities and their configurations as per the agreed business objectives. Such testing allows for early identification (and fixing) of glitches in the application development process thereupon ensuring the product addresses the needs of the customers.

Best practices for Salesforce integration testing

As mentioned above, Salesforce is the sum-total of applications that execute various functionalities aimed at addressing customer issues and strengthening the interaction. However, these applications should have proper integration among themselves and with the mother software suite (Salesforce) to deliver superior outcomes. Hence, a proper Salesforce testing framework should be established to take care of the integration issues. The best practices to follow while pursuing such testing are mentioned below:

# Collate information: Collate a comprehensive list of all test case scenarios and possible technical exceptions. For each scenario, the expected results and actions to be performed should be documented. Thereafter, test data should be created to validate each scenario.

# Right testing tools: To get the best results, use the right debugging tools offered by the latest browsers combined with the test classes. For example, you may use a powerful object-oriented and case-sensitive proprietary programming language called Apex to execute programmed functions like updates, deletions, custom links, and record insertion, among others.

# Follow naming conventions: Before writing test cases for Salesforce test automation, it is important to name the test methods appropriately. The test methods should comprise the below-mentioned parts:

·         Name of the method – insert/delete/update/undelete

·         Information about the test path – null contact or valid

# Total coverage: Even though the Salesforce directive is to cover about 75% of the code while conducting unit tests, one should aim at covering 100% of the code. Test all cases (positive or negative) as well as data (present or absent). Follow the below-mentioned tips to ensure 100% test coverage.

·         Refresh the code coverage numbers while running Salesforce automated testing

·         Rerun the tests when there has been an update in the business

·         The test coverage depends on the number of code lines. So, if the codes lines are added or deleted, the coverage percentage will be impacted accordingly.

# Test cases with classes and controllers: Developers, in order to make coding portable, organized, readable, and reusable, often create separate classes and controllers for each function. So, even though this enhances the readability of the code, there is not much improvement in its efficiency. Portability can be achieved when the test code is in the original class and there are minimal chances of missing a test class during migration from sandbox to production.

# Agile approach: In this approach, the software application is developed in small incremental builds wherein testers work concurrently and iteratively (using test automation) to evaluate the code.

# Synchronization with current operations: One of the principal features of any distinct Salesforce functional testing is its synchronization with the current operations. So, it is important to verify the test results against reference data signifying quality.

Conclusion

Since Salesforce functionalities add value to the organization, they need to be validated against expected parameters and reference data. Thus, a proper Salesforce integration testing plan should ensure the application build simplifies, streamlines, and enhances the business systems. 

Article Original Source:
https://www.sfdcpoint.com/

 

The need for Salesforce Automation Testing

Customer satisfaction lies at the core of an enterprise’s quest for success. Today, an enterprise with multiple branches and departments spread across geographies may struggle with managing its affairs or taking care of its customers unless it is backed by a CRM platform. The platform would help an enterprise to effectively communicate with its existing and potential customers and manage operations. It would go further in establishing and sustaining customer relationships through various initiatives and stages. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software or platform is a conglomeration of systems, techniques, strategies, and practices that helps enterprises to manage customer data and communication during the entire business lifecycle. It reduces bottlenecks in customer communication and helps enterprises meet their business objectives by strengthening customer relationships.

When it comes to CRM software, Salesforce remains the preferred choice. This cloud-based platform is used by 88% of Fortune 100 companies and its associated ecosystem is expected to grow five times its own by 2022. Further, Gartner affirms Salesforce as a leading CRM software platform in terms of sales revenue and customer support. And in the marketing segment, it is placed third in revenue. With so much at stake, the software (and the apps within its ecosystem) needs to deliver top-notch quality outcomes. 

The answer to what makes Salesforce a popular CRM platform lies in its ease of implementation, agility, scalability, and various customization features aligned to the divergent business needs. Salesforce offers a slew of activities based on its integration with various applications such as web portal, data loader, web services, outbound messaging, and social media, among others. However, with constraints of time, cost, and other business exigencies, the integrated applications are not often tested. The result gets manifested in terms of poor quality products, delayed communication, increased costs, and low customer satisfaction. To get around these issues, enterprises should go for salesforce test automation.

Why salesforce automation testing?

Since various applications that are part of the Salesforce ecosystem help enterprises perform a series of functions, they should be validated through an automated salesforce testing framework. Among the benefits to be accrued by this exercise are:

·       Boosts efficiency: Manual testing has its challenges with testers not checking every aspect of the software due to the fatigue factor. Also, besides slowing down the testing process it impacts the overall quality of application adversely. However, with salesforce test automation, aspects like regression testing can be accelerated, glitches can be identified quickly, and software implementation can be done within shorter turnarounds. And with effective Salesforce implementation, enterprises can derive benefits like

§  Quick deal closure

§  Increase in growth opportunities

§  Upselling opportunities

§  Strong customer experience

·       Better test coverage: The implementation of a cloud-based CRM platform like Salesforce entails tackling changes related to various applications. However, this would require the execution of hundreds of test cases and creating user scenarios. With data-driven Salesforce automation testing, the compatibility of applications and their consistent performance across digital elements (devices, browsers, operating systems, and networks) can be validated.

·       Quick detection of glitches: Automation testing can be conducted 24 x 7 without the need for constant supervision. Since hundreds of test cases are checked in iterations, glitches can be identified quickly. This, in turn, ensures the quality of features and functionalities of applications within the Salesforce ecosystem to remain top-notch. And sooner the glitches are identified the quicker they can be fixed.

·       Better documentation: Salesforce test automation generates log reports detailing the success and failure of test cases. These serve for documentation purpose and guide the team to understand the causes of failure and apply correctives.

·       Better ROI: The error-free outcomes generated through automated testing help saving money and resources, improving the quality of applications, enhancing customer confidence in the brand and product, and generating a higher ROI.

·       Decreasing production defects and increasing CX: The identification and mitigation of defects in various applications of Salesforce are accelerated through automated testing. This results in enhancing the quality of products and delivering a superior customer experience.

·       Adhering to quality or security protocols: The security protocols like ISO/IEC 27000, Sarbanes-Oxley, and others require strict adherence by enterprises. This is to ensure the products turn out to be robust, qualitatively superior, compatible, and secure. Automated testing can relieve testers from mundane testing jobs to focus on tasks like adherence to protocols. It builds customers’ trust, reduces vulnerabilities, and preempts enterprises from censure or penalties.

Conclusion

Salesforce implementation helps an enterprise to add value, build customer loyalty, and distinguish itself from peers & competitors. Through Salesforce automation testing, QA specialists can eliminate routine errors that are often left unidentified during manual testing. If done diligently, automation testing can enhance the quality of applications in the Salesforce ecosystem and deliver superior customer experiences.

How to carry out a successful Salesforce Testing?

Salesforce is by far one of the most preferred CRM platforms. The popularity of Salesforce as a CRM platform owes mainly to the software’s flexibility, scalability, ease of application and cost effectiveness. Its ability to bring about a seamless integration of different business functions can result in better business intelligence. The best part of using Salesforce is in developing bespoke applications quickly. These applications can help in strengthening the customer interface with an aim to deliver the expected customer experience. This is important to ensure and propogate one’s brand value in the competitive business environment.

So, be it accounts, admin, campaigns, leads, opportunities or contacts, Salesforce integration of applications can do a world of good to the business. However, the pace at which such applications are developed requires the same to be thoroughly tested for bugs or to address the performance issues.

When it comes to testing, carrying out manual testing of applications on Salesforce can lead to issues such as inconsistent monitoring, cost escalation in terms of man hours spent, and lesser test coverage. To get over the shortcomings of manual testing, it is advisable for businesses to go with Salesforce test automation.

At the same time, writing codes for Salesforce automation testing is a skilled task, for any small change to the system would mean writing the corresponding Salesforce test automation code all over again. This complexity can certainly be a deterrent unless appropriate tools to undertake test automation for Salesforce are implemented.

To implement successful Salesforce test automation, these are some key essentials;

#1 Choose the right Salesforce automation testing tool: Salesforce test automation would require use of a code free tool. The focus should be more on using a tool with a point and click interface. There are quite a few Salesforce automation testing tools such as Salesforce Lightning Inspector, Provar and Apex Interactive Debugger, etc. These include features such as flexibility and automatic generation of reports amongst others.

#2 Cover the entire test area: As opposed to manual testing, Salesforce test automation should cover the entire test area with all the positive and negative test cases. Run Salesforce automation testing to include any possible update that the organisation might have undergone since the last test automation for Salesforce. Also, take into account the code lines, for any addition or alteration of these can change test coverage patterns.

Article originally published at Medium.com: 
Check out this checklist for a successfulSalesforce Testing