

AppFactory is a multidisciplinary development function that enables you to bring multiple business software design aspects together. Even when it’s not centralized, Quality Assurance (QA) is an ever-present concern in low-code application development.
So how do you go about ensuring quality in Mendix Appfactory? We’re here with steps, tips, and tricks for doing so. Before that, let’s start with what Mendix Appfactory is.
What Is Mendix Appfactory?
Mendix AppFactory is an internal unit of Mendix. It enables a multidisciplinary development team to work on various projects.
There are also multidisciplinary teams for QA that help ensure that the quality of the end product meets the industry standards.
How To Ensure The Highest Quality In Mx Appfactory During Each Stage
A great Quality Assurance Team can help you ensure the best app quality during the development cycle through multiple steps. These steps are spread across different phases of the software development life cycle.
1. Pre-Development Phases
1. Start With A Quality Assessment
It starts with the team performing a detailed assessment to understand the functional and technical aspects of the project itself. Based on the assessment results, the team determines the required quality activities for the project.
The activities are formed in a simple checklist of questions that can reveal the project’s current state with specific answers. The questions revolve around the following topics:
- End users
- User Persona
- Project Duration
- Team Knowledge of Domain
- Technology Related To The Project
- Involved Technical Aspects
- Type & Quality of Data
- Non-Functional Aspects of The Application
- Common & Current Quality Activities
2. Build A Quality Strategy Based On The Assessment
Once the assessment is complete, the team creates a quality strategy based on the findings that cover the following aspects:
- Required Support From Experts
- User Persona That Needs To Be Taken Into Account
- Types of Testing Needed
- Tools For Checking Code Quality, Vulnerability & Other Aspects
- Determining Story Acceptance Criteria
- Test Automation
- Data Quality Checks
- Testing For Non-Functional Aspects
- Common QA Testing
3. Use The Right Tools For Assessment
The tools for the assessment are usually chosen based on the findings of the primary evaluation and the strategy the team is going to follow.
The following three tools are among many that the QA testers at Impala Intech use:
- ACR- An automated code review tool for Mendix
- Snyk- A tool for scanning third-party dependencies in different Mendix projects. It helps detect vulnerabilities and complications with licensing.
- Veracode- A tool for scanning Mendix codes to identify security risks and vulnerabilities.
2. Story Development And Definition Phase
The following activities are a must during the story development and definition phase.
- Story Refinement for Testability Validation
- Team-Developed Unit Test Review
- Story Criteria Acceptance Through Reviews
- Closing Definition of Done Items Before Moving Stories To Done
3. Pre-Release Phase
These Are The Most Important Tasks During The Pre-Release Phase:
- Validating All The Working End-To-End Features For The Release
- Validation of No Current Features Being Impacted With Regression Tests
- Implementing Non-Functional Tests
- Meeting Definition of Done Requirements
4. Production Monitoring & Post-Release Phase
During this phase, additional monitoring is set up by the QA team to check the following aspects:
- Application Business Value
- Application Performance
- Application Quality
- Application Usage
Test Automation
Enabling test automation depends on the needs of the project. The testing strategy for applications that involve Rest APIs is to automate the testing activities during the story development phase.
For applications without APIs, core functional tests are done through automation at the UI level. However, this is only recommended when the UI has been tested manually beforehand, and there is no plan to change its stable state throughout the project.
Challenges of Improving Quality in Mx Appfactory
Though the process of ensuring quality in Mendix AppFactory is intricate and highly detailed to help developers make the most of the application, there are certain challenges to it as well.
- The quality team member might change their mindset from a traditional test engineer to a quality expert.
- Instilling a “quality mindset” in the entire team is highly challenging.
- Team members require more time to understand how high-quality complex Mendix applications are developed to ensure the proper standards since most come from low-coding backgrounds with little practical experience in mobile app development.
- Implementing testing automation for an inexperienced team that doesn’t have prior experience in testing can cause unnecessary delays.
To Wrap It All Up
When we look at the entire procedure for ensuring quality in Mendix AppFactory throughout the entire development phase, we find the following key takeaways:
- Every team has a certain process they stick by and certain quality activities. You must learn those before starting to work with the team.
- Achieving better product quality is a team objective that can be completed through sharing skills and innovative solutions in an agile environment.
- You must choose the tools based on each team member’s required activities and analytical skills, not based on what you think is the best.
- Quality requires patience and perseverance. The QA team must not be put in high-pressure environments in hopes of better results.
If you’re building your product with a Mendix platform team but in doubt about the quality, why not get assistance from our Mendix QA team at Impala Intech?
The expertise of Mendix App Factory of our QA team and our ability to work in dynamic work environments is what makes us one of the best when it comes to being one of the best Mendix developers.
FAQs
Quality is important in the Mendix AppFactory to ensure that applications meet the requirements, are reliable, perform well, and provide a great user experience with a strong customer focus.
The Mendix AppFactory ensures quality through best practices, standardized processes, automated testing, code reviews, and continuous integration and deployment throughout the project life cycle.
Yes, the Mendix AppFactory implements data integrity controls to ensure that data is accurate, consistent, and secure within applications for the entire duration of the project.
The Mendix AppFactory can integrate with external quality assurance tools and frameworks to enhance the overall quality control process.
Yes, the Mendix AppFactory emphasizes security best practices to protect applications and data, including authentication, authorization, and data encryption.