Wondering how to validate software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications effectively? As a veteran test automation architect with over 12 years of experience across testing initiatives at various SaaS companies, I can guide you through strategic processes, techniques and tools to set up a high-coverage, optimized testing approach for your SaaS product regardless of your team’s current skills or scale.
This comprehensive playbook covers everything from understanding unique SaaS testing challenges, navigating the sea of testing tools, leveraging efficient testing methodologies real-world examples from SaaS testing leaders, and actionable tips to apply across your test automation and QA initiatives.
So let’s get right into it.
What Exactly is SaaS Testing?
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) refers to cloud-hosted software applications delivered over the internet rather than installed locally. Some popular examples include enterprise platforms like Salesforce, WorkDay, ServiceNow as well as productivity tools like Office 365 and messaging apps like Slack.
The SaaS market has exploded in recent years, growing at a CAGR of 23% to $230 billion in 2021 according to IDC.
SaaS testing refers to validating such web-delivered applications to ensure functionality, compatibility, scalability and performance meets end-user requirements across various environments and use cases before deployment. It often involves real-world usage simulation across a matrix covering parameters like:
- Cloud deployment environments (development vs staging vs production)
- Authentication mechanisms (SSO, OAuth, JWT etc.)
- Varied user payloads and access levels
- Integration workflows with ancillary systems
- Consumption patterns reflecting daily, weekly and peak usage scenarios
Testing disciplines like functional UI flows, security, infrastructure capacity, disaster failovers all take on unique demands for SaaS environments dealing with encrypted access, third-party integrations and elastic provisioning across a shared cloud delivery model.
Let’s look at some of the core SaaS-specific testing challenges next.
Key SaaS Testing Challenges
While traditional software has complex testing requirements, SaaS applications take it to another level with aspects like:
Frequent Releases
Unlike packaged applications with longer development cycles, SaaS apps release new features, upgrades and fixes much faster. Salesforce for example does bi-weekly releases while Slack ships daily requiring extensive and rapid-fire regression testing.
Multi-tenant Environments
SaaS apps serve multiple customers (tenants) from the same shared codebase and cloud infrastructure. Ensuring consistent performance, security and availability demands complex testing across user data isolation, resource contention and core functionality.
Fragmented End-User Platforms
Cloud-delivered apps are accessed across a wider spectrum of 15+ desktop and mobile browsers running on varying OS, device and viewport combinations. Both UI/UX and compatibility testing needs to replicate usage across thousands of access permutations.
Third-party Integrations
SaaS platforms like Salesforce, WorkDay or ServiceNow integrate extensively with ancillary applications via APIs and need corresponding integration testing including security, error handling, reliability aspects.
Emerging regulations around data security and privacy further magnify validation complexity for SaaS testing teams lacking optimal tools and environments required to keep pace.
Let‘s explore available solutions next to tackle these obstacles effectively.
Comparing Core SaaS Testing Tools
Testing tools form the foundation of test automation for SaaS applications. Here is an overview of main tool types and leading options across both open source and commercial solutions:
Unit Testing Frameworks
Enable developers to validate modular chunks of code logic via automated API and component tests. Popular examples include:
- JUnit (Java)
- NUnit (.Net)
- PyUnit (Python)
- Jest (Javascript)
Test Automation Frameworks
Facilitate automating full application testing flows via GUI integration. Main options include:
Open Source
- Selenium – Most popular browser automation framework that integrates with various languages like Java, C#, Python etc.
- TestCafe – Node.js-based framework designed for testing modern web apps.
- Robot Framework – Generic framework with easy syntax to write test scripts.
Commercial
- UFT
- TestComplete
- Ranorex
- Tricentis Tosca
Specialized Testing Tools
Target specific disciplines like performance, security etc. Examples include:
- JMeter – Open source load and stress testing
- BlazeMeter – SaaS performance testing
- Veracode – App security testing
- BrowserStack – Cloud test coverage across 2000+ real desktop and mobile environments
Key Considerations
- Open source frameworks provide more customization flexibility but involve complex setup and reliance on in-house expertise
- Commercial tools enable faster track automation supported by vendor packages, licensing and support costs
- Cloud testing solutions offer instant access to vast device coverage while being limited in customization opportunities
Organizations often leverage multiple solutions across this toolbox combining open source, commercial and cloud-based tools aligned to specific objectives, budgets and skill sets.
Now that we have covered core testing tooling landscape, let‘s move to efficient SaaS testing methodologies.
Efficient SaaS Testing Methodologies
The dynamic nature of SaaS delivery models has led to evolution of agile testing methods, integration with CI/CD pipelines and greater reliance on production synthetic monitoring.
Shift-Left Testing
Shift-left testing involves integrating testing deeper into development lifecycles where engineers create more modular, testable code components with automated unit tests written in parallel which then trigger downstream integration and end-to-end validation flows. Used extensively across SaaS teams, this enables identifying issues much faster and promoting higher code quality.
Behavior Driven Development (BDD)
BDD expands on shift-left testing by formally defining test scenarios and acceptance criteria early during requirements planning stages as executable specifications which serve as the basis for test automation scripts using frameworks like Cucumber and Robot Framework to validate those business expectations during development sprints.
Feature: Online Purchase
As a customer
I want to be able to purchase items online
Scenario: Checkout with Credit Card
Given customer has items in shopping cart
When customer initiates checkout with valid credit card
Then confirm order details Continuous Testing
Continuous testing builds on shift-left and BDD techniques to automatically trigger relevant downstream test suites across functional, security, performance and platform compatibility with every code change integrated into CI/CD pipelines enabling rapid validation and feedback cycles.
Synthetic Monitoring
Finally synthetic monitoring complements these test automation approaches by continually generating production traffic against live SaaS apps to proactively identify errors and performance degredations from a real end-user perspective before customers are impacted.
Getting testing methodologies right is key to balancing velocity and quality for lean SaaS teams. Now let‘s explore some real-world examples.
SaaS Testing in the Real-World
While approaches may vary based on specific environments and constraints, sharing best practices adopted by industry leaders can provide helpful perspective.
Salesforce leverages BrowserStack as its validated mobile and desktop browser testing platform for its UI testing workflow which runs over 2100 automated test suites with thousands of targeted permutation tests across its bi-weekly release cadence in under 45 minutes.
Workday invests heavily in production/synthetic monitoring with its opensource Granify platform that can simulate over 70,000 concurrent user sessions across peak payroll processing allowing it to benchmark performance and identify potential issues without impacting customers.
ServiceNow has implemented extensive shift-left testing with 1000s of unit tests triggering downstream automation including leveraging Tricentis Tosca for automated continuity testing with every build covering aspects like upgrades, security and user data validation enabling higher release velocity.
Despite differences in processes, having comprehensive test coverage across multiple environments and access platforms consistently emerges as a key theme in SaaS testing success strategies from these category leaders.
Let‘s conclude with actionable recommendations to enable similar testing reach in a resource-efficient manner.
7 Tips for Optimized SaaS Testing
Here are my top pieces of expert advice for elevated SaaS testing outcomes:
1. Identify Critical User Journeys
Break down end-to-end workflows into smaller test cases mirroring key tasks across admin, power and casual user personae targeting maximum risk areas.
2. Implement Test Automation Early
Get foundations around unit testing, CI/CD integration and API/integration testing established upfront while supplementing with manual testing of complex scenarios and UX flows.
3. Continuously Expand Test Coverage
Incrementally grow browser, device and platform validation matrix in alignment with market access fragmentation data adding test capacity via cost-effective cloud testing solutions.
4. Monitor Synthetic Production Traffic
Get ahead of customer-impacting errors by perpetually generating volume tests simulating real-world usage against production environments using open source and cloud-based tools.
5. Analyze Test Metrics Continuously
Actively track test pass %, environments covered, escaped defects and other quality metrics to guide investment across test data sets, assets and skills.
6. Validate Third-Party Integrations
Account for growing reliance on ancillary services like payment gateways, distribution channels and messaging utilities by confirming compatibility, security and failover mechanisms.
7. Keep Improving Testing Maturity
Evolve testing sophistication in lockstep with CI/CD adoption across unit, integration, compatibility and chaos testing while staying aligned with business needs.
Using above best practices combining process rigor, test automation and production telemetry with the right tools; QA teams can overcome intensifying SaaS testing complexity to enable reliable, resilient user experiences at scale.
Hope this guide helped provide lots of insight into intricacies around validating modern SaaS applications! Do share any other challenges I should cover or advice that has worked for your projects in the comments.
