When you think of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, the first to come to mind is Salesforce. That’s because the biggest players across all industries - from cybersecurity and medical technology to financial services and retail - choose this CRM solution to sustain customer relationships. And because Salesforce is designed to help businesses deliver personalized experiences to every customer, companies of all sizes can implement CRM tools in their sales, marketing and commerce practices.
Salesforce tends to win over its competition in the CRM space because of its customizable implementation and integration with other applications such as service cloud, security, outbound messaging, Apex programming, web portal, web services, social media and data loader - just to name a few.
But it’s these integrations that can weaken your systems when proper testing practices are neglected. Be it to save money or time, this oversight can result in decreased product quality, substandard performance and customer dissatisfaction. And all these consequences cost money.
Yet, Salesforce testing can present your team with some complicated and frustrating challenges as well. Advanced features like Visualforce or Service Cloud Console are not easy to test. There’s no way to remove standard functionalities from the system, even those not in use. GUI tests often fail within a test environment. Because field IDs can differ between organizations, issues within Salesforce can occur while creating field locations. And Salesforce Lightning UI requires your team to recreate all of your classic test cases.
This is where Salesforce test automation comes into play.
10 Ways Salesforce Test Automation Can Increase Your ROI
In addition to being compatible within all of your test environments, automated testing in Salesforce delivers positive results when best practices are put into place.
- Reduces Manual Testing Efforts: There is a limit on how many manual test cases each of your testers can take on during a development cycle. By implementing Salesforce test automation within your testing process, you can reallocate the time and effort of your testers on manual tests that require human review, such as risk analysis or exploratory testing.
- Generates Automated Reports: With the success or failure of every automated test in Salesforce, your team receives an automated report showcasing which areas need your attention at a faster speed.
- Improves Test Coverage: Sufficient test coverage is required if businesses want to be able to tackle changes that come with Salesforce and their cloud-based applications. Salesforce test automation can execute hundreds of test cases and exercise user scenarios to ensure application compatibility and quality performance within the system.
- Increases Number of Tests Completed: With manual testing, only so many tests can be completed based on time restrictions or test complexity. Since Salesforce test automation can run numerous tests simultaneously, more tests can be completed at the same time without infringing on impending deadlines.
- Executes More Efficient & Quicker Testing: Comprehensive tests executed by humans and not machines can take days, if not weeks, to complete. Your team can increase your speed and efficiency in delivering test case results by implementing Salesforce test automation.
- Lowers Testing Cost: After your automated test scripts are ready, fewer people are needed in the system to execute these tests. Salesforce test automation allows companies to distribute their internal resources more effectively, thus reducing project costs while increasing quality of test results.
- Reduces Errors in Test Cases: Human error is bound to happen when executing repetitive manual tests. Salesforce test automation takes on those test cases and executes them flawlessly so that your team receives accurate testing results.
- Increases Productivity: Give your testers the chance to shine at what they do best by reassigning time-consuming manual tests to Salesforce test automation. Your testers can then focus their attention on performing tests where they find the most value, leading to more accurate manual testing results.
- Creates a Scalable Platform Capable of Handling Heavier Loads: Because Salesforce is built to handle large numbers of users at any given moment, it can also handle the volume required for successful Salesforce test automation, leading to delivering business requirements at a faster rate.
- Elevates User Satisfaction: Since Salesforce test automation is designed to detect system failures faster and more effectively, your team can fix issues and errors before they’re discovered by your customers or internal departments. No technical issues, no consumer problems.
5 Recommended Salesforce Tests for Your Team
For your Salesforce test automation to deliver the most accurate results, your team must verify that the other systems in place are working optimally. Before automated testing can begin, we recommend reviewing the following:
- Test Framework Development: Can your system handle scripts and data separately? Is your library up to date? Do you have a local repository or versioning tool in place? Are scripting standards enforced?
- API Automation: For every third-party application integrated with your Salesforce platform, API testing must be performed to verify the connection and accuracy of the API in place.
- Test Executions & Reporting: Does the built-in reporting system return accurate results in real time? Can it report the daily progress of each task performed?
- Automated Regression Testing: Do the test scripts perform all scenarios correctly? Are there more regression scenarios that need to be automated or scenarios that require manual review?
- Cross-Browser Testing: Ensure that the rendering of data is correct across all browsers by performing these kinds of tests.
The Best Salesforce Test Automation Tools for Your Team
QASource is a tool agnostic company, so we know there are dozens of Salesforce test automation tools that your team can use to automate your testing process. Keep in mind that not all tools work as effectively or are as compatible as others, so we recommend integrating these tools into your automated testing practices in Salesforce:
- Selenium WebDriver
- HP Unified Functional Testing (UFT)
- Cucumber
- Force.com IDE (Eclipse-based)
- Change Sets (Cloud deploy)
- Ant Migration Tool
- Workday
- Provar
Where to Start in Implementing Salesforce Test Automation
Salesforce is a big investment for any company, so there’s a lot of pressure on the CRM solution to deliver business value and an increased ROI. Transitioning Salesforce test automation into your testing practices can introduce instant returns if implemented correctly.
Not certain on where to start? You can partner with a QA services provider like QASource. Our team of Salesforce automation testing experts are skilled in guiding you through the Salesforce test automation process and streamlining your automated testing practices. Get a free quote today.
Want to learn how to ensure robust and maintainable automation?
Watch our webinar Managers, Future Proof Your Automation below!
