What Benefits Can Salesforce Add to Your Testing Strategy?
Salesforce is used widely today for customer management and marketing purposes. Each deployment is different due to customization options and this is what makes testing so essential. There are many ways to test Salesforce and automated Salesforce testing makes the overall testing process speedier. You need to test for security weaknesses, do load and stress testing, test that you can deploy new Salesforce code efficiently and much more. User acceptance testing is the final stage before you can release the code to production. With all the types of testing, there are many benefits to your organization.
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Increase Test Coverage and Reduce Risks
Salesforce is the first cloud-based CRM system in the world. Its purpose is to help you to market, sell, service, analyze, and connect with your clients in an affordable and easy way. Many Salesforce features can be customized to suit your company’s needs. A challenge of testing is checking the customized code. Salesforce is built on a development language known as APEX, which offers built-in test cases. Developers can do tests such as unit, system, UAT, production, and regression testing.
There are two types of testing: manual and automated. Manual testing is testing using traditional methods, whereas automation involves using a platform like Selenium to automate the testing process. For large businesses, manual testing is just not feasible and they need Salesforce test automation if they want to improve the speed and quality of their testing. Compared to Salesforce, manual testing which is a time-consuming process and is very costly, Salesforce automation testing reduces the time and possible errors which can occur when testing manually.
Build the Most Reliable Software Deployments
Salesforce testing helps to ensure that you build the most reliable software deployments possible. You can verify that processes perform as intended within Salesforce and between Salesforce and other applications and systems. With automation, it is possible to run more tests in a shorter time and this enhances the value of Salesforce to your business.
Traditionally, deployments were time-consuming and prone to errors as teams had to rely on manual tools. Automation has allowed developers to boost their deployment success rates quite dramatically. With increased test coverage, developers can efficiently run test cases that need repeated execution, check the functionality of various time-based events and verify that business requirements are being met.
Identify Problems or Failures Early with Salesforce Testing
By combining various different tests, developers can identify failures or problems early on in the development process. By testing early and often, they can catch problems while they are still easy to rectify. Far fewer bugs or errors are found in releases due to continual testing early in the development process. By identifying problems early on and fixing them, it means being able to deploy new work at any time without causing critical issues in production or breaking existing functionality. Deployment is more robust and causes fewer future risks. This also means shorter turnaround times which can save you money and free up resources for work on other important projects.
Reduce the Risk of Data Leaks
One of the major advantages of using Salesforce is the quality and quantity of information it retrieves. You can look at every individual account, task, event, contact and opportunity tied to a lead before approaching prospective customers. The downside is that Salesforce deployment stores a great deal of sensitive information. The very fact that it is so flexible and customizable can make it open to attack. Writing custom code, changing configurations or adding integrations can make it vulnerable.
Authorization bypass, SOQL injection and stored cross-site scripting are common risks to data when using Salesforce. A data leak could be very damaging to your business and destroy your reputation. This is why proper testing is so important. With proper testing that picks up vulnerabilities, you are less likely to suffer a data breach.
Improve Customer Experience with Salesforce Test Results
Businesses today compete on the basis of customer experience, which means you need robust business processes to enable your sales and marketing efforts. Salesforce offers the practices, systems and technologies you need to manage customer communication and data. It can help you ensure customers have the best possible experience when interacting with your business.
Deploying Salesforce and testing it within the business ecosystem is critical if you want to improve customer experience. Only with robust testing can you ensure that you are deploying Salesforce in the most effective way to improve it so you can retain customers for sustained business growth.
Help Developers Identify Areas for Improvement
Developers involved from the beginning in testing can quickly learn the ins and outs of Salesforce and identify areas for improvement from test results. This can result in better custom features and integrations to help connect all the applications you use for your business into Salesforce. With better integrations, your overall productivity improves. Validating and testing custom code in advance of release ensures its quality and means less time goes for resolving bugs and critical errors.
Early involvement of developers means they know what to expect when the next update rolls out. And they can pick up bugs and issues more easily, especially on custom app builds. Then, they can easily switch between work streams and incorporate feedback from stakeholders, pursuing an iterative strategy that offers continual improvements for end-users.
Adhar Dhaval is experienced portfolio, program and project leader with demonstrated leadership in all phases of sales and service delivery of diverse technology solutions. He is a speaker sharing advice and industry perspective on emerging best practices in project leadership, program management, leadership and strategy. He is working for the Chair Leadership Co.
