Salesforce is a globally recognized customer relationship management (CRM) application that is widely used by global enterprises. One of the most prominent features of Salesforce is its continuous innovation. Salesforce receives hundreds of innovative features thrice a year in the form of seasonal releases. Undoubtedly, these seasonal releases bring great benefits for enterprises, however, for testers or Salesforce Admins, these are no less than a nightmare. New features and functionalities need to be tested prior to deployment to production. However, Salesforce is a complex application and even minor UI changes can break your tests, leading to a never-ending test maintenance cycle especially in a scenario when you are using a code-based test automation solution.
Another way of reducing your testing and test script maintenance burden is to Salesforce test automation solution that can smartly understand what user actually sees on the screen. This will make testing Salesforce’s thrice-yearly releases a breeze.
Why do some automation tools struggle with Salesforce testing?
Before discussing what should you look for in a Salesforce test automation tool, let’s discuss why some automation tools struggle against Salesforce.
- Shadow DOM: Salesforce is a complex app that uses Shadow Document Object Model (Shadow DOM). The DOM is actually the basic structure and content of a webpage. By hiding internal DOM or shadow tree, Salesforce actually protects its web components from getting manipulated by coding languages like HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Test automation tools in which test scripts are normally written in Javascript struggle with Salesforce testing since they won’t be able to trace IDs and attributes to perform an action.
- iFrames & Dynamic Tabs: Salesforce has significantly improved its UI by adding features like iFrames, drop-downs, dynamic tabs, and pop-up windows, making testing more challenging. Dealing with nested or hidden frames can be very challenging while using code-based tools as it will take hours of coding to create a test case with 30-50 steps. Furthermore, it will also result in a brittle script.
- Customizations & Integrations: Salesforce is a highly customizable application. Many enterprises have customized it as per their unique business needs by changing views, layouts, and reports. Moreover, custom objects have also been added which makes it really challenging to test every scenario with seasonal releases. Many times, enterprises have integrated their Salesforce instance with third-party apps such as Oracle NetSuite, HubSpot, etc. With seasonal releases, system admins need to ensure that none of the existing workflows are being impacted.
Overcome Salesforce testing challenges after every release with no-code automation
It’s time to say goodbye to automation solutions that solely rely on Objects. You should look for a Salesforce test automation solution that eliminates the maintenance efforts and supports you in testing three Salesforce releases along with upgrades and maintenance updates. The optimal solution should be
- Zero-code: Select zero-code Salesforce-aware test automation platform that knows metadata context. No-code automation will not only save time but also reduce risks as business users can participate in testing.
- Self-configuring: The Salesforce test automation tool should easily set up your existing configurations and also manage test data.
- Autonomous: Select a test automation framework that automatically identifies the impact of change and autonomously heals test scripts without requiring human intervention.
- Cross technology validation platform: Choose a test automation framework that supports wide technology stack so that your critical integrations and customizations can be tested seamlessly.