What is Salesforce, and why does it need testing?
Salesforce is widely used for marketing and customer management purposes. More than 150,000 companies worldwide use Salesforce, and lots more CRM solutions try to emulate it. It comes with a lot of customizations, making each Salesforce deployment unique. This makes Salesforce testing an essential part of your Salesforce deployment.
Salesforce deployments run on their Lightning Platform. This gives you access to low-code tools for developing customizations, mobile apps, and more. If you have access to Salesforce developers, you can use APEX to add custom actions and functions. The Lightning Platform also offers built-in support for unit test creation and execution. It shows you which parts of the code each test covers and highlights where you can make your code more efficient.
What types of testing does Salesforce need, and why?
As you can imagine, there are a lot of ways you can test Salesforce to make sure it’s behaving as it should. Some of the tests include:
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Automated and Manual Testing.
Salesforce needs both automated and manual testing if it’s to meet requirements. Manual testing helps make sure your customizations improve user experience. Meanwhile, automated testing speeds up the overall testing process.
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Smoke Testing.
Testing early and often is the best pathway to success for Salesforce testing, just like with any other type of software.
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Unit Testing.
Apex developers write clauses into their code to automatically test code coverage. A code coverage ratio of at least 78% is essential when deploying APEX code in a production environment.
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System Testing.
Salesforce consultants perform end-to-end tests on the system’s technical performance. This makes sure there are no problems with workflow, validation, or customized rules.
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User Acceptance Testing.
You need to make sure your Salesforce deployment works as your users expect. This is the final stage of testing before releasing the code to production.
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Regression Testing.
Here, you repeat your existing tests following any change to your Salesforce deployment. The aim is to make sure the new code hasn’t broken any existing functionality.
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Security Testing.
Companies often store vital business and personal data in Salesforce. So, you should thoroughly test your deployment for security weaknesses.
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Load Testing.
In a busy organization, heavy usage can affect performance. This means you need to do load and stress testing to see how the system performs under stress.
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Deployment Testing.
A key part of your development process is making sure you can deploy any new Saleseforce code smoothly and efficiently.
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Production Testing.
You should repeat your tests in the production environment to make sure the code has deployed without developing any faults.
The top 5 benefits of Salesforce testing
Of course with all these different types of Salesforce tests going on, there are lots of important benefits to be had. The five most important benefits of Salesforce testing are:
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Ensuring you build the most reliable software deployments possible.
The main benefit of testing is ensuring you’re building the most reliable deployments possible. By using third-party Salesforce Testing platforms like Functionize, you can enjoy Salesforce testing without any need for tedious manual coding.
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Making sure the software is fit for purpose and won’t fall down under pressure.
You can identify any problems or failures before they affect your business by combining different tests.
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Reducing the risk of data leaks.
Data leaks are a sure fire way to damage your reputation. Often, your Salesforce deployment stores a lot of sensitive information. If you test it properly, you are much less likely to suffer from any data breach. Therefore, it is always suggested to implement and integrate a Salesforce data import wizard or a Salesforce data export tool, in order to prevent any kind of data breach in any of your company departments that handle critical business data that needs security.
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Saving you time and money during the development process and later on.
Your developers can avoid baking in errors by testing early and often. That results in a more robust deployment and fewer hard problems in future.
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Helping your developers get the most out of Salesforce.
Test results can help your developers identify areas where they need to improve. In turn, this can inspire them to build better customizations and integrations.
Conclusions
Salesforce testing is a vital part of any Salesforce deployment. As you have seen, there are a wide range of approaches you can use. Whichever you choose, you will benefit from a more stable and effective Salesforce deployment.
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