Quality Assurance for Rapid Salesforce Projects

Salesforce, the world’s #1 customer relationship management (CRM) platform, helps organizations manage all interactions with their customers and prospects in an effective way through cloud-based applications. These cloud-based apps are flexible, highly configurable, and can be easily integrated with numerous other applications and platforms. After all, successful Salesforce implementation is an absolute necessity for almost every business in today’s fast-paced digital world.

The ultimate goal of every Salesforce CRM implementation process is to strengthen relationships with customers for long-term business success. To achieve this, it is vital to deliver high-quality and robust software products. 

Quality Assurance is a critical process in any business as it helps you ensure that the final deliverables produced actually meet the customers’ requirements. It can also help you validate your custom Salesforce integrations and functionalities with other enterprise applications. 

Importance of Quality Assurance for Salesforce Projects

• Evaluate overall project performance regularly and ensure that the final project meets all the requirements. 
• Identify problems during the initial phase will help you analyze whether you can solve issues with appropriate solutions.
• Ensure that code and configuration are functional.
• Verify that the project deliverables can support the customer’s business processes.
• Process Builder’s capabilities check whether the essential pillars of the project are working correctly or not.

Types of Quality Assurance

1. Unit Testing: Unit testing is the method of testing a particular section on a page layout. This testing is usually performed by the developer as the component is being developed. It involves testing each unit of code in a single component.
   
   
2. Functional Testing: Functional testing, also known as black-box testing, is a software testing method that examines the functionality of a system based on the requirements specifications. It involves testing all the sections of a record on a page layout.
   
   
3. Systems Testing: In this testing phase, the team performs end-to-end testing. It involves how different objects interact with each other in an application and tests whether business processes are operated as designed from start to finish.
   
   
4. System Integration Testing: It is a testing method that evaluates the software’s cooperation and interoperability when integrated with other systems or software.
   
   
5. User Acceptance Testing:  UA testing, also known as end-user testing, is the last step in the QA testing phase. In this testing phase, the product owner itself logs into the final versions of the system and tests the system as an end-user to validate the business scenarios before releasing it to production.

Best Practices for Quality Assurance

Now let’s discuss some of the best practices that can be followed in different phases of the software testing life cycle (STLC).

1. Testing should start early in the SDLC process – Involve the QA team in the project during the initial phase of the Software Development Lifecycle. This will help the quality analysts understand the software requirements to deliver a good quality product.
   
   
2. Leveraging proper testing tools – There are various types of Salesforce testing tools that one can utilize for the in-depth, comprehensive testing process. Salesforce testing management tools such as Panaya ForeSight are important for your testing process to keep track of test cases & test execution and make it easier to manage your important projects.
   
   
3. A summary of the project– A detailed plan and a brief overview of the project will bring your QA team to deliver higher quality software faster while saving your precious time and effort.
   
   
4. Test case walkthrough sessions should be arranged – Once the QA team is involved in the early stages of any project, they will have enough time to increase test coverage. After the test case has been prepared, a formal and detailed session must be required where the test case author explains the test case to concerned stakeholders.

Adhering to the above-mentioned best practices and key points can significantly improve user acceptance testing and functional testing for your Salesforce projects. Moreover, it can help your products deliver the right value to your user. 

Whether you’re just getting started or in a new project phase, Cloud Analogy can be your guide to make your journey with Salesforce CRM a big success!