Introduction to Integration Testing in Salesforce

You’re probably familiar with the need to perform unit, functional, and performance testing on your org. As Salesforce is a large platform made up of numerous applications that execute various functionalities, Salesforce integration testing is critical to help ensure that your org is working properly with other applications.

This post introduces the concepts around integration testing, discusses how they apply to Salesforce, and instructs on best practices.

What Is Salesforce Integration Testing?

Integration testing focuses on the code’s ability to integrate with external systems. The process consists of testing your software’s performance as it interacts with other modules, products, and systems. Compared to unit testing of individual modules, integration testing combines these modules and tests them as an overall application. The goal is to uncover any defects that may occur when you integrate the software modules.

As more Salesforce orgs move to the cloud, integrations extend to applications and processes that support customer interactions, such as:

• Customer service
• Email
• Enterprise resource planning
• Live chat and chatbots
• Mobile applications
• Point of sale
• Social media
• Website

For Salesforce orgs, it’s especially important to perform integration testing because Salesforce touches multiple business-critical areas of a company. Improper or inadequate testing can cause all sorts of challenges.

Reasons to Perform Salesforce Integration Testing

Reasons to conduct integration testing include Salesforce’s ubiquity, the potential for conflicting coding, and the vast ecosystem of products connected to Salesforce.

The stakes are high

Numerous companies use Salesforce as a central hub for business operations, including marketing, sales, human relations, and finance. With such a business-critical application in so many departments, it is essential to thoroughly test Salesforce and any third-party integrations that connect to it.

Avoid conflicting code bases

When multiple developers work on different modules, they bring their own skills, background, and reasoning to the table. This can create issues when it’s time to combine the modules, as they may have conflicting code. Salesforce integration testing ensures that the integrated software modules function as a single unit.

It’s more than a platform – it’s an ecosystem

The digital environment surrounding Salesforce consists of multiple applications, software-as-a-service (SaaS) products, and internal business apps connected to your org. Salesforce testing is no longer just about testing Salesforce – it’s about testing the whole ecosystem of applications.

Salesforce has grown far beyond a customer-relationship management platform. Over the last decade, it has evolved to consist of countless business-critical workflows.

Applications such as GitHub, Jira, and Slack can integrate with Salesforce to enable DevOps. HubSpot and LinkedIn can link to Salesforce to support marketing, sales, and a host of other applications. However, introducing different codebases and dynamic object IDs increases the likelihood of failed tests, when either testing manually or using the wrong tools.

True end-to-end testing is the ability to test from “ecosystems to ecosystems” – in other words, testing your entire IT tech stack. No longer can teams test in silos or test single vendors in isolation. The complexities of modern-day hybrid cloud architecture can touch hundreds or even thousands of upstream and downstream endpoints.

Salesforce Integration Testing Best Practices

Now you know why integration testing plays such an important role in your test plan. Salesforce testers need to handle third-party application integrations effectively with the various customization options available. User journeys will likely consist of multiple applications, so integration testing must be the norm.

Here are some best practices for starting your Salesforce integration testing:

1. Take inventory of your technology stack: If it’s not already documented somewhere, now is the time. Make a list of all the software applications that interact with your Salesforce org. Include any apps from the AppExchange as well as any internally developed software.
2. Document all possible test case scenarios: Collate a complete list of all test case scenarios and possible exceptions. Record the expected results.
3. Automate wherever possible: A comprehensive test automation tool is critical when testing Salesforce. Businesses cannot keep up with manual testing alone.
4. Test from the user’s perspective: User interface (UI) testing is imperative to validate how users see and interact with Salesforce. Custom workflows introduce mandatory fields that enable business rules, which you must also validate at the UI level.

Summary

Salesforce has become an essential piece of software for hundreds of thousands of organizations, because it supports the integration of multiple applications and plug-ins to enable business growth. End-to-end testing is a vital step in any framework to ensure all integrations, such as Google Cloud, ServiceNow, and Slack, support business-critical workflows within your Salesforce platform.

Before you begin end-to-end testing, it is essential to confirm that you have the right test automation solution. The most effective solution is software that interfaces directly with the Salesforce application programming interface to auto-generate all test automation assets by collecting Salesforce metadata. Keysight’s Eggplant test and automation intelligence software uses an AI-driven, model-based approach to testing.

To learn more about test automation for Salesforce, download the eBook: A Strategic Guide to Salesforce Testing.