Why is it difficult to test automate Salesforce with Selenium?

Opkey
3 min readOct 4, 2021

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Why is it difficult to test automate Salesforce with Selenium?

Salesforce is a popular CRM (customer relationship management) software that receives hundreds of innovative features at least thrice a year with seasonal releases i.e. spring, summer, and winter. Since these updates have the potential to break existing features or functionality, enterprises need to continuously test the updates prior to deployment in the production. Selenium as an open source is the obvious choice of QA teams to test automate Salesforce. However, automating Salesforce with Selenium is very challenging due to complexities like navigation through complex architecture, critical integration, and in-sprint updates. In this blog, we’ll discuss Salesforce test automation challenges with respect to Selenium and how to overcome these challenges.

Challenges in Automating Salesforce testing

Dynamic Content: Salesforce is a complex application that features dynamic content. These dynamic content doesn’t have fixed ID, name, class or CSS attributes. Even slight change in the UI can make tests flaky. Since there is no direct access to content, it is difficult to perform actions within it. Open source tools like Selenium cannot be used since they identify elements using IDs.

Dynamic Tables: Salesforce comes with database driven tables in which rows are created dynamically. Selecting the active tab may be challenging and performing actions such as ticking a checkbox with Selenium can be quite complicated.

Navigation through frames & iframes: Salesforce features dynamic frames and iframes that can load content independently in current HTML document. Since Selenium doesn’t have direct access to content, handling frames can be very difficult. Finding the right attributes and script will require lot of time and effort.

Shadow DOM: Complexities like Shadow DOM and pop-up windows are not easy to test with Selenium since it doesn’t support such elements directly and requires significant custom coding. Selenium scripting may require lot of time and can impact continuous testing goals.

The Propose Solution: Zero Code Test Automation Platform

We recommend “OpKey”, a zero code Salesforce test automation platform that enables functional testers and admins to create test cases without requiring any coding knowledge. OpKey’s real-time impact analysis gives teams’ continuous visibility into changes that come with the release and enable them to access at-risk functionalities and impacted tests. OpKey’s risk-based test coverage enables teams to cover all functional areas while providing business continuity assurance to enterprises.

As a continuous test automation platform, OpKey significantly increases the test creation with its patent pending Artificial Test Intelligence and makes maintenance a breeze with its self-healing technology. OpKey’s self-configuration engine mines your ERP configurations, enables business teams to create a baseline model of real-world and recommends test data based on configurations to ensure effortless test execution. Agile teams can create reliable automation tests significantly faster and maintain them painlessly with OpKey.

  • Predefined templates for configuration test validation
  • Multiple ERP & technology agnostic
  • Prebuilt Automated test libraries for Sales Cloud, CPQ, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud
  • Integrated Change Analysis, Risk Assessment, & Automation to ensure seamless admin & tester experience

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Opkey

Opkey is a SaaS Based Automation Tool that allows you to easily automate testing of Oracle, Salesforce & Workday. https://www.opkey.com