Menditect Test Automation is Built on and for Mendix

Bugs and regression errors are expensive and harder to fix then they are to catch with proper testing. But conducting proper low-level testing can be tedious and time-consuming. Further, traditional testing methodologies are slow and overcomplicated, and they diminish the benefits of modern software development.

New low-code practitioners may be optimizing the development of their software and applications, but they also have to think about optimizing their testing workflows, too. Otherwise, they risk compromising critical drivers of low-code, such as adaptability, and rapid development.

Menditect Test Automation (MTA) provides essential low-level testing optimized for the Mendix low-code platform experience. Low-maintenance and easy-to-integrate MTA tests support and contribute to low-code efficiency, quality, and resource management opportunities.

“There are a lot of costs associated with not keeping to quality standards, and if you only test the surface of the app as an end user, you just don’t test enough of the application,” said Markus Travaille, cofounder of Menditect. “It might work in the next release, but then somebody builds something else in the app or changes something, and you get the kind of errors that are really expensive to fix.”

High returns from low-level testing

Better coverage starts with data-driven unit and component tests at the microflow level. Before each release, an enterprise should ensure the logic holds for each individual block of code and for integrations and dependencies at the smallest self-contained level. But manually executing these microflow logic tests from an interface is unrealistic, especially with each release.

“With automation at the right level, you can just get rid of a lot of the repetitive, boring work, and we want to take that burden away from teams,” said Travaille.

Menditect’s customer base includes clients for whom proof of testing is a compliance requirement, as well as large corporations that manage complex aggregate of IT projects. For organizations such as these, managing tests at different levels for each small piece of functionality is unrealistic, both fiscally and resource-wise.

In fact, many tests seem to monitor a small piece of internal structure or a hidden workflow that seems insignificant—until there is a bug.

“Enterprises introduce test automation—in my opinion—typically too late. Companies start small, with enthusiastic teams, but there often comes a point where the quality starts to drop—maybe due to inexperienced engineers or maybe from scaling a little too fast,” said Travaille. “Then, all of a sudden, they are at a critical point where quality is not where it should be, and now they think of test automation.”

Why low-level automated testing?

According to Travaille, microflow business logic errors carry the highest risk when developing low-code applications. MTA is a built-for-Mendix tool designed to mitigate this potential negative impact.

“Not all Mendix apps need the same level of test automation quality assurance,” said Travaille. “But if your app is business critical or you have a landscape of apps, it becomes more important.”

Custom-built for Mendix, MTA tests also eliminate the burden of maintaining in-app test code and the reliance on needy APIs and fragile screen tests. The following risks are inherent in traditional, API, and screen-based testing methodologies:

• Bigger & less secure: Maintaining test code increases size, reduces performance, and increases the risk of sensitive data exposure.
• Less stable & more difficult: Relying on APIs requires more maintenance and depends on a less reliable connection.
• Less efficient: Screens are contingent upon scarce and expensive resourcing and often add weight and size to an application, reducing its efficiency.

More features, custom to Mendix

MTA can also provide one-of-a-kind functionalities, such as the ability to execute microflows without maintaining scripted test code, APIs or screens and conduct multi-level testing from one tool:

• Microservices: End-to-end process testing on backend logic
• APIs & microflows: Component-level testing
• Microflows: Unit testing

“One type of testing you need for Mendix apps is testing at the microflow level or the back-end level, which is basically the internal structure of your app,” said Travaille. “This is closely related to managed development because developers know the internal structure of their apps best.”

Well-executed test automation isn’t easy and can involve additional maintenance from specialists, unexpected costs, and tool sprawl.

Automated test tools should provide support for:

• Design: Provide a test framework to store and order the test cases with proper documentation
• Implementation: Reduce time and cost of building and maintaining test cases with a no-code approach.
• Scalability: Create low-level test scripts with higher coverage without expanding test scenarios.
• Execution: Automate tests by CI/CD APIs or execute manually.
• Reporting: Deliver test run error insight and code coverage reports

“You need a more lightweight approach to fit the Mendix way of working—with fast releases and fast iterations,” said Travaille. “Although test automation starts with the word test, it is more automation. It is more programming than testing.”

MTA tests start on a small unit-level piece of functionality, which can be extended with more complex component and process tests. With modular low-code composability, MTA can be configured to test multiple applications simultaneously across a test configuration.

Menditect is built on Mendix

Menditect is an early low-code adapter and its founders have been a partner with Mendix since 2012. Together with his two tech-minded business partners, Travaille discovered and was immediately drawn to low-code’s efficiency and speed-of-development potential. In 2021 they founded Menditect and dedicated all their capacity to build and grow this new company.

“Mendix is able to build a tool that goes way further in testing than any other low-code platform can offer,” said Travaille. “None of the other platforms provide the API and the open architecture and infrastructure like Mendix does.”

With Mendix’s open, accessible, and shareable model software development kit (SDK), Menditect could create stable and reusable Mendix blocks. These stable building blocks are present in the code, the meta-model, the Model SDK, and runtime.

“So a microflow, is the same everywhere in the Mendix platform,” said Travaille. “We can use the model information—from the model as SDK—to build tests outside of the app, but then run them on the app again.”

The result is lightweight end products with low-code efficiency benefits that have been vetted both internally and externally. With MTA, staying nimble and futureproofing your enterprise from test debt are both possible.

ISV partners with Mendix, and global technology leaders, Siemens

As an early partner, Menditect has contributed to the success of the Independent Software Vendor (ISV) program by guiding its focus and refining its benefits. The program—which provides training, technical enablement and solution reviews—helps vendors accelerate time to value with low-code development.

“What I like about Mendix is how open they are to working with partners, with external organizations—this open ecosystem of technology and consultancy partners, is really the hidden power of the platform,” said Travaille. “Siemens as a global player added even more openness and more partner collaboration to the mix. The direction they’re going is definitely a good one.”