When I speak with Dynamics 365 users about regression testing, I almost always get the same response. They know it’s something they must do to keep their systems working.
But they don’t enjoy it.
Carrying out regression tests in Dynamics 365 is tedious. It’s time-consuming. And most business process owners already have a lot on their to do list. Adding another task is just annoying.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. Our Microsoft Dynamics 365 test automation tools allow you to hand over most of these tasks to an application that does it all for you. While there are some tests that can never be fully automated, at XPLUS, we estimate that at least 80% of tests could be..
In this article, I want to show how our solutions for MS Dynamics 365 test automation work, how they benefit you, and where to get started.
Dynamics 365 regression testing is essential
If your organization uses Dynamics 365, then regular regression testing is a critical activity for maintaining your application. Since Microsoft releases two major Dynamics 365 release waves per year – not to mention several smaller service updates and proactive quality updates (PQUs) – you are required to do multiple regression testing cycles each year to make sure none of your processes are affected.
Carrying out regression testing is so important because:
- It helps identify possible disruptions to your processes that could cause chaos.
- It means you can be confident when rolling out updates from test to live environments.
- It means you can keep up with Microsoft’s release cadence and avoid the build-up of technical debt.
But getting your testing done is not easy
“Regression testing can take a lot of time and effort if you do it manually. You can save time and resources by automating your regression testing with a tool.” – Microsoft.
While it is perfectly possible to do all your tests manually, this has some serious drawbacks. Indeed, as the above quote demonstrates, Microsoft itself acknowledges that manual testing is not ideal.
When I speak with Dynamics 365 users and IT teams, there are several common challenges I hear about:
- People don’t like testing: Regression testing takes time. It’s repetitive. And frankly, it’s boring – especially if you’re doing several test cycles each year.
- It adds to people’s workloads: At most businesses, the people who do the actual tests tend to be business users in different departments (be that finance, sales, logistics, or anything else). They might be that team’s ‘tech person’, but they’re not developers and they also have a lot of other work to be getting on with.
- Testers lack time: Often, business users try and fit in testing whenever they have a free hour or two. This means the whole testing cycle gets drawn out over several weeks.
- Mistakes and shortcuts: Testing is tedious, so people tend to try and do it quickly, which can lead to mistakes. It’s also not uncommon for people to say they’ve done a test when in fact they haven’t. This isn’t necessarily because they’re dishonest – sometimes people don’t do certain tests because they assume it’s unnecessary, since nothing seems to have changed.
- Lack of control over the testing process: Manual testing is often chaotic, since many people from different parts of the business need to be involved, on top of their day-to-day tasks. Even if you’re using Azure DevOps or Excel to track the progress and completion of tests, you never get complete documented proof of test like you can with automation.
How Dynamics 365 test automation tools resolve these problems
As Head of Partnerships at XPLUS, I have helped deploy Dynamics 365 automated testing tools at dozens of organizations. Based on that experience and our analytics data, I’m confident that at least 80% of these tests could be automated. In some businesses, the proportion is even higher – some of our customers have automated over 95% of their tests.
So, how does our approach to Dynamics 365 automated testing work? With our tools, the process is very straightforward. After plugging our solution into the user interface, your employees simply click ‘record’, then manually complete the test as they always do. Testing by XPLUS then creates a step-by-step test script (which you can edit and rearrange) that details the entire test from start to finish.
And that’s it.
Once the test is recorded, the process is saved, and you can simply rerun it as many times as you want without any manual intervention.
- No development skills are required
- Documentation is created automatically
- You don’t need to map out workflows in a separate system
Each time Microsoft releases an update to Dynamics 365 or you change a feature, you can rerun all your regression tests at the click of a button – without asking your business users to spend hours doing the tests themselves.
There are some tests that will always require a business user to validate the automated results with their own eyes. For example, if a process required you to check that a printed version of a report came out in the correct colours, this is something that would still need manual testing. Nonetheless, most regression tests can be automated.
Occasionally, it’s also necessary to update the tests themselves. For example, if you decide to change how you do a business process (such as purchase order creation), then this will, of course, impact the regression test too. But, as before, you only need to record the test once in Testing by XPLUS. Then, it can be run automatically whenever you want.
Benefits of using tools for Microsoft Dynamics 365 test automation
I genuinely find it so satisfying to see how automating regression tests in Dynamics 365 helps end users. On more than one occasion, people have told me how automation has made a real difference to their jobs.
And I’ve personally seen how our tools for Dynamics 365 test automation impact processes at organizations of all sizes:
- Testing completed in hours, not weeks: Our Dynamics 365 automated testing tool cuts regression testing processes from weeks to just a few hours. For most organizations, the handful of remaining tests that must be done manually can usually be completed in just one day. All other automated tests can be done overnight or at weekends.
- Endlessly reliable and repeatable: Once you’ve recorded your regression tests – and validated they are working correctly – you know they will always be done accurately, in the same way, with no shortcuts or changes.
- Better for morale and job satisfaction: Let people spend more time on the parts of their jobs they love – and less time on tedious, repetitive, and boring tests.
- Spend more time on what matters: If employees spend less time doing Dynamics 365 regression tests each quarter, they can spend more time on productive, strategic tasks.
Free eBook: Step-by-Step Guide to Test Automation in Microsoft Dynamics 365
Get started with Testing by XPLUS
If you’re still manually performing regression tests in Dynamics 365, I would invite you to try our automation testing tool. It’s incredibly easy to use, requires no coding or technical skills, and you can set up, install, and execute test suites in less than a day.
Contact me today for a no-obligation demo of Testing by XPLUS. Or try it for yourself with our free trial.
Frequently asked questions about Testing by XPLUS
We answer your common questions about Testing by XPLUS.
Does Dynamics 365 automation require technical skills?
It depends. If you code the automations yourself, then it will require some technical know-how. Equally, some test automation tools require you to use workflow design platforms that can be complex for regular business users. But with Testing by XPLUS, no technical skills are required. Users simply record themselves doing the test once and the solution then turns this into a workflow that can be repeated again and again with no human intervention.
How long does it take to set up Testing by XPLUS?
For most customers, initial setup and installation take less than an hour. Within the first day, you can expect to record several scripts and execute test suites. Then, it’s just a case of getting your business users to record themselves with the tool and start saving those tests.
How can you be sure that 80% of MS Dynamics 365 tests could be automated when using your tool?
We are confident that at least 80% of Dynamics 365 regression tests could be automated because we’ve seen dozens of customers achieve this level of success (or even higher). Through feedback from IT departments, end users, and our own analytics, we are very confident in this figure. The fact is, the vast majority of regression tests in Dynamics 365 involve a user performing a series of repeatable interactions within the platform (they rarely require users to do tasks in other software or offline). These tasks are therefore quite easy to hand over to a software program.
