What is Salesforce test automation?
Salesforce is a popular customer relationship management (CRM) platform that businesses use to manage customer data, sales, marketing, and other aspects of their operations. Salesforce test automation is the critical practice of automating the testing of the records, functionality and processes built on the Salesforce platform. Since it is such a critical application, the purpose of Salesforce test automation is to ensure that the application, modules and workflows work as intended even after configuration changes, code changes, software updates and platform upgrades.
Benefits of Salesforce test automation
Testing and automating the testing of your Salesforce application ensures that it works as intended, meets business requirements, and reduces the risk of errors or failures that could disrupt business operations. Just as importantly, Salesforce automation testing confirms that critical enterprise data is correctly processed and maintained and that data stored in the application complies with regulations.
Automating Salesforce testing has an added benefit of helping to identify issues early in the development process, test the application efficiently and cost-effectively, expand test coverage, and reduce the likelihood of critical failures that could negatively impact an organization.
Key aspects of Salesforce test automation
Salesforce test automation can encompass various types of tests including unit tests, integration tests, end-to-end tests, performance tests and regression tests. Here is a list of areas to test when building your Salesforce test automation strategy:
Unit Testing: Test individual Lightning components and Apex classes, triggers, and methods to ensure they work as expected.
Integration Testing: Test the integration of Salesforce with other systems and applications to ensure data flows correctly and processes function as intended.
Applications that Salesforce integrates with includes popular software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools like Microsoft 365, marketing automation platforms, customer support systems, databases like MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and MongoDB, ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle ERP Cloud, e-commerce platforms, analytics and business intelligence (BI) tools, payment gateways, custom applications, social media platforms, cloud storage and file sharing systems.
End-to-End Testing: Validate that the entire customer lifecycle process functions seamlessly. This may include:
- Lead creation, qualification, conversion, and assignment processes
- Validating opportunity creation, opportunity management, quotes, forecasting, pipeline management and sales stage transitions
- Testing contact and account creation, association, and relationships between contacts, accounts, and opportunities are correctly maintained
- Testing case creation, routing, escalation, and resolution and that case-related data, such as case history and communications, are accurately tracked
- Verifying email automation, communication tracking, and email integration to confirm that email communications are logged accurately
- Testing workflow rules, process automation, and triggers function correctly and automate business processes as intended.
- Evaluating how the CRM system handles errors, exceptions, and data inconsistencies and that error messages are meaningful, and appropriate actions are taken to recover.
Data Testing: Verify the accuracy, integrity, and completeness of data within your Salesforce. This may include testing the data relationships and dependencies, validating data formats, evaluating how the system handles large datasets, verifying that data access controls and security settings are correctly configured, and that data archiving and retention policies are maintained.
User Interface (UI) Testing: Verifying that the Salesforce UI functions correctly and provides a positive user experience. This may include:
- Checking the layout and design of pages to ensure they are visually appealing, organized, and consistent with your organization's branding
- Verifying the user can navigate through different sections of the application
- Testing the creation and editing of records (e.g., leads, accounts, opportunities)
- Testing buttons/links/actions
- Checking record lists to ensure the correct records are displayed and sorting/filtering functions work correctly
- Verifying search functionality and validates rules, error handling and user notifications.
UI testing may also include accessibility testing, browser compatibility and responsive design.
Also Read: A complete guide to UI test automation
Security Testing: Verify that data and access controls are implemented correctly, that there are no vulnerabilities. Activities may include:
- Testing the authentication mechanisms, including username/password authentication, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and Single Sign-On (SSO), to ensure they are secure and resistant to common attacks like brute force and credential stuffing
- Verifying that users can only access the data and functionality they are authorized to use. Look at role-based access control (RBAC), object-level permissions, and field-level security.
- Testing how the application manages user sessions, including session timeouts, session fixation, and session hijacking vulnerabilities
- Ensuring that sensitive customer data (e.g., personal information, financial data) is stored securely and data is encrypted at rest and in transit
- Testing for security vulnerabilities in APIs by using techniques like API injection, improper authentication and authorization, and data exposure
- Testing for SQL injection vulnerabilities by attempting to inject malicious SQL queries into input fields. Ensure that the CRM application uses prepared statements or parameterized queries to mitigate these risks
- If the Salesforce instance allows file uploads, testing for malicious file uploads, file overwrites, and improper access to uploaded files
- Testing how the system handles errors and exceptions and that error messages do not reveal sensitive information and that error handling is robust.
Performance Testing: Use stress testing, load testing, and scalability to test how the Salesforce application performs under different load conditions to identify bottlenecks and optimize performance.
Regression Testing: Continuously test existing functionality after each change to ensure that new features, code, software updates and software versions don’t introduce defects or break existing features.
API Testing: If your Salesforce application exposes APIs (e.g., REST, SOAP), test them to ensure they return the expected results and handle different input scenarios correctly.
Mobile Testing: If your Salesforce application has a mobile component, test how it performs on various mobile devices and platforms. Mobile testing may also include accessibility testing, browser compatibility and responsive design.
Reports and Dashboards Testing: Verify that reports and dashboards accurately reflect data and provide the necessary insights.
Compliance Testing: Ensure that Salesforce instance complies with relevant regulations and standards including GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley), Accessibility and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).
Localization and Globalization Testing: Test the application in different languages, locales, and regions to ensure it functions correctly in diverse international environments. Don’t just look at language and content. Think about character encoding and fonts, date and time formats, currency and number formats, measurement units, address and phone number formats and local data privacy and accessibility requirements.
Tools to use for Salesforce testing
Salesforce provides its own testing framework for testing Apex classes and triggers. You can write unit tests using Apex code and run them using Salesforce tools. For those using Lightning Web Components (LWC), you can use the built-in LWC Jest testing framework for unit and integration testing.
Many third-party testing tools also support the testing of Salesforce. When selecting a tool, look for a tool that can test multiple aspects of the application (i.e., web, security, performance, end-to-end testing etc.). Also look whether coding experience is required or whether it supports low code/no-code automation testing.
Use BotzAutomation as your Salesforce test automation tool
BotzAutomation offers many testing capabilities including API testing, database testing, ERP testing, desktop testing and mobile testing. Features and benefits of the solution include:
- No code automation eliminates the need to learn the latest or legacy scripting languages
- Easy-to-use drag and drop canvas enables business analysts and manual testers to add to the test suite
- Support for multiple platforms and business process automation which provides function and flexibility
- Ability to update components of target applications, rather than redoing the entire test case or updating individual test cases to reduce automation maintenance costs
- Enable in-sprint test automation that introduces automation earlier in the Agile cycle.