How to Test a CRM Application

Customer Relationship Management is very important these days for a a core business and there are various technologies that have introduced CRM applications and if there occurs bugs in those then what will happen is that everything in their business will collapse. To make it simple we need to test the application thoroughly. From the tester's end the testing is the same but the methodology will vary for different concepts and different applications. Let us discuss here about how to test a CRM application.



Figure 1: CRM

What to test

There are mainly two broad areas to test in a CRM application, they are functionality and performance. Other than these two major areas, data quality and data maintenance play a vital role. Let us explain them in detail.

Functionality Testing

This deals with the application's functions as per the requirements and it ensures that it fits during the migration of data from another legacy systems. The values and other data are populated in the correct fields. There are some key points we will discuss regarding the functional testing below.

• Organization wide default
• Access level
• Accessible to hidden datas
• Transaction processes
• Connection lost
• Proper exception handling
• Avoid data mismatch
• Pre-Authorisation
• Post-Authorisation
  
  
  
  Figure 2: Functionality Testing

Data-Quality

There will be many migration activities in CRM and at every stage of migration we must be sure enough about the data. Because if the data is not there then the CRM is nothing without the data. To ensure data activities there are certain features to test with data, they are:

• Data-duplication
• Data-mapping
• Wrong data entry
• Missing of data
• Data sorting
• Data security
• Hidden datas
• Missing of datas
• Data updations
• Editable options of datas
• Data used for graphical representations
• Data used for reportings
  
  
  
  Figure 3: Data-Quality

Performance Testing

This is a testing under which the application will work under pressure or stress or load. This can measure the effects of many users on the system's performance. Here we need to test some of the features that I have listed below.

• Response time
• Server utilization
• Peak hours testing
• Loading speed
• Error with any other integrated applications due to this
• Maximum number of users
  
  
  
  Figure 4: Performance Testing

Integration Testing

This will be a challenge in CRM applications where we will be migrating or integrating some other applications into the present CRM. We must see some of the features.

• Field and Labels matching each other
• Dependencies are integrated properly
• Date format
• Reports and formats
• Validations of datas
• Sorting orders
• Accuracy and reliability
  
  
  
  Figure 5: Integration Testing

Regression Testing



Figure 6: Regression Testing

There will be regression testing always in an application like CRM where we need to test before migration and after migration. After migration whether the values are populated into the correct fields and validations are matched with the data. Other fields should not be disturbed because of this. This will measure:

• Functional correctness and completeness
• Reliability
• Confidentiability
• Scalability
• Even performance

Any time requirements change (a common occurrence in CRM implementations), new features are added or defects are fixed, you should run these regression tests again.

Thus people should have the basic attributes when testing a CRM application.