Salesforce CPQ Testing: How to Go About It

 

The digital transformation of complex business processes requires the use of CRM and ERP software applications. In the last few years, Salesforce has emerged as the preeminent cloud-based CRM software for businesses to manage their operations, especially with customer interfaces across platforms, devices, and geographies. Salesforce has become the centerpiece of modern businesses thanks to its myriad advantages, including omnichannel compatibility, easy integration, customization, and scalability. However, with the growing complexity of business processes, testers are looking at Salesforce test automation to enhance quality and minimize risks. Let us find out what Salesforce CPQ is all about and how to implement Salesforce automated testing.

What is Salesforce CPQ and why is it important?

CPQ is a Salesforce-based software tool that stands for Configure, Price, and Quote. It offers accurate pricing based on any product configuration scenario. This cloud-based tool can be linked to any CRM system and helps to speed up the sales process. The CPQ tool allows businesses to apply discounts and pricing, configure products, and integrate approvals into the system. In today’s business scenario, where speed and accuracy are important elements to stay competitive, CPQ ensures speed but without compromising accuracy. This is important as misrepresented pricing models can affect customer trust in the brand and make the jobs of sales teams difficult.

Thus, automating the price quote calculations can be effective if the pricing is accurate in the first place. Further, given that Salesforce provides three upgrades annually, including for the CPQ, the testers find it a herculean task to test every CPQ feature manually. Hence, to validate the quality of the custom code, automated Salesforce functional testing is crucial. Now, let us understand how Salesforce automation testing can be implemented.

How to automate SFDC testing?

As is true of automation for other processes, Salesforce test automation is all about keeping a balance between manual and automated testing. Automating every process or aspect is not only possible, but not desirable as well. It is better to identify a few pain points and then go about automating them.

Configurations: Salesforce CPQ has a large number of user-friendly features, in addition to the plethora of dynamic elements that directly correspond with the operational workflow of the business. Hence, for proper Salesforce implementation, the configurations and customizations should be automated instead of the inherent functionalities.

High-volume data testing: When it comes to testing data in bulk, the process can be quite complex. So, the testers should prioritize the accuracy and adaptability of records to avoid errors such as Governor Limit or Apex. For instance, if an update is provided for adjusting CPQ’s calculation features, the QA should first verify whether the update will interfere with the enterprise’s custom calculations.

Testing layers: It is not advisable to limit the scope of testing as it can create many challenges. To avoid such a situation, it is important to test at the right layer To use the previous example, anyone looking to test only the calculation feature should write tests using the CPQ's Calculate Quote API. On the other hand, should anyone be looking at testing a UI component, he or she should write the component tests only.

Follow SLAP: Writing test cases should follow the Single Level of Abstraction Policy (SLAP). In other words, the source code for each method should relate to the mechanisms and concepts relevant to a single level of operational complexity of the software application. Thus, the test case should be able to perform everything that is expected of it, be it the data setup, utility, or helper methods.

Conduct mutually exclusive tests: The test cases must be written and run according to the specific needs of the applications and cleaned up once done. Moreover, the test outcomes or results should be the same notwithstanding the size of the test suites. The setup can, however, be different when automation is very cost-prohibitive or complex.

Limited assertions: Because the test only evaluates one aspect, the assertions should be strictly limited to one or a few. Also, to run expensive test cases, the tests should be split with a threshold. For instance, three assertions can be a good threshold.

Conclusion

With Salesforce coming up with three upgrades each year, the testers face an uphill task of testing every feature of the CPQ manually. Moreover, manual testing can be pretty time-consuming, laborious, tiring, and prone to quality issues. Salesforce test automation can quicken the process of testing and provide adequate feedback on the quality of the code. Given that there are different kinds of Salesforce automation testing, the QA team should follow the best practices to get the desired results.

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James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results and always happy to create valuable content & share thoughts.

Article Source: tealfeed.com