Salesforce Testing: A Complete Guide
Tags: salesforce
Published: 2023-10-02 08:37:10


Salesforce is a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides a wide range of features and functionalities to businesses of all sizes. As a complex and ever-evolving cloud platform, Salesforce requires a rigorous testing process to ensure that it is working properly and meeting the needs of its users.

This article will discuss various aspects of Salesforce testing. It covers the different types of Salesforce tests, the best practices for writing and executing tests, and the challenges associated with testing in the Salesforce ecosystem.

## What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is a Cloud based CRM Tool that is used by businesses to manage customer relationships, storing information like sales, product details, marketing campaigns, and services related to customers. It is the world's leading CRM platform, used by over 150,000 companies of all sizes and across industries. It is a highly scalable and flexible platform that can be customized to meet the specific needs of any business.

## What is Salesforce Testing?

Salesforce testing refers to the process of verifying the quality and functionality of Salesforce applications. The main objective of Salesforce testing is to verify that custom features and configurations work as intended, integrate seamlessly with external systems, and support essential business processes. By doing so, it minimizes potential risks and ensures a hassle-free deployment to production.

## Salesforce Terminology
If you are new to Salesforce Testing, the terminology used can be confusing to you. The following are the most commonly used Salesforce terminologies that you should be familiar with before working on the platform:

### VisualForce
 
VisualForce is a user interface framework provided by Salesforce that allows developers to create custom pages and interfaces using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

### Apex
Apex is Salesforce's proprietary programming language that  allows developers to build custom applications and integrations on the Salesforce platform.

### AppExchange
AppExchange is a marketplace where developers can buy, sell, and exchange Salesforce applications, components, and consulting services. It provides a platform for third-party vendors to offer their solutions to the Salesforce community.

### Salesforce Connect

Salesforce Connect is a feature that allows you to connect Salesforce to other applications and data sources. This integration allows users to access and manipulate files stored outside of Salesforce directly from within the platform.

### Object
In salesforce, Object refers to a table that stores data about a specific entity, such as a customer, account, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, and Products.

### Sandbox

Sandbox is a development environment in Salesforce that allows developers to test and deploy custom code before releasing it to production.

## Types of Salesforce Testing
There are several types of Salesforce testing, which can be classified into four main categories:’

### Native Salesforce Testing
It refers to the Testing features available in the salesforce platform itself. These features enable developers and administrators to test and validate their custom code, configurations, and integrations without leaving the Salesforce environment. Some examples of native Salesforce testing include:

### Manual Testing

Conventional Salesforce testing has traditionally relied heavily on manual testing methods, involving the manual configuration, execution, and analysis of tests. It helps in exploring complex business workflows and Identifying UI/UX inconsistencies that are difficult to automate.

The downside is that this approach requires human intervention and is often time-consuming and error-prone. 

### Exploratory testing
 
Exploratory testing is an approach that combines elements of manual testing and automated testing. This covers many scenarios that aren't usually considered in the typical use cases. It involves simultaneous learning, designing, and executing tests, focusing on high-risk or critical areas of the application.

Exploratory testing helps identify unexpected behavior, errors, or performance issues that might have been missed during manual or automated testing.

### Automated Salesforce Testing:

Salesforce Test Automation involves the use of tools and scripts to automate the execution of test cases on a Salesforce application, ensuring faster and more accurate results. It can help organizations improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their testing efforts, reduce the time and effort required for manual testing, and increase confidence in the quality of their Salesforce implementations.


 Automated Salesforce tests are especially valuable for regression testing where the same set of tests need to be executed repeatedly after every change to ensure no existing functionality is broken. 

## Why is Salesforce Test Automation important?
It helps in identifying errors within the Salesforce application, including custom code.
Automates repetitive tasks, saving time and resources.
Reduces manual testing, leading to fewer human errors and cost savings.
It ensures that the current features and functions of the application are performing correctly and meeting expectations.

**Are traditional automation tools sufficient for Salesforce testing?**

Since Salesforce pages are dynamic in nature, picking up with a robust Salesforce test automation tool can be a challenge. 

Although you can use traditional tools like Selenium, QTP etc, they are not the most efficient option in today's Scenario. You will need advanced coding skills to write tests, and it doesn’t work very well with shadow DOM and other advanced features. 

## How Can TestGrid Improve Salesforce Test Automation?
TestGrid is a Modern AI-based Automation tool that can help you automate Salesforce testing more effectively than traditional tools. 

TestGrid's Salesforce specific auto-healing feature makes your tests reliable when asserting on dynamic elements behind the Shadow DOM. This can save testers a significant amount of time and effort.

TestGrid's no-code features makes it easy for everyone to create, run, and manage end-to-end tests that cover Salesforce apps and third-party integrations. 

It integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, allowing you to test your implementation in real-time. This means you can test your Salesforce setup, customizations, and integrations without having to leave the platform.

Automate your Salesforce tests quickly and easily. Book a Free Demo Today!

## Salesforce Testing Levels

### Unit testing

It focuses on testing the individual units or components of code, such as classes, methods,. It is performed during the development phase and the goal is to ensure that each unit of code works as expected. Apex has a testing framework that allows developers to write, run, and check the results of the test cases.

Before deploying code on production, a minimum code coverage of 75% is required. This means that at least 75% of the code must be covered by unit tests, and all test cases must have been successfully executed without any failures.


### System testing

This level of testing validates the entire Salesforce system to ensure that it meets the specified requirements. It is performed in a sandbox and includes testing various features, user interfaces, and business processes.

### User Acceptance Testing

The UAT testing is done by end-users or stakeholders to verify that the system meets their acceptance criteria. The main aim of User Acceptance Testing is to identify any major issues that could negatively impact users once the system goes live.

### Production testing
Productive testing is similar to system testing, but it is performed in the production environment. 

The goal of production testing is to ensure that the Salesforce application is stable and performs as expected in the real world.


### Regression testing
Regression testing is performed to check whether new changes in code are not affecting any existing features. 

## Best Practices for Salesforce Testing
Salesforce undergoes three major updates annually, so it's essential to ensure that your customizations remain compatible with each update.
Develop a comprehensive testing strategy that includes unit tests, integration tests, system tests, and user acceptance tests (UAT). Identify the critical components that require testing, such as custom code, integrations, and data migrations.
When implementing data migrations, it's vital to thoroughly test the process to ensure data integrity and accuracy. Validate the data both before and after the migration, checking for missing values, incorrect formatting, or unexpected changes.
Use Salesforce’s Sandbox environment to test your application in isolation before deploying them to production.
Salesforce requires a minimum of 75% code coverage for Apex code before it can be moved to production. Write test classes for all Apex code to ensure the code works as expected.
If you have any integrations with external systems such as third-party apps and API’s, make sure you test them thoroughly. 
Test the performance of Visualforce pages, Lightning components, and any integrations. This ensures that the end users don't face slowness or timeouts.
Maintain clear documentation of test scenarios, expected results, and actual outcomes. This is useful for future reference and for understanding the coverage of your tests.
Once changes are deployed to production, monitor for any issues. Tools like Salesforce Event Monitoring can help track user activities and system events.

## Challenges in Salesforce Testing

Salesforce testing is not an easy process. Here are some of the common Salesforce testing challenges that developers and administrators encounter.

Salesforce is a complex platform with many features and customization options such as advanced features like Visualforce, Salesforce, or Service Cloud Console, which can make testing more difficult.
Salesforce releases new updates and features very frequently, so testing needs to be done on a regular basis to keep up with the changes.
Salesforce stores large amounts of data, which can make testing slower and more resource-intensive.
Salesforce integrates with multiple third-party apps and services, which can make testing more complicated. Testers need to ensure that these integrations work seamlessly.
Salesforce Lightning Experience uses Shadow DOMs, which can make it difficult to access and manipulate elements during testing.
Salesforce is a dynamic environment, it implies that IDs are generated at runtime, field locator based on ids needs constant maintenance as the changes are made in the Apex code.
Salesforce integrates with many third-party apps and systems, which can add more challenges in the testing process.

### Conclusion

Salesforce testing is an essential part of any successful Salesforce implementation. It plays a vital role in enabling businesses to leverage the full potential of the platform and achieve their goals. By comprehensively testing Salesforce applications, organizations can ensure that they function as intended, meet user requirements, and deliver a seamless user experience.