How To Do Salesforce QA
The QA process in Salesforce is an essential part of software development, testing, and deployment. It is a systematic approach to ensuring that the Salesforce application meets the required quality standards and specifications.
Table of contents
Here are the key steps involved in the QA process in Salesforce:
Requirements analysis
In this phase, the QA team works with the stakeholders to gather and analyze the Salesforce application's functional and non-functional requirements.
Test planning
Based on the requirements, the QA team creates a comprehensive test plan that outlines the testing approach, test cases, test data, and test environments.
Test case development
The QA team develops test cases to validate the functionality, performance, security, and usability of the Salesforce application.
Test execution
Test cases are executed in different testing environments, such as sandbox and production, to identify defects and issues.
Defect tracking
During the test execution phase, a QA manager tracks and reports defects using a defect tracking tool, such as JIRA or Bugzilla.
Defect resolution
The development team fixes the defects reported by the QA manager and re-tests the application to ensure the fixes are effective.
Regression testing
A QA manager performs regression testing to ensure that the changes made during defect resolution do not impact the Salesforce application's existing functionality.
User acceptance testing
The QA team collaborates with the stakeholders to conduct user acceptance testing to validate that the Salesforce application meets the business requirements and user expectations.
Deployment
Once the QA manager validates the application, it is deployed to the production environment.
QA in Salesforce does have its caveats
While the Salesforce QA process is critical for ensuring the quality of the application, there are some potential caveats you should be aware of.
As a QA, you want to start in a fresh environment
When beginning in a persistent environment like a sandbox, pipelines are often present. These can include user acceptance testing sandboxes where the work is shipped.
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Data and metadata can be interfered with. Data entries can pollute the org and make a feature behave differently. To avoid interference, you can make your entries Git-based by selecting your branch from a scratch org.
The QA process in Salesforce can be time-consuming
Testing requires significant effort to execute test cases and track defects, which can affect project timelines.
QA needs skilled resources
Resources such as engineers, developers, and business analysts.
Hiring, training, and retaining these resources can be costly for organizations.
It can be challenging to achieve comprehensive test coverage in Salesforce applications
Due to the system's complexity, the number of features and customization options available can be complex.
Salesforce integrates with other systems
Systems such as ERP, marketing automation, and e-commerce platforms can make it hard to test the end-to-end functionality of the system.
Deploying changes to the production environment can pose riks
Risks such as data loss, system downtime, and performance issues.
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It's essential to have a well-defined deployment process and contingency plans to minimize these risks.
Salesforce applications can experience performance issues due to various factors
Factors include the number of users, data volume, and system configuration.
Including performance testing in the QA process ensures the application can handle the expected load.
The requirements of a salesforce application can frequently change
This forces the QA team to adapt and update their test plans, test cases, and test data accordingly.
The success of a salesforce application depends on user adoption
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Users who encounter bugs or issues may hesitate to use the system, impacting business outcomes.
QA early on with Hutte
To ensure the quality of your Salesforce application, it's recommended to conduct QA early in the development process before integrating and shifting.
Hutte, a web-based interface that simplifies version control for Salesforce, makes this process more accessible by offering the following features:
- A developer can easily share the environment by sending an example issue tracking system. Then, with a one-click login, you can access the Hutte org to perform QA and collaborate on the work.
- A developer can work on a feature, create a feature branch, and a dedicated Hutte org. The developer can submit it to Git for feedback and QA it without affecting their concrete environment.
- You can create a new scratch org in Hutte, either from a feature branch or a fresh org, without the risk of being out of sync or having additional configurations on Git.
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Overall, Hutte streamlines the QA process by providing developers with dedicated environments to test and collaborate on their work without interfering with the main branch.
Hutte is truly one of the best tools that we use. Product owners, Salesforce solution architects, business analysts — anyone on our team can easily and visually accomplish the tasks that would otherwise take a lot of clicks, time, and coding.
Automate Your Integration
Hutte offers a user-friendly and efficient solution for managing data during testing. With Hutte, you can easily manipulate data, provide feedback, and discard the org if necessary.
There's no need to deal with complex command line interfaces (CLI). Instead, you can use a straightforward visual interface to streamline team collaboration.
Check out our interactive demo below:
As a QA manager, you can conveniently review changes directly from Git hosting providers in a line-by-line comparison format. This enables you to track modifications and ensure they align with your project requirements.
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Moreover, Hutte automates the generation and integration of all the necessary data for testing. This feature saves you valuable time spent manually replicating scratch org data.
Return to earlier versions
By utilizing Hutte, which operates on a scratch org basis, you can quickly revert to earlier versions of your Salesforce application. In contrast, trial orgs and sandboxes do not offer the ability to roll back changes.
With Hutte, you can select a branch, such as a release branch, and effortlessly view how the QA process operated in previous application versions.
Without Hutte, this would be extremely challenging to accomplish.
Streamline your QA using no-code
Hutte enables QA managers to conduct tests and reach a specific state by performing QA on a future branch that has yet to be integrated or on a past branch to observe how behavior has progressed.
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With Hutte, QA managers can easily conduct tests using a no-code approach.
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