I recently joined a company that builds Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) using Microsoft Power Apps and other tools in the Power Platform. I’m coming to this with ten years of experience as an analytical chemist and some technical background.
I’ve been asked to lead testing for our product. While I’ve dabbled in video game testing and worked in quality control labs, which helps with a detail-oriented mindset, this is my first proper software testing role.
So far, I’ve been learning how to write and organize test cases in Azure DevOps and have developed enough product familiarity to start exploring edge cases and system limitations. I think I have a lot of room for improvement. I’d like to ask what skills, tools, or practices should I focus on next to grow as a tester and to better support others on the team in the future?
Although I am not fully versed with MS-Power Apps, but had a brief stint as a tester in a project involving Power Portal. As I understand this product, it has a portfolio of Apps with each serving a unique purpose. Learning all of them in detail would be deep learning curve, & quite technical from testing perspective.
There are fair no. of YT video playlists that explain basics of Power Apps. There’s also good documentation on ‘Microsoft Learn’ portal, plus you can sign up for a free ‘Developer Account’ that will create a ‘sandbox’ environment for you. By having a free developer account you can play around with various Apps just to get a feel of their diverse features and where they serve their role in your test product i.e. the LMS.
I wish I had advice. The one thing I did learn when testing a solution built in Power Platform is that it can really struggle to comply with certain WCAG requirements. I guess some of that depends on the development of the product, but my understanding is that due to the nature of Power Apps, there are some aspects of accessibility that don’t work, or that kind of work (maybe with a workaround), but poorly. There were several issues that I was told that the business was just going to accept due to time and budget constraints etc. (we all know how it goes), and that really didn’t sit right with me! I realise this is very specific, but it was a useful learning. I’m so interested to see what else others have to say about how to get one’s head around testing Power Apps. Good luck!
Thank you. It’s true in my experience that Power Apps seems simple on the surface but has the potential to include a lot of moving parts. Leading up to and at the start of my role involved a lot of learning and training about how to get Power Apps to do what I want - not to mention Azure DevOps.
My goal is since I’ve been given the responsibilities of a software tester, learn as much as I can so that I can take those skills with me in the future. Manual testing feels like something I can do, but I want to learn more proper terminology, api testing, automation. etc.
I have never run across WCAG requirements before - that is very interesting. It’s something I want to keep in mind as I get more familiar in my role. Thank you for sharing!
I will add to this in case someone testing Power Apps runs into this in the future - so far this is what I’ve found with regards to Power Apps specific testing. It uses Playwright and YAML files to run automated testing. It’s still in preview – Microsoft Power Apps Test Engine.
I’m figuring it out as I go in the hopes that it can be something I can use in the future.
Wishing you the best of luck! I am a trainee tester and every time I find the answer to a question it seems I discover another 5 things I don’t understand and then need to learn/research. It can feel endless!