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Testing Environment in Salesforce

Testing Environment in Salesforce

What You’ll Learn


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Welcome to the final chapter in our ongoing Salesforce tutorial chapter on Salesforce platforms and environments, where we continue our exploration of the diverse Salesforce environments. In this chapter, our focus shines brightly on the critical Salesforce testing environment.

Whether you’re a seasoned Salesforce administrator, a developer in pursuit of Salesforce certification, or simply eager to gain insights into the world of quality assurance, this guide will illuminate the significance of testing environments and their pivotal role in the Salesforce universe.

What is Salesforce Testing Environment?

Before going for the deployment of your application to production or releasing it to the customers, migrating your application to a dedicated testing environment is necessary. It is the place in which you can perform integration tests with large sets of data and security checks for different numbers of users or profiles. It will reveal the uncovered bugs or discover enhancements that you’d like to add on. 

In essence, for you to do all of this, there will be a need for a development environment that mimics the production environment and has beta testers use it. Salesforce testing environment is the answer to all your needs and provides spaces that are specifically set up for testing and quality assurance.

It allows you to thoroughly evaluate and validate changes, configurations, customizations, code, and integrations before deploying them to a live production environment. The various key characteristics of this environment are as follows: 

  • The testing environment is separate from the live production environment, ensuring that any testing activities or changes made do not impact real customer data or processes.
  • Depending on the type of sandbox used for testing (Partial or Full), the testing environment may replicate various aspects of the production environment, including data and metadata. This replication allows for realistic testing scenarios.
  • Organizations can use the testing environment for various types of testing, including unit testing, integration testing, load testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), and regression testing.
  • The primary goal of the testing environment is to ensure the quality, reliability, and functionality of changes. It helps identify and resolve issues, errors, or unexpected behaviour in a controlled setting.
  • Developers, administrators, and quality assurance teams can explore and experiment with changes, configurations, and new features without the risk of affecting live customer data.
  • In some cases, the testing environment can also serve as a space for training and onboarding new users or employees on Salesforce features and processes.

In case you don’t have access to Salesforce sandbox, you can use a DE environment as your testing environment. The standard DE environment has limits in terms of storage and license. We will describe the larger test environment available to partners, customers, and developers in the table below: 

Testing Environment User LicensesData StorageAPI EnabledNotes
Partner Test Edition (Enterprise/Platform edition)25 full CRM licenses, 20 Force.com platform licenses1 GB (About 1,000,000 records)YesIt is an Enterprise edition with more storage, features, licenses, and 3 Sandbox orgs
Partner Test Edition (Professional Edition)10 PE licenses1 GB (about Yes 1.000,000 records)YesIt is the Professional edition with more features, storage, licenses, and the ability to install beta-managed packages
SandboxFor more details, visit Development Environments (Interlink Development environment in Salesforce here, Lakshay)

In the next part, we will discuss the differences between the various Salesforce editions. 

Salesforce Edition Comparison

FeaturesEssentialsProfessional EnterpriseUnlimited
Pricing$25/user/month$75/user/month$150/user/month$300/user/month
UI Customization3 Record type per objectUnlimitedUnlimited
Customizable Profiles and Roles2 per OrgUnlimitedUnlimited
Custom ApplicationsUp to 9,999UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited
Automation5 Processes and Flow per Org5 Processes and Flow per OrgUnlimitedUnlimited
Salesforce Mobile APP & Offline Mobile FunctionalityAvailableAvailableAvailableAvailable

Now that you know about the features of different Salesforce editions, take a look at the ideal usage practices that you can follow as an Admin or Developer. 

Ideal usage of Salesforce editions

Partner Test Edition (Enterprise/Platform Edition)

It is ideal to use this edition if:

  • You are a partner developing a managed package to release commercially, and you need a sandbox to test your beta-managed package.
  • You want to make sure that the application will run smoothly in Enterprise and Force.com editions. 
  • You are a partner looking for a production-like environment with more storage and users to run tests identical to real usage.

Partner Test Edition (Professional Edition)

This edition is ideal if:

  • You are a partner developing a managed package for release commercially and require testing your beta managed package against Professional Edition. Note: This special Professional Edition test environment will allow the installation of beta managed package. 
  • You want to be sure that your application will run smoothly in the Professional edition. 
  • You are a partner looking for a production-like environment with more storage and users to run tests identical to real usage. 

Sandbox 

The Sandbox virtual environment is ideal if: 

  • You have an Enterprise, Unlimited, or Force.com Edition environment with a Sandbox. 
  • You want to try against a copy of your production environment (including both data and customization)
  • You want to test a beta-managed package.

Having upgraded your understanding of the environments and what’s there for you to take leverage, let’s take a look at a few scenarios that you, as a customer, partner, and developer, may encounter.

Salesforce Developer

Scenarios

1. You are a Developer looking to get started for free building a Force.com application

Sign up for the free Developer Edition environment.

2. You are a Customer wanting to build a new Force.com application for your production environment

Get a Sandbox or free Development Edition environment.

3. You are a Partner looking to build a Force.com application to sell

Sign up for Partner DE organization or Developer Edition.

4. You are a partner looking to build and sell a composite application that integrates with Force.com 

Sign up for Partner DE organization or Developer Edition.

5. You want to develop an application with no relation to existing customization

Sign up for Developer Edition

.6 You want to develop an application that has a relation with existing customization

Set up a Sandbox

7. You want to make an application or go for an implementation that will only use 200 MB storage and existing customization

Use Developer Sandbox

8.. You want existing customization with data existing in production, and the same data is sufficient

Use Partial Copy Sandbox

9.. You want existing customization and also need data that exist in production, and if all data is required

Full Copy Sandbox

In a Nutshell

Salesforce testing environments are your allies in achieving excellence in the Salesforce ecosystem. They empower you to validate your solutions, mitigate risks, and deliver superior user experiences.

By leveraging Salesforce Sandboxes and virtual environments, you’ll be well-prepared not only for Salesforce certification but also for the real-world challenges of Salesforce development.

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