Salesforce is a leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution that brings customers and companies together, and helps accelerate sales and customer base. It covers all the areas of customer relationships ranging from marketing to service, enabling deeper customer relationships.

Salesforce offers

1. Trustworthy reporting
2. Dashboards that visually showcase data
3. Improved messaging with automation
4. Proactive service enhanced by automation
5. Seamless collaboration

Salesforce Testing

Since Salesforce is used by various internal teams of an organization, it is essential to test it thoroughly and frequently to ensure all critical workflows work as expected.

Salesforce testing:

1. Helps verify whether the finished system can efficiently support the client’s business processes
2. Validates if the system’s initial build meets the agreed requirement
3. Helps catch problems early, while they’re easy to fix
4. Process builders feature helps check the working condition and behavior of the system
5. Workflows allow checking the functionality of time-based events

An Overview of the Testing Process

The testing process of Salesforce is the same as for any other web-based application. The tester should have a clear perspective of the customizable features which are built during the test process.

This helps to focus on that customized code instead of the built-in Salesforce features.

Salesforce Functional Testing

The first phase of software testing that takes place post-development is functional testing.

It involves reviewing each new feature thoroughly, checking for bugs and confirming the new functionality works from start to finish. The tester then ensures the new development works alongside the existing features.

Functional testing in a Salesforce UAT Sandbox ensures that your new app operates as planned, while preserving your existing architecture and security model.

Salesforce UAT Testing

Once functional testing has been completed, you’re ready for User Acceptance Testing. At this level, tester works through different processes, using the new functionality in a real-world business case. Thus, verifying the user is seeing only the elements they need to see.

UAT also clarifies requirements that weren’t clear in the initial design. It is the best strategic a release team can have when making sure system changes are palatable to and sanctioned by their intended audience.

Salesforce Testing Best Practices

1. Testing must include UI testing, functional testing, regression testing, integration testing, system testing and system integration testing.
2. Automation testing should also be incorporated using tools like Selenium.
3. The dynamic nature of Visual Force pages needs to be paid special attention to as all the elements of a webpage may not load at one go.
4. Testers need to create functional flows including positive and negative flows to cover the entire functionality of an application.
5. Workflows using various user roles must be constructed and tested.
6. Test cases need to be documented using a test management tool like Microfocus ALM.
7. Test data needs to be prepared for validating the reports functionality.

Challenges of Salesforce Testing

Salesforce testing is not straightforward – manual testing is too expensive and error-prone. And it is also not easy to automate Salesforce testing.

The Sales UI is highly customizable, its object properties are dynamic, and the elements are significantly harder to interact with.

Additionally, frequent Salesforce updates change these object properties which can break existing tests. Pure record and replay-based tools fail as a specific test suite evolves or as test cases get more complex.

Pure script-based tools are difficult to set up – they have a steep learning curve for non-technical users, and add unnecessary overhead when it comes to test maintenance.

To ensure maximum ROI on your Salesforce implementation, it is necessary to have an experienced Salesforce Implementation and Testing partner.

At Zen Cloud, we have certified and specialized Salesforce testing resources who work in tandem with Salesforce developers to ensure a glitch-free, seamless Salesforce implementation. Get maximum ROI on your Salesforce CRM by leveraging our powerful suite of implementation and testing services.