Tobias Maestrini

Automated Testing in the Power Platform: Matching Governance and Upholding Quality


Testing with Playwright

Playwright is an open-source test automation framework (by Microsoft) that enables developers to write end-to-end tests for web applications. It supports multiple browsers and provides a robust API for interacting with web elements, making it an ideal choice for testing Power Platform applications.

It works on all modern web applications, including those built with Power Apps and Power Automate. Playwright allows you to simulate user interactions, validate UI elements, and ensure that your applications function as expected across different browsers and devices. It dives deep into the DOM structure and allows writing tests written in TypeScript or JavaScript.

How to get started:

  1. Get the Visual Studio Code extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-playwright.playwright
  2. Initalize a new Playwright project using the command: npx playwright@latest init
  3. Start recording your first test
  4. Choose your browser(s) and play your test
  5. Get the test report and analyze results

Playwright can do more:

  1. Emulation (viewports & devices)
  2. Parallelism (different users & tests at the same time)
  3. Accessibility testing
  4. API testing
  5. Mock APIs
  6. Visual comparisons

Monitoring

Monitoring is a crucial aspect of maintaining the quality and performance of Power Platform applications. «Live Monitor» lets you debugging the app – either a Canvas App or a Model-driven App.

As a good practice, monitoring should make use of the Trace function to log important events and data points during app execution.

Apdex (Application Performance Index)

Apdex is a standardized method (open standard) for measuring user satisfaction with the performance of applications. It converts many measurements in to a single zero-to-one score that is easy to understand.

It can be used to monitor the performance of Power Platform applications as well as Power Automate flows to display objective metrics on how well they are performing from the end-user perspective.

Conclusion

Testing isn’t a final phase – it’s a mindset.

AI Integration

  • Playwright MCP Server: enables LLMs to interact with web pages through structured accessibility snapshots
    https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp

  • Playwright Agents: Playwright comes with three Playwright Test Agents out of the box: 🎭 planner, 🎭 generator and 🎭 healer
    https://playwright.dev/docs/test-agents

    npx playwright init-agents --loop=vscode
    • 🎭 Planner agent explores your app and produces a test plan for one or many scenarios and user flows
    • 🎭 Generator agent transforms the Markdown plan into the Playwright Test files
    • 🎭 Healer agent executes the test suite and automatically repairs failing tests

  • Github Copilot

#BishopTells