Low-code technology continues to gain ground in the market as a software development approach that requires little to no coding to build applications and processes.
A low-code platform uses visual interfaces with simple logic and drag-and-drop capabilities instead of extensive coding languages.
The benefits are countless: faster delivery, stronger team engagement, lower implementation costs, faster time-to-market, test automation, and much more!
These intuitive tools allow users with no formal programming background to build business process applications for a wide range of purposes.
Low-code platforms are therefore a fast, easy alternative to traditional software development.
However, to meet business demands for development, it’s important that your team has access to a complete platform like Mendix, which lets you automate processes and accelerate digital transformation.
In the third article of the Mendix 360º series, we’ll explore the various test automation tools that ensure the quality of applications built on the platform. Enjoy the read!
Mendix delivers test automation and quality assurance tools
The Mendix platform gives development teams a broad set of tools and extension points to set up quality assurance through efficient test automation.
In practice, this means Mendix applications are built from standard components that have already been pre-tested by the platform.
The internal consistency of the custom application model that a development team builds on top of these components is continuously verified by Mendix Studio and Mendix Studio Pro.
This way, potential errors and common modeling issues are caught quickly, early in development.
How does Mendix ensure the quality of my applications?
During development, the Mendix Application Quality Monitor (AQM) provides insight into the quality of the application models your team is building.
Dashboards present high-level details and let you drill down into microflow processes.
With standard components, you can develop complex business logic as part of your applications.
To verify the assumptions built into your application, you can use a combination of unit tests and automated functional acceptance tests, creating an end-to-end test suite for your systems.
Developers can also use third-party testing tools and services with Mendix.
In addition, all testing tools provided by Mendix integrate easily with CI/CD pipelines.
Three ways Mendix safeguards application quality
On the Mendix platform, application functionality is defined at a higher level of abstraction than in most other software development platforms and languages.
With this level of quality control, we reduce both the likelihood of defects and the testing effort required, because the Mendix platform performs many automated checks, streamlining IT processes.
The Mendix platform helps you in three main ways:
Enforcing consistency in your application model
Mendix Studio and Mendix Studio Pro continuously monitor whether the entire application model is internally consistent.
For example, the microflow activities and page elements you define must be consistent with the domain model.
When they aren’t, Mendix Studio and Mendix Studio Pro display an error, preventing the deployment of an application that fails the consistency checks.
Deploying your application model consistently
When an application starts, the Mendix platform ensures that the underlying database structure matches the domain model defined in your application model.
Since consistency within your domain model is also guaranteed, the deployed database structure is consistent with all data usage across your application.
For example, a text box in your application not only has a corresponding string attribute in the data model, but also an equivalent string field in the underlying SQL database.
That means your tests don’t need to check whether data committed in a Mendix application actually lands correctly in the underlying SQL database.
Testing standard Mendix components
If you think of Mendix as a toolkit for building your own applications, you can be confident that your tools will work as advertised.
Our internal quality team runs rigorous checks to confirm that standard Mendix components work as intended and keep working across every version of the platform.
For example, a text box connected to a string attribute with a given maximum length will never accept a value that exceeds that length.
You can therefore be sure that your test scope covers your own logic, rather than validating Mendix components.
In other words, you don’t need to test the toolkit — only the structure you chose to build your system with.
The Mendix platform has all the capabilities you need to ensure agile development. Want to learn more and see what this tool can do? Get in touch with us!
