Salesforce is considered as one of the best and most efficient CRM software out there owing to its wide range of SaaS offerings and seamless integration. But due to time and cost constraints many organizations have overlooked the Salesforce quality assurance. Automation testing is one way where you can validate the software for multiple iterations.
Featuring for The Enterprise World’s this issue of Most Innovative Artificial Intelligence Solution Companies is Provar, a platform that is empowering you to transform your Salesforce testing experience.
In this interview with Geraint Waters, CEO and Co-Founder let us find out more about the journey of the company.
Tell us about the company.
As the leading end-to-end test automation solution for Salesforce, Provar helps enterprises maximize the return on their Salesforce investment and build tests today that won’t break with a Salesforce release tomorrow. With Provar’s intuitive testing solution and world-class service, teams can deliver robust, scalable, and repeatable tests to accelerate releases, improve quality and drive down system errors.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
Our total addressable market includes virtually all Salesforce customers – approximately 150K companies worldwide.
Tell us about the history of the company.
In 2014, Paul Noffke and I set out to develop a best-of-breed automated testing solution for companies using Salesforce. Working together, we had previously solved complex, end-to-end testing problems for highly-regulated banking projects and realized that this was a critical unmet need in the Salesforce ecosystem.
At that time, the only available options required an immense amount of work to build and maintain tests and those tests were still highly susceptible to breakage with new Salesforce releases. Using this experience, we wanted to share what we had learned and help other teams build break-resistant, end-to-end tests that could be created with clicks, not code.
At that point, we teamed up with Mark Richards and Richard Clark at Make Positive – a Platinum Salesforce partner based in the U.K.
What is the reason behind your company’s long-standing success?
There are a lot of things that have contributed to our success including the growing importance of Salesforce globally and the dedication of our team. One of the most compelling factors is that we are addressing a very real need in the market, namely helping enterprises deliver software faster and more reliably which can be difficult especially with Salesforce’s tri-yearly release cycle.
While you can use Provar to test any web-based application, many of our customers use Provar to test Salesforce because it does present a unique set of testing challenges. With each major Salesforce release, new functionality is introduced which can potentially break tests if you’re using a homegrown or similarly rigid testing framework. And what that means is that QA teams spend a lot of time performing test maintenance to fix those issues instead of being able to work on new projects.
With Provar, tests interact with Salesforce metadata which makes them more resilient to changes introduced by Salesforce. For example, if the location of a field moves or if a field label changes, a test built with Provar that interacts with that field will continue to work.
I also think that our ability to integrate with so many CI/CD solutions is another reason why we’ve grown so quickly. With teams under increasing pressure to deliver releases more quickly and more frequently, teams are integrating testing earlier in the development cycle and you can use Provar with industry-leading solutions such as Copado, Docker, Git and Jenkins.
What are the products/services the company focuses on? How are your services different from those in the market?
Provar specializes in test automation for Salesforce and other web-based applications. The following includes information about our differentiators and what sets Provar apart.
Metadata-driven testing
Provar helps build tests today that are resilient and not rigid. With Provar, QA teams, architects, developers and Salesforce business owners can build tests that interact with Salesforce metadata, which means that existing tests can natively adapt to new changes introduced by Salesforce. This reduces the risk of test breakage and substantially reduces the amount of time spent on test maintenance.
Salesforce expertise and insights
Provar stays current and aligned with the Salesforce roadmap to ensure that tests keep running smoothly.
Rapid automation
Provar’s simple, no-code solution makes it easy for individuals and teams to get started. You don’t have to be a developer to build and maintain tests.
End-to-end testing – With Provar, you can test full business processes in Salesforce and beyond, combining both UI and API actions to deliver total coverage.
How do you decide to take the company a step further in terms of your products/services?
To continue our growth, we chose to raise a Series A investment round with the help of corporate advisers Jago Capital. We chose Michael Elias and his team at Kennet Partners due to their shared strategic vision and track record in the Salesforce ecosystem. Kennet specializes in working with founders of high tech bootstrapped companies with a solid history of profitability in order to enable further growth.
Is there any new addition to the list of products/services? Anything exciting you would like to share?
Last year we launched ProvarDXTM, the first test automation solution tailor-made for Salesforce DX users.
What do you think are the responsibilities of an entrepreneur?
As an entrepreneur, my responsibilities are diverse and far-ranging. I have a responsibility to our board members and investors to make decisions that support our long-term strategic goals. I also have a responsibility to support our customers and the larger testing community which is why I work closely with our product team and other members of leadership to inform our product roadmap. And finally, I also have a responsibility to our employees to provide a great place to work where they can collaborate, learn new skills and continue to grow professionally.
Can you please brief us about your professional experience?
Prior to Provar, I joined PwC Consulting on the graduate training programme (MITIS), after which I worked in Financial Services as a Project Manager in Prime Services at UBS and as Global QA Manager for Equity Derivatives at Barclays Capital.
How do you look after your employees? What makes your team unique?
We’re very fortunate to have such an incredible team where people are passionate about testing, dedicated to our customers, and also very collaborative. I think one thing that sets us apart is that we truly offer world-class service. I’m proud of our team and the extra mile they are willing to go to ensure that our customers have the resources and the help that they need.
Is there any special experience with your clients you would like to highlight?
Prior to 2020 one of the most amazing parts of being involved with Salesforce are the events organized by Salesforce and by the community. This gave me the
opportunity to meet Customers face to face and get to know the users and really understand how Provar is being used in practice.
