Salesforce Test Automation: Things Every Engineer Should Know!
Tags: salesforce, test, automation
Published: 2023-10-11 10:58:54

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The demand for efficient and reliable software solutions is ever-increasing in today’s technology-driven world. As one of the leading customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, Salesforce plays a pivotal role in managing sales, marketing, and customer service operations for businesses worldwide. With its extensive capabilities and vast ecosystem, Salesforce has become a go-to platform for organizations across various industries. As a result, the need for effective Salesforce test automation has emerged as a critical aspect of software development.

In this blog post, we will explore the importance of Salesforce test automation and discuss key considerations for engineers to ensure successful implementation.


**What Is Salesforce Test Automation**?
Salesforce Test Automation refers to the process of automating the testing of Salesforce applications and functionalities using specialized tools, frameworks, and scripts. It involves creating, executing, and managing automated tests to validate the behavior, performance, and reliability of Salesforce applications.

Salesforce is a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) platform that offers a wide range of features and functionalities for managing sales, marketing, and customer service operations. As organizations customize and extend Salesforce to meet their specific business needs, ensuring that the application works as intended and delivers a seamless user experience becomes crucial.

**Challenges of Test Automation**
The applications developed on the Salesforce are quite complicated and metadata-driven. The dynamic front end that changes with the configuration change can be a challenging test with open source such as Selenium. Further, the challenges are classified into two categories, i.e., technical and other. Here in this section, we will discover a broad classification of both challenges. 

**Technical Challenges**

**Navigating Through Frames**
Navigating through frames in Salesforce can be challenging due to its dynamic frames and nested iFrames that load content independently. Selenium, a popular automation tool, faces difficulty accessing the content directly, making frame handling complex. During Salesforce test automation, engineers must employ specific techniques and methods to switch between frames and interact with the desired elements accurately.

**Working With Dynamic Control**
Working with dynamic controls in Salesforce can be challenging due to elements that lack fixed IDs, names, classes, or CSS attributes. This poses a difficulty in using hardcoded locators for automation. Minor changes in the user interface can result in flaky tests, causing test failures and false positives. Engineers must use relative locators, XPath, or CSS selectors to handle dynamic controls effectively based on the element’s surrounding context, attributes, or text content. 

**Handling Dynamic Tables**
Handling dynamic tables in Salesforce applications can be challenging as different tabs dynamically create and control the rows. Simple actions like selecting a checkbox using Selenium automation can become complex and error-prone. Engineers must implement robust strategies to locate table elements, iterate through rows, and identify specific cells for accurate interaction. These approaches ensure reliable automation scripts that can effectively handle the dynamic nature of Salesforce tables.

**Shadow DOM and Dynamic Pop-Ups**
Testing elements like shadow DOM and dynamic pop-up windows in Salesforce can be challenging with Selenium. Selenium lacks direct support for these elements, necessitating extensive coding efforts. Engineers must utilize techniques like JavaScript injections and WebDriver’s executeScript to interact with and validate shadow DOM elements and handle dynamic pop-up windows effectively.

**Other Challenges**

**Classic to Lightning**
Transitioning from the classic interface to the Lightning interface in Salesforce poses a challenge for automation engineers. Many enterprises still utilize the classic interface while gradually transitioning to the Lightning interface. It becomes essential for automation scripts to run seamlessly on both interfaces. However, Selenium scripts alone cannot handle this complexity effectively. 

**Omni Channel Testing**
Omni-channel testing has become crucial as organizations aim to provide seamless user experiences across multiple interfaces, such as web, mobile, and wearable devices. Test cases must encompass these technologies to validate the end-to-end user journey. However, achieving comprehensive omnichannel testing requires combining multiple tools and frameworks to effectively cover various platforms and devices. 

**Regular Platform Updates**
Regular platform updates in Salesforce, with three major updates per year, along with patches and hotfixes, can pose challenges for test automation scripts. These updates may introduce changes to the Document Object Model (DOM), resulting in broken scripts and test failures.

**Types of Test Automation**

Salesforce Test Automation can encompass various types of tests, including:

- Unit Testing: This involves testing individual units or components of Salesforce, such as triggers, classes, or workflows, to ensure their functionality and behavior.

-Integration Testing: This type of testing focuses on verifying the interaction between different Salesforce components and external systems or APIs integrated with Salesforce.

- Regression Testing: It involves retesting previously validated functionalities to ensure that recent changes or additions to the Salesforce application have not introduced unintended side effects.

- Performance Testing: Performance tests assess the responsiveness, scalability, and stability of the Salesforce application under different load conditions to ensure it can handle user traffic effectively.

- User Interface (UI) Testing: UI tests validate the visual elements, layout, and usability of the Salesforce application’s user interface.

**Wrapping Up**!

Salesforce is the de facto leader of the CRM world. Thousands of businesses rely on Salesforce to execute their daily operations. Hence, testing Salesforce efficiency has become crucial and necessary. 

Opkey for Salesforce is a powerful automation tool designed to streamline and optimize sales processes within the Salesforce platform. With Opkey, sales teams can automate repetitive tasks, such as data entry, lead nurturing, and opportunity management, saving valuable time and effort. We provide the most accurate testing interface for the right skills, enabling every team member to participate in the Salesforce test automation. We have 3000+ prebuilt test cases across 9+ Salesforce modules that enable you to cut down setup time by 80%. We leverage the power of AI to accelerate test scripting and reduce maintenance efforts.