Salesforce Test Automation: How To Overcome Common Challenges?
Tags: salesforce, test, automation
Published: 2023-04-12 07:38:35

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/orlh6doqjalwpuhgsmmy.jpg)
Testing Salesforce can be a significant challenge for businesses trying to keep up with rapid development and ever-changing customer demand. Automation Salesforce testing helps improve speed and quality, but automated testing also brings challenges – it can be difficult to build and maintain and tends to become a bit of a time-sink.

The good thing is that, with the right strategy and tools, test automation can remove some of the pressure on QA teams and bring measurable benefits to product delivery. This blog post covers the basics of UI test automation for Salesforce and discusses testing challenges and methods for overcoming these.

Last, we propose an automated Salesforce testing approach that will make it easier for you to build, maintain, and scale Salesforce testing.

**Why Should Salesforce Testing Be Automated**?

If you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking of automating some of your tests since you’ve heard about the benefits. If not, let me quickly summarize these to provide some context for what QA teams might expect from automation.

Test automation monitors applications and ensures processes within and between Salesforce and other systems and applications are carried out as planned. A firm, for example, may have a customer-facing website where visitors can purchase its items.

When a user purchases, the company wants this information to be updated in Salesforce. In this case, test automation can confirm that the activity was carried out and notify someone or take action if it was not. Testing is also required when system updates are done, such as when a company transitions to Salesforce Lightning.

Manual system checks can be performed on a modest scale. On the other hand, manual testing is simply not an option for giant corporations. And the risk is increased when tests need to be covered appropriately. Consider a global corporation that receives millions of visits daily to its customer-facing eCommerce site.

If their system connections go down, even for a short period, and they are not quickly notified, it can result in significant customer and economic loss. This risk can be addressed by the increased speed and accuracy of testing provided by test automation.

Test automation can assist in expanding test coverage, accelerate the total software delivery release cycle, and improve product quality by ensuring efficient and accurate testing. This means lower risk, lower expenses, and a competitive edge for the company.

**Why Is It Tough To Automate Salesforce Tests**?

Now that we’ve discussed the advantages of automation Salesforce testing let’s take a closer look at some of the obstacles to Salesforce automation.

Although the Salesforce interface is intended to provide many options and benefits to its customers, the underlying software poses various hurdles to those trying to automate it.
From a technical standpoint, here are some of the reasons why Salesforce is challenging to automate:-

**Frequent system updates**: Salesforce updates its platform frequently to improve user experiences or to address underlying concerns. Unfortunately, these modifications may impact user customizations and even day-to-day platform usage. This means QA teams will have to do a lot of maintenance, and with a code-based automation platform, they will have to alter the code.

**Dynamic components**: UI elements that change with each execution of the test script can be inconvenient. Without an element locator strategy, Salesforce test maintenance will become a huge time sink with each test run.

A new tab in Salesforce is a new frame. Because the UI automation tool has to identify the elements under the frame, these frames are challenging to recognize. You’ll have to manually implement the logic script, which is a task for experienced Selenium testers.

Complex tree structure in Salesforce’s DOM structure: It takes longer for automation tools to access it because it is complex.

**Element IDs are hidden**: A UI automation tool typically requires element information to identify visual elements in an application. Salesforce conceals this for development purposes, making automated testing difficult.

**Shadow DOMs**: Salesforce isolates components with Shadow DOMs, making detecting items in UI test automation challenging.

**Salesforce custom pages**: Salesforce provides frameworks such as Visualforce, Aura, Apex, and Lightning Web Components. These enable developers to build custom pages on top of Salesforce Lightning. However, the likelihood of personalization breaking grows with each update.

**Lightning and Classic**: Most Salesforce clients have upgraded to Salesforce Lightning. However, some people continue to use the Classic version. For automation tools, testing both versions might be a pain.

The next issue is, of course, how to effectively overcome these automation obstacles.

**How Can Salesforce Be Automated**?

For automation Salesforce testing, you have two options: code-based frameworks or no-code automation technologies.

**Frameworks Based On Code**

When it comes to code-based solutions, there are numerous options to consider. Many developers prefer Selenium, a free, open-source framework that allows them to get started quickly if they don’t have a license solution.

The disadvantage of Selenium is that it necessitates developers with strong programming skills. And, because it requires code, it demands a significant amount of effort to set up and maintain – time that could have been better spent elsewhere.

**Tools For No-Code Automation**

No-code automation Salesforce testing uses a visual language instead of code-based solutions that do not require developer time for test setup and maintenance. Instead, any business user may automate, freeing up resources and eliminating the skills gap.

When a developer or IT reliance is removed, people with a strong understanding of Salesforce in the enterprise can contribute to test automation and quality assurance. On the other hand, no-code automation is not free.

However, while the starting costs are higher, the savings over time more than compensate; no-code provides organizations with a quick return on investment because setup and maintenance time is significantly reduced, and the system can be grown without significant extra expenditures.

**Recommendations For Salesforce Test Automation Tools**

Opkey’s solution for automation Salesforce testing decreases the testing time from months to minutes. Communicating with the Salesforce API captures metadata specific to your instance, assesses every data flow, business logic, and customization, and generates test cases at the touch of a button.

Users benefit from a testing framework that does not break with every Salesforce upgrade, can test both Classic and Lightning versions across any browser, device, or operating system, and incorporates testing tools to verify the code and validate the user interface.