Salesforce
With automation taking over so many business processes, you might wonder if manual Salesforce testing is becoming outdated. After all, automated testing is faster, more consistent, and doesn’t take coffee breaks. But here’s the surprising truth: manual testing isn’t dead – it’s evolved. In 2025, smart companies are finding that the best approach combines both manual and automated testing. Let’s explore why manual testing still matters and when you should use it.
The Automation Revolution in Context
There’s no denying that automated testing has transformed the Salesforce ecosystem. Tools have become more powerful, affordable, and easier to use. Many routine testing tasks that once took days now complete in hours or minutes through automation. This shift has led some to question whether manual testing has any place in modern Salesforce development.
But automation hasn’t eliminated the need for human judgment – it’s amplified it. Manual testing in 2025 looks different than it did five years ago, but it remains a critical component of comprehensive quality assurance strategies.
Where Automated Testing Falls Short
Automated testing excels at repetitive tasks, checking expected outcomes, and running predefined scenarios. However, it has limitations. Automated tests only check what they’re programmed to check. They can’t notice that a button looks slightly off, that a workflow feels clunky to use, or that a new feature doesn’t make intuitive sense.
Think about it this way: an automated test can verify that a login button works, but it can’t tell you whether the login experience feels professional and trustworthy. That requires human perception and judgment.
| Testing Aspect | Automated Testing | Manual Testing |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Excellent | Slower |
| Consistency | Perfect | Variable |
| Creativity | Limited | High |
| User Experience | Cannot evaluate | Natural strength |
| Exploratory Testing | Not possible | Essential |
| Cost for Repetitive Tasks | Low | High |
| Adapting to Unexpected Issues | Cannot adapt | Excellent |
User Experience and Usability Testing
Here’s where manual testing truly shines: understanding how real people interact with your Salesforce system. User experience (UX) testing requires human empathy, intuition, and understanding. A manual tester can identify confusing layouts, unclear labels, and frustrating workflows that automated tests would miss entirely.
For example, imagine you’ve created a custom Lightning page for sales representatives. Automated testing can verify that all components load and function correctly. But only a human tester can tell you that the most important information is hidden at the bottom of the page, or that the color scheme makes text hard to read.
Exploratory Testing: Finding the Unexpected
Exploratory testing is like being a detective – you’re looking for problems that nobody anticipated. Manual testers use their creativity and experience to try unexpected combinations, unusual workflows, and edge cases that weren’t included in automated test scripts.
This type of testing often uncovers the most critical bugs – the ones that happen when users do something slightly different than expected. Automated tests follow scripts; manual testers follow curiosity.
Validating Complex Business Logic
Some business processes are incredibly complex, involving multiple systems, decision points, and human judgment calls. While automated testing can handle straightforward scenarios, complex business logic often requires manual validation to ensure everything works correctly in context.
Consider a sophisticated approval process that changes based on deal size, product type, customer history, and current quarter performance. Yes, you could automate tests for this, but creating comprehensive automated tests might take longer than manual testing, especially if the logic changes frequently.
Testing New Features and Requirements
When you’re developing something brand new, manual testing plays a crucial role. Early-stage features benefit from human exploration and feedback before investing time in automated test creation. Manual testers can quickly validate concepts, identify issues, and suggest improvements while development is still flexible.
Just as businesses need human insight for strategy and innovation – something emphasized by forward-thinking companies highlighted on business north west – Salesforce development needs human testing for new initiatives.
Accessibility and Compliance Testing
Ensuring your Salesforce system is accessible to users with disabilities requires human judgment and empathy. While automated tools can check some accessibility standards, manual testing is essential for truly understanding the user experience for people using screen readers, keyboard navigation, or other assistive technologies.
Similarly, compliance testing often requires interpretation of regulations and context that automated tools cannot provide. A human tester understands the spirit of compliance requirements, not just the letter of the law.
The Changing Role of Manual Testers
Manual testers in 2025 aren’t doing the same work they did in 2015. Their role has evolved from executing repetitive test cases to focusing on high-value activities that require human skills. Modern manual testers spend their time on:
- Exploratory testing and creative problem-finding
- User experience evaluation and improvement suggestions
- Accessibility and compliance validation
- Complex scenario testing that’s difficult to automate
- Creating and refining automated test strategies
- Investigating bugs that automated tests discover
This evolution makes manual testing more strategic and valuable, not less relevant.
Cost-Benefit Analysis in 2025
Let’s talk about the practical side: money. Is manual testing cost-effective in 2025? The answer depends on what you’re testing. For repetitive regression testing, automation wins on cost. But for the areas where manual testing excels, attempting to automate everything can actually cost more than strategic manual testing.
Creating automated tests takes time and expertise. Maintaining them as your system changes requires ongoing investment. For features that change frequently or tests that run infrequently, manual testing might be more economical.
Integration Testing Complexities
Modern Salesforce implementations rarely exist in isolation. They connect with marketing platforms, ERP systems, customer service tools, and countless other applications. Testing these integrations thoroughly requires manual verification of data flow, error handling, and business process completion across multiple systems.
While automated integration tests handle basic connectivity and data exchange, manual testing validates that the entire business process works as intended from the user’s perspective. This holistic view is difficult to fully automate.
The Hybrid Approach: Best of Both Worlds
The smartest Salesforce teams in 2025 aren’t choosing between manual and automated testing – they’re strategically combining both. This hybrid approach leverages automation for what it does best while preserving manual testing for scenarios requiring human insight.
A typical hybrid strategy might look like this:
- Automated testing handles regression testing, smoke testing, and high-frequency checks
- Manual testing focuses on new features, user experience, exploratory testing, and complex scenarios
- Both approaches feed into continuous improvement cycles
This mirrors broader trends in digital strategy where human creativity and automated efficiency work together. Much like how digital presence requires both automated tools and human judgment, as understood in spaces like influencers gone wild, successful Salesforce testing needs both elements.
Training and Skill Development
Manual testers in 2025 need different skills than before. They must understand automation principles, know when to recommend automation, and possess strong analytical and communication abilities. The manual tester who simply follows test scripts is indeed becoming obsolete, but the skilled professional who provides strategic testing insights is more valuable than ever.
Quality Assurance vs. Quality Control
There’s an important distinction here. Manual testing has shifted from quality control (finding bugs after development) to quality assurance (preventing bugs through better processes and early involvement). Manual testers now participate in planning, design reviews, and requirement discussions, helping prevent issues before code is even written.
Small Business Considerations
For small businesses without resources for extensive automated testing infrastructure, manual testing remains a practical and effective approach. Not every organization needs comprehensive test automation. If you’re updating Salesforce monthly rather than daily, if you have a small team, or if your customizations are relatively simple, strategic manual testing might serve you better than complex automation.
Regulatory and Audit Requirements
Some industries require human verification and sign-off on testing activities. Healthcare, finance, and other regulated sectors often need documented manual testing for compliance purposes. Even when automated tests run, manual verification and approval may be required by regulatory frameworks.
The Human Element in Technology
Here’s the fundamental truth: Salesforce exists to serve people. The ultimate test of any Salesforce system is whether it helps real humans do their jobs better. Automated testing can verify functionality, but only people can truly evaluate whether a system meets human needs.
This human-centered perspective ensures that technology serves its intended purpose rather than just technically functioning.
Future Trends: AI and Manual Testing
Looking ahead, artificial intelligence is beginning to influence testing strategies. AI-powered tools can suggest test cases, identify patterns, and even perform some exploratory testing. However, these tools augment rather than replace manual testers. The future likely holds AI-assisted manual testing, where humans guide intelligent tools rather than execute every test step manually.
Conclusion
Is Manual Salesforce Testing Still Relevant in 2025? Absolutely yes – but with important caveats. Manual testing’s role has transformed from executing repetitive test cases to providing strategic insight that automation cannot deliver. It remains essential for user experience evaluation, exploratory testing, accessibility validation, complex scenario testing, and early-stage feature verification.
The question isn’t whether to use manual or automated testing – it’s how to strategically combine both approaches for comprehensive quality assurance. Organizations that recognize manual testing’s continued value while leveraging automation’s efficiency will build better Salesforce systems than those that rely exclusively on either approach.
In 2025, manual Salesforce testing isn’t just relevant – when applied strategically, it’s irreplaceable. The wise investment isn’t eliminating manual testing but rather evolving it to focus on the high-value activities where human judgment, creativity, and empathy make all the difference. Your Salesforce system serves people, and sometimes you need people to properly test it.
