Test Automation for Dynamics 365 session slides at CRM Saturday Madrid: Why Unit Testing? Why FakeXrmEasy? How it works Demo with VS2017's Live Unit Tests

2. Presenter: Jordi Montaña
Topic: Test Automation for Dynamics 365

3. Jordi Montaña
• Solution Architect
• +10 yrs experience
• Business Solutions MVP
• @jordimontana
• GitHub: jordimontana82
• Blog:
• https://dynamicsvalue.com/blog

4. Agenda
• Why Unit Testing?
• Why FakeXrmEasy?
• How it works
• DEMO (VS 2017 + Live Unit Tests)

5. Why Unit Testing?

7. 1. Cost
€

8. 1. Epic Bugs: Space Bugs

9. 1. Epic Bugs: Space Bugs
In 1996, first ESA’s Ariane-5 mission…

10. 1. Epic Bugs: Space Bugs
In 1996, first ESA’s Ariane-5 mission…
> $370 Million project…

11. 1. Epic Bugs: Space Bugs
In 1996, first ESA’s Ariane-5 mission…
> $370 Million project…
…which blew up in 40 secs due to an
integer overflow

12. In 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate
Orbiter…
2. Epic Bugs: Space Bugs
$ 320 Million Project…

13. In 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate
Orbiter…
2. Epic Bugs: Space Bugs
$ 320 Million Project…
… burned up by a unit of
measure conversion issue

15. 3 Epic Bugs: Financial
$440 Million

16. 3 Epic Bugs: Financial
Bankrupt
in
45 mins

17. Bugs have
consequences…
both external and
internal

18. 2. External implications
Customers not
happy 

19. 3. Internal implications
Pain… or… can you
sleep at night?

20. “Unit testing gives us
automated regression
testing. ”

21. “But…. It also drives
development”

22. Large projects and changes
- 500+ Custom entities
- 80+ Plugins
- 540+ Plugin Steps
- 780+ Workflows

23. Large projects and changes
- Web portals
- SSIS packages + SSRS Reports
- GIS, MDS, Mobile apps,…

24. “Unit + integration tests provide
a sustainable approach to
change management.”

25. Why FakeXrmEasy?

26. 1. Why FakeXrmEasy?
CRM SDK is pretty much “static” composed of:
- CRUD
- Queries
- Other messages

27. 2. Why FakeXrmEasy?
Prior to 2014… started doing unit testing with
FakeItEasy and….
- Found myself doing a lot of repetitive
tasks…
- … and many problems

28. Problems with existing general
purpose .NET frameworks
- Generic & Complex
- Mocking Queries is REALLY hard
- Multiple CRM messages to mock

29. Problem #1: Complexity
var mock = new Mock<IOrganizationService>();
mock.Setup(service =>
service.Create(It.IsAny<Entity>()))
.Callback((Entity e) => {
e.Id = id;
entities.Add(e); })
.Returns((Entity e) => id);

30. Problem #2: Mocks ignore query
filters / joins etc…

31. Problem #3: A single .Execute()
method with a bunch of different
messages to mock

32. Unit testing for Dynamics 365
would be amazing if….

33. … everything was already
mocked for us, by default.

34. So… FakeXrmEasy was born in
November 2014

35. “It does so during development,
before deploy, functional
testing, UAT, Staging and, of
course, Production.”

36. How it Works?
- 1 single ctx.GetOrganizationService() call needed.
- Query Engine: QueryExpression, LINQ, FetchXml,
QueryByAttribute
- Fake Messages: many implemented, but not all of them…
yet (pull requests pls!)

37. Architecture Overview
FakeItEasy
In-Memory DB (this is actually way more simple than it sounds!)
CRUD Query Engine
Fake Message Executors
IOrganizationService

38. In-Memory DB
In-Memory DB (this is actually way more simple than it sounds!)
- 2 Levels of Dictionaries
- First level indexes by Entity Name, second level indexes entity
records by Id (Guid) to simulate the different CRM tables.

39. In-Memory DB
In-Memory DB (this is actually way more simple than it sounds!)
Fast!
Mainly because memory is several orders of magnitude faster than disks or
network.
Also, because even in-memory, dictionaries gives us generally Θ(1) algorithm
complexity: Constant Access Time for CRUD operations. Given O(n) the
worst case.
CRUD

40. What about the Query Engine…?
In-Memory DB (this is actually way more simple than it sounds!)
Query Engine

41. QueryExpression
In-Memory DB (Dictionaries here…)
CRM LINQ
CRM LINQ Provider

42. QueryExpression
In-Memory DB (Dictionaries here…)
CRM LINQ
???
What about the Query Engine…?

43. QueryExpression
What about the Query Engine…?
In-Memory DB (Dictionaries)
CRM LINQ
LINQ Query Translation Step

44. QueryExpression
What about the Query Engine…?
In-Memory DB (Dictionaries)
CRM LINQ
LINQ
QueryByAttribute FetchXml

45. QueryExpression
What about the Query Engine…?
In-Memory DB (Dictionaries)
CRM LINQ
LINQ
QueryByAttribute FetchXml

46. To recap…
- 1 single ctx.GetOrganizationService() call needed. No mocks!
- Query Engine: QueryExpression, LINQ, FetchXml, QueryByAttribute
- Fake Messages: many implemented, but not all of them… yet (pull
requests pls!)

47. “FakeXrmEasy provides a
sustainable and cost-effective
approach to facilitate change
management for Dynamics 365”

48. Applications
“Any .NET app connected to an IOrganizationService”

49. Applications
- Web portals
- Plugins, CodeActivities, Custom Actions
- Console apps
- Xamarin apps
- Script component in SSIS
- WPF
- …

52. DEMO TIME!

53. Thanks to the
Sponsors!

54. Thanks to the
contributors!
@DigitalFlow @slahn @arjenst @rajyraman
@ccellar @bacon1986 @daryllabar
* Sorted by num of contributions

55. References
Epic Bugs
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2515483/enterprise-applications/epic-failures--11-
infamous-software-bugs.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_(spacecraft)
https://dougseven.com/2014/04/17/knightmare-a-devops-cautionary-tale/
Testing Pyramid / TDD
https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TestPyramid.html
https://testing.googleblog.com/2015/04/just-say-no-to-more-end-to-end-tests.html
https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/mockists-are-dead-long-live-classicists