Provar Answer Your Questions

How does your tool improve my life as someone in QA?

Time Savings

First and foremost, Provar can help you reduce the amount of time you spend testing. Instead of spending days or weeks manually testing core functionality prior to each release, you can build a comprehensive library of regression tests that are reusable. One customer recently reported a 45% reduction in time spent testing as a result of switching from manual testing alone to Provar. That same customer was also able to accelerate their release schedule by two weeks per release. 

In addition, since Provar tests are designed to work with the underlying data model of Salesforce, you can build tests that are virtually unbreakable. With other test automation solutions that aren’t Salesforce-specific, many teams end up spending the bulk of their time on test maintenance fixing tests that often break after major Salesforce releases. 

Quality

With manual testing alone, it’s practically impossible to test all of the permutations of test scenarios when you factor in all of the flows, users, permissions, languages, browser types, and platforms that need to be tested. Provar creates polymorphic tests, meaning that a single test can run without modification in many contexts. A single Provar test can replace dozens or hundreds of traditional tests. 

One customer who leverages Provar to test apps they offer on the Salesforce AppExchange reported a 50% reduction in bugs and an 80% reduction in support tickets from customers. 

What misconceptions are there around your tool?

This isn’t specific just to Provar, but many teams who rely on manual testing alone are hesitant to switch to test automation due to the perceived level of difficulty. While many test automation solutions do require an advanced background in coding, Provar is actually very easy to use. With the point-and-click Test Builder, Provar’s intuitive no-code test creation means virtually anyone can start building tests from day one.

What tool feature are you most proud of?

There are two aspects of Provar that really stand out when you compare us to other test automation solutions. The first is the Test Builder, which makes it easy to author and debug tests as you go. This is important because it helps to “democratize” testing in a way. You don’t have to be able to code to author tests and you are actually creating tests while using the application. You’re not building the test separately (in the test automation tool) and then going through a build-run-debug cycle until the test works. 

The second stand out feature is that we help users build unbreakable tests for Salesforce. With Provar tests, unbreakable means that the changes to UI rendering or changes to frameworks that often break traditional tests won’t break a Provar test.  This - substantially reduces the amount of time spent on test maintenance, mitigating one of the biggest challenges organizations face with test automation. If you want to improve efficiencies with test automation, you need to be able to focus on testing your new features and on release quality, not testing to maintain compatibility with your vendor’s platform.

What is your roadmap and how do you decide what to prioritize? 

We are always working hard to optimize the user experience, improve the UI/UX and update our solution to align with the Salesforce product roadmap to ensure that tests continue to run smoothly and as expected.

How do you involve your customers in your tool development process?

Product development should always begin with understanding what our customers need and how we can help. In the software industry, internally focused “feature creep” is all too common. That’s why Provar takes a customer-first approach to development. By interviewing customers and partners directly, we aim to squarely understand their unmet needs, prioritize based on business objectives,  and then work to address those needs in innovative ways. That’s our true north in terms of product development.

How do you test your own tool?

We use a comprehensive approach - testing features during the very early stages of development and as features get moved to production,  we fold those test scenarios into our ever-growing test automation regression library.

What is the most underappreciated feature of your tool?

Intuitive test building. With some test automation solutions, test builders are working entirely outside of the application being tested. Basically building tests in a silo. With Provar, you are building tests while working in the tested application. Why is that important? The test building process is much more intuitive (you only need to know how to use the application you’re testing) and will much more accurately reflect what you need to test.

Plus, test steps are fully configured from the get-go. Provar’s Test Builder delivers a complete test step automatically, including page and field details and predicted interactions, with just one click. In contrast, some test automation solutions require users to hard-code and define each and every page interaction piece-by-piece.

Integrations. We integrate with a wide variety of partners including Docker, Copado, GitLab, Slack, etc. to help teams test throughout the development lifecycle and collaborate more effectively. (Many of our customers are using our Slack integration to share test-results in real time.) That’s why we offer a comprehensive documentation library and customized consulting services to help clients take advantage of our partnerships.

How do you support your customers when releasing tool updates? 

We offer a variety of resources to help customers maximize the value of new features. Our support team is always fully up-to-speed with new Provar features and compatibility features tied to major Salesforce releases. In addition, we publish release notes at provartesting.com/documentation/release-notes. This documentation provides an explanation of each new feature with links to related, in-depth support articles. 

At Provar, we also host webinars for each major release where product team members talk through key changes and how to use them.

What type of support is given when purchasing your tool?

We offer ongoing support via our Provar Success Community. Using this one-stop-shop, you can raise tickets, download the latest releases of Provar and communicate directly with Provar testing experts. All in one place!

You can also purchase additional on-site or virtual consulting services to address your team’s specific needs.

How would you like to keep the conversation going with the Ministry of Testing community in the long term? 

We look forward to partnering with the MoT in the future and feel fortunate to be part of such an amazing testing community!