Testing enterprise applications efficiently is crucial for delivering flawless digital experiences that delight customers and grow business. This guide will equip you with a strong understanding of what enterprise app testing entails, types of testing, challenges test teams face, and proven best practices to overcome them.
Why Thorough Testing is Crucial for Enterprise Apps
Enterprise applications are the mission-critical software platforms that power organizational operations today. From ERP and CRM systems to HRM tools and custom LoB applications, enterprises are utterly reliant on these apps to run profitably.
However, with constant enhancements and increasing complexity, the risk of production defects also compounds:
- A recent survey found that 60% of users faced issues with enterprise application rollouts in the past year.
- Gartner estimates that software failures cost large companies over $1.5 million annually.
- 98% of IT executives reported runtime application failures annually resulting in downtime.
Through comprehensive testing, enterprises can prevent expensive outages, loss of productivity and customer churn resulting from buggy enterprise software.
Types of Testing Required for Enterprise Apps
To deliver reliable enterprise apps, teams need to validate more than just the functionality. Various types of testing across test levels and non-functional aspects are required.
Functional Testing
Confirming the intended working through:
- Unit Testing – Focuses on individual code components like classes and functions
- Integration Testing – Verifies interactions between integrated components
- System Testing – Validate entire apps to meet business process workflows
- End-to-end Testing – Test scenarios across multiple systems and dependencies
Additional types:
- Smoke/Sanity Testing – Quick test runs for release validation
- Regression Testing – Confirm existing features work after code changes
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT) – Final acceptance from key stakeholders
Non-functional Testing
Evaluating other key quality attributes around:
Performance
- Load Testing – Application behavior with expected concurrent users
- Stress Testing – Performance under high load and scarce resources
- Scalability Testing – Performance with increasing users and data
Security
- Vulnerability Testing – Uncover security flaws in the application
- Penetration Testing – Exploit vulnerabilities that attackers may use
Additional aspects:
- Usability Testing – User experience across enterprise workflows
- Accessibility Testing – Compliance with accessibility standards
- Localization Testing – Verify UI, content and functionality for global markets
- Interoperability Testing – Interaction with external interfaces and legacy systems
- Visual Testing – UI appearance and behavior across devices
Infrastructure
- Backup/Restore Testing – Ensure recoverability after failures
- Failover/Disaster Recovery Testing – Validate resilience of redundant systems
- Network Testing – Stability across internal and external network configurations
Compliance
- HIPAA Compliance Testing – Healthcare data privacy and security protocols
- PCI Compliance Testing – Secure handling of financial transactions
Challenges with Testing Enterprise Apps
However, testing complex enterprise apps can be highly challenging:
- Incompatible platforms and devices – With rising platform and device fragmentation across user groups, QA teams struggle to standardize test cases. One survey saw testers spend 21% of time just configuring test environments.
- Web and mobile channels – Providing reliable omni-channel access across both web and mobile clients increases test effort. IDG found that 63% of performance issues impact web over mobile apps, requiring separate test strategies.
- Complex UIs – Advanced UI elements like auto-complete, real-time validation and interactive visualization require huge test data setup not supported by standard tools. 30% of test cases focus just on the presentation layer per Capgemini.
- Integrations – Third-party integrations using REST APIs and webhooks that depend on external provider update cycles add to test matrix. Tricentis found testers spend 18% of time testing APIs only.
- Test environments – Restricted access to properly configured staging or pre-production environments delays test cycles. Gartner notes limited test environment access as a top challenge.
- Skills shortage – Lack of skills to test emerging technologies like AI/ML, Web 3.0 results in inadequate test coverage. New technologies take up an average of 42% of the application per Growjos.
- Agile deliveries – Continuous builds and accelerated delivery timelines strain test cycles. Multiple DevOps surveys confirm test bottlenecks resulting from insufficient test environments and data.
This underscores why taking the right approach to testing is crucial for time-crunched QA teams in complex enterprise environments.
Best Practices for Enterprise App Testing
By adopting industry-standard best practices complemented by smart AI-driven tools, test teams can maximize test efficiency while delivering reliable enterprise apps.
Objective Outcomes through Data-driven Decisions
Leverage telemetry, system logs and user data to guide testing proportional to real usage and business impact:
- Risk-based Testing (RBT) – Using risk scoring to allocate test effort focusing on probability * impact of defects
- Usage-based Testing – Testing critical and frequently used functionality more thoroughly
- Impact Mapping – Map tests to strategic business objectives and KPIs
Optimized Test Execution
Optimize tests by applying decision automation and predictive analysis for unbiased outcomes:
- AI-based test optimization – ML algorithms to predict test failures based on source code
- Autonomous Testing – Self-healing and auto rerun of failed test cases without triage
- Visual Testing – Quick UI validation through computer vision and screenshot comparison
Shift Testing Left
Enable developers to validate quality earlier through building testing skills and access to production parity environments:
- Shift-left Testing – Unit test early at code level enabling testers to focus on complex system interactions
- On-demand environments – Just-in-time access to ready test environments without procurement delays
Democratized Access
Expand contributors and touchpoints by decentralizing test access including crowdsourced testing:
- Design partnership – Continuous design collaboration to fix escapes before they turn into defects
- Crowd testing – Scale test coverage by supplementing with skilled on-demand crowdsourced testers
Integrated Platform
Consolidate fragmented tools into a unified AI-driven platform for the entire app lifecycle:
- Single test orchestration engine – Centralized test authoring, scheduling and tracking
- Integrated device lab access – Virtual on-demand access to vast real device infrastructure
- Intelligent automation generator – Quickly build auto-healing test scripts without coding
Conclusion
With increasing cost of application defects and outages, enterprises are accelerating test automation and innovation using cutting-edge solutions like AI and ML.
By combining fundamental best practices with modern cloud-based testing platforms, test teams gain efficiency through test optimization while also expanding test coverage. This enables enterprises to push out high-quality applications matching the velocity of today‘s digital economy.
Ultimately agile testing practices allow organizations to delight customers through flawless and consistent application experiences across channels. This reliability drives loyalty, revenue growth plus brand reputation and competitive advantage for the business.
