Automation Tools in Salesforce: What you need to know
Tags: salesforce, test, automation
Published: 2023-03-01 05:34:46

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Over the last few years, Salesforce has evolved from a customer relationship management (CRM) solution to application development platform. Leveraging Salesforce Lightning Platform, organizations can create custom apps to fill in the gaps. With low code, easy to use point-and-click tools, it’s possible to design custom apps incorporating advanced business logic. Applications built on the Lightning platform touch every corner of your organization, be it marketing, Sales, service, CPQ, fulfillment, billing, etc. Seamless functioning of applications is necessary for business continuity. And, this can only be ensured with Salesforce testing.

When it comes to Salesforce testing, you’re left with only two options. First option is Salesforce manual testing which is time consuming, error-prone, and plagued with inadequate coverage. Another option is Salesforce test automation which is fast, efficient, and more reliable. Although Salesforce test automation appears too simple, it is devilish in details due to complex architecture. 

Top challenges in Salesforce test automation

**Dynamic elements & tables**:

Salesforce is a highly dynamic application. It means that locators are hard to find, making it really difficult to test. Moreover, the tables are database driven and rows are created dynamically. So, hard coding Salesforce is really challenging and even if you’re able to create test scripts, they’ll break easily due to dynamic elements.

**Frequent releases**:

Another challenge in test automation is Salesforce releases. To deliver hundreds of innovative features every year, Salesforce rolls out three seasonal releases i.e. Spring, Summer, and Winter. Due to the dynamic nature of Salesforce applications even small changes that occur due to seasonal releases i.e. new screens, buttons, user flows, etc can break the test cases. Thus, a lot of effort is required in test scripts maintenance if scripts aren’t automatically adapting the changes. 

**Integrated ecosystem**

: Salesforce applications are hardly used as standalone applications across an enterprise. Most of the time, they’re used with other productivity applications. For example, they’re often used with apps from Salesforce’s AppExchange that have separate codebases, making end-to-end testing a must to have. However, having a platform that supports the entire technology stack is a challenging task. 

Since you’re aware of the challenges in test automation, we’re highlighting what you should look for while selecting automation tools in Salesforce. 

**No code automation**:

In most of the cases, Salesforce releases are tested by admin along with business users. Thus, you need a no code test automation tool that can be operated easily with minimum training. A tool with which business users can easily create test scripts without requiring programming knowledge.

**Self-healing**:

Test script maintenance is a big problem with Salesforce test automation. Opt for a test automation platform that communicates with Salesforce metadata, automatically identifies changes in object property, and autonomously heals the test scripts without requiring human intervention.

**End to end testing**:

Always opt for a test automation platform that supports Lightning and Classic along with Angular, React and other UI frameworks, Cross browser testing and API testing. It would be great, if it also supports other ERPs such as Oracle EBS, Oracle Cloud, Workday, etc.

**Conclusion**

As Salesforce is a low code application development platform, it also requires no code test automation to streamline your digital transformation journey. Having said that, we’ve provided you with the challenges in Salesforce test automation and how you can overcome them using our tips