01.03 – Salesforce vs Traditional Testing

Salesforce isn’t custom software — it’s a platform. That one difference changes everything about how testers work.
This lesson compares traditional testing strategies with Salesforce realities, showing why specific methods fail while others become essential.
If you're transitioning from general QA to Salesforce QA, this mindset shift will change how you approach testing forever.

1. Introduction

Traditional software testing and Salesforce testing are often grouped together under the same umbrella — but in reality, they differ in multiple fundamental ways. Anyone joining a Salesforce project with experience from custom software, ERP testing, or ISTQB‑driven environments quickly discovers:

Salesforce behaves differently.
Salesforce develops differently.
And therefore — Salesforce must be tested differently.

This lesson explains why those differences exist, how they impact your daily QA work, and what mindset is required to transition from “generic tester” to “Salesforce QA Consultant”.

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2. The Core Difference: Platform vs Product

In traditional testing, you typically validate:

• software that your team built from scratch
• backend logic fully implemented by developers
• UI that your team owns completely
• integrations fully designed by your architects

You test a product that your team controls end‑to‑end.

In Salesforce, the situation is fundamentally different:

You are not testing Salesforce.

You are testing a solution built inside Salesforce.

This means:

• you cannot change or debug the platform itself
• you cannot influence most backend behaviours
• you work with a predefined metadata‑driven architecture
• your tests must respect Salesforce limits, features, and constraints
• you validate configuration, automation, permissions, and custom logic layered on top

Most defects in Salesforce delivery come not from “broken Salesforce”, but from:

• misconfiguration
• misunderstood business logic
• incomplete requirement analysis
• incorrect security settings
• unintended automation interactions
• side effects between flows, Apex and UI

Understanding this foundational difference changes the entire testing strategy.

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3. The Development Model: Declarative vs Programmatic

Traditional development is almost exclusively code‑driven:
Java, .NET, Python, SQL layers, API endpoints, custom UIs, etc.

Salesforce development follows a hybrid model:

Declarative (point‑and‑click)

Configuration done through Setup:

• fields, objects, profiles, permission sets
• page layouts, lightning pages
• validation rules
• flows
• approval processes
• assignment and escalation rules

Programmatic (code / Apex)

Used only when declarative tools are insufficient:

• Apex classes, triggers, batch jobs
• LWC components
• custom controllers
• integration handlers

Testing impact

Area	Traditional Software	Salesforce
Configuration	minimal	core of the platform
Automation	code‑based	declarative + code mix
Permissions	basic	extremely complex; central to testing
Data model	defined once	continuously evolving
UI	fully custom	partially structured, partially custom
Debugging	logs + code‑level	limited access; must infer behaviour

Salesforce testers must be comfortable navigating both worlds.
You aren’t just executing test steps — you understand the underlying architecture.

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4. Release Structure: Linear vs Evergreen Platform

Traditional teams often work on static versions:
Version 1.0 → 1.1 → 1.2 → 2.0

Salesforce operates on a continuous delivery model:

• 3 major releases every year (Spring, Summer, Winter)
• ongoing security patches
• automatic changes applied to production and sandboxes
• occasional deprecation of old features (e.g., Workflow → Flow migration)

Testing impact

• your test cases must stay up to date with platform changes
• flows or layouts may behave differently after a release
• UAT may occur shortly after Salesforce performs a major update
• deprecated tools force you to re‑evaluate test strategy

In Salesforce, test assets decay faster unless maintained regularly.

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5. Security Model: Simple vs Multi‑Layered

Traditional systems often have straightforward roles & permissions.

In Salesforce, access control operates at multiple layers:

• object‑level CRUD
• field‑level security
• record‑level access (sharing rules, OWD, roles)
• permission sets & permission set groups
• muting permissions
• custom permissions
• data category access
• UI visibility rules

A tester must evaluate all of them.

Real impact example

A user cannot update a Case. Why?

Possible reasons:

• no Edit on the Case object
• FLS hides a required field
• OWD is Private and the user is not the owner
• a validation rule blocks update for this profile
• a flow throws an unhandled exception due to missing permissions

One visible symptom → multiple possible root causes.
This complexity does not exist in most traditional systems.

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6. Automation Complexity: Code vs Metadata Interactions

In code‑based systems, you test integrations between modules your team implemented.

In Salesforce, automation layers may include:

• validation rules
• flows triggered before save / after save / on schedule / on platform events
• old legacy Workflow Rules
• Process Builders still lurking in some orgs
• Apex triggers
• Apex classes called by flows
• integrations firing outbound messages or REST calls

The challenge

Declarative automation and Apex can conflict.
For example:

• Flow updates a record → Apex trigger fires → another Flow is invoked → Validation Rule blocks the update → UI shows unrelated error.

Understanding dependency chains is the essence of Salesforce QA.

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7. Data Model: Static vs Continuously Mutating

Traditional systems rarely change their database structure mid‑project.

Salesforce constantly evolves its metadata model:

• new fields
• new relationships
• new validation rules
• dependency rewiring

A single field added in a sprint may impact:

• 10 flows
• 4 Apex triggers
• 6 page layouts
• multiple profiles & FLS rules

Testing impact

Salesforce QA must always test update paths, not only create/read.

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8. End‑to‑End Processes: Linear vs Multi‑Actor

Many systems test single‑user workflows.

Salesforce requires testing:

• multiple actors with different permissions
• cross‑object automation
• business processes spanning multiple teams
• integrations triggered implicitly (async)

Typical E2E flows:

• Lead → Opportunity → Quote → Order
• Case creation → routing → escalation → resolution
• Customer onboarding workflows
• Renewal or contract lifecycle processes

Salesforce testers must understand business logic deeply — not just test steps.

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9. Negative Testing: Optional vs Mandatory

Traditional systems often focus on positive‑path coverage first.

In Salesforce:

negative testing is essential because:

• permissions vary by actor
• validation rules exist only to block unwanted behaviour
• flows may throw exceptions in partial‑update scenarios
• Apex has explicit limits that must be respected
• incorrect field combinations may break automation

Salesforce QA can't skip negative paths — they uncover the majority of real defects.

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10. Debugging: Direct vs Indirect

Traditional debugging:

• stack traces
• logs
• code stepping
• local environments

Salesforce debugging:

• limited logs
• no local environment
• restricted system internals
• complex automation chains hidden inside metadata

Testers must deduce root causes by:

• isolating actors
• reproducing flows step‑by‑step
• correlating metadata changes
• leveraging Developer Console and debug logs carefully

This is more investigative — almost forensic — than traditional QA.

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11. Summary

To succeed in Salesforce QA, testers must shift from:

• verifying UI steps → to analyzing metadata‑driven behaviour
• thinking in terms of “features” → to thinking in terms of “impact areas”
• expecting full control → to working within platform constraints
• validating what developers wrote → to validating what consultants configured + what developers extended
• focusing on single‑system coverage → to covering multi‑layer processes and automation interactions

Salesforce testing is not harder — it's different.
The sooner testers embrace this, the faster they become true Salesforce QA specialists.

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End of Lesson 01.03