When organizations invest in Microsoft Dynamics 365, they do so with the expectation of agility. They want faster upgrades, smoother customer interactions, and flexibility to scale. But the reality is often more complex. Dynamics 365 sits at the heart of the business, linked to dozens of upstream and downstream systems: finance, HR, supply chain, customer engagement platforms, even legacy apps. Every quarterly update from Microsoft triggers a nervous cycle of regression testing. Teams scramble to ensure that none of these upgrades break critical integrations.
This blog explores how enterprises can automate regression testing in Dynamics 365 without disrupting their ecosystem. We’ll look at the challenges of regression testing, share lessons from Russell & Bromley’s transformation journey, and close with best practices to help organizations modernize their testing strategy.
Why Regression Testing in Dynamics 365 Is So Complex
On the surface, regression testing sounds simple: retest existing functionality to ensure nothing breaks after a change. In the Dynamics 365 world, though, things get tricky fast.
Some of the challenges include:
- Frequent updates from Microsoft: Dynamics 365 receives continuous updates. Even small patches can impact workflows across departments.
- Complex integrations: From SAP to Salesforce to custom-built applications, Dynamics rarely runs in isolation. Each interface point becomes a potential failure when changes occur.
- Dynamic UI elements: With Microsoft constantly updating user interface components, scripts written today may not work tomorrow.
- Large volumes of test data: Functional tests need realistic, compliant datasets. Ensuring GDPR compliance while keeping tests meaningful adds another layer of difficulty.
- Business-critical processes: For many organizations, Dynamics underpins sales, supply chain, or financial workflows. A testing gap could mean downtime or customer dissatisfaction.
These factors make manual regression testing not only time-consuming but also error-prone. Which is why automation has moved from “nice to have” to “business critical.”
The Cost of Getting It Wrong
It helps to pause and consider what’s at stake. Imagine a retailer whose Dynamics 365 upgrade causes a failure in its order-to-cash process. Customers can place orders, but invoices don’t generate. Or consider a global manufacturer where integration with SAP fails, halting production planning.
These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are the kinds of risks that companies face when regression testing is rushed or incomplete. For many, the cost isn’t just technical downtime. It’s lost revenue, reputational damage, and—especially in regulated industries—compliance violations.
This is where Russell & Bromley’s story comes in.
Russell & Bromley: A Case Study in Transformation
Russell & Bromley, the luxury footwear and handbag retailer, faced exactly this challenge. With over 40 stores across the UK and a reputation for excellence, their business model relied on keeping customer experiences seamless—both in-store and online. Their IT backbone, powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365, had to function without disruption.
But Dynamics 365 came with constant updates. Manual testing was becoming unsustainable. The IT team was spending weeks preparing for each release, with little confidence that all integrations were covered. A single missed test case could mean broken workflows across order management, payment processing, or inventory updates.
The turning point came when Russell & Bromley adopted Avo Assure, Avo Automation’s no-code test automation platform.
Here’s what transformed for them:
- End-to-end coverage: Instead of testing Dynamics in isolation, Russell & Bromley validated full workflows across integrated applications. For example, a sales order created in Dynamics could be traced through payment, fulfillment, and reporting systems.
- No-code automation: Business and QA teams could design tests without relying on programming skills. This empowered subject matter experts to contribute directly.
- Self-healing tests: Avo Assure’s AI-powered engine automatically adapted to changes in Dynamics’ UI, eliminating script maintenance headaches.
- Faster release cycles: What once took weeks of manual testing was reduced to days. The IT team could keep pace with Microsoft’s updates without slowing the business.
- Compliance-friendly test data: Through Avo’s test data management, they could generate compliant, realistic data for regression scenarios, ensuring both speed and accuracy.
For Russell & Bromley, automation wasn’t just about efficiency. It was about resilience. They could roll out Microsoft updates quickly, confident that business-critical processes would remain intact.
Best Practices for Dynamics 365 Regression Automation
Russell & Bromley’s journey underscores a bigger lesson: automation succeeds when it is strategic. It’s not about automating everything overnight but building a scalable approach. Based on their experience and industry best practices, here’s what enterprises should focus on:
- Start with high-risk workflows
Identify business-critical processes—like order-to-cash or procure-to-pay—that absolutely cannot fail. Automate these first for maximum impact.
- Include integrations in your test scope
Dynamics 365 rarely stands alone. Cover end-to-end workflows across SAP, Salesforce, custom APIs, and other integrated systems.
- Leverage no-code tools
Empower business users to design and run tests without coding expertise. This reduces dependency on scarce automation engineers.
- Use AI for self-healing
Choose a platform that adapts to Dynamics’ evolving UI automatically, minimizing test maintenance overhead.
- Adopt test data management
Ensure that regression testing is fueled by realistic, compliant data. Synthetic data generation can accelerate this process while safeguarding sensitive information.
- Shift-left testing
Integrate testing earlier in the lifecycle, so issues are caught before they reach production.
- Measure continuously
Track coverage, execution speed, and defect leakage. Use these metrics to refine and expand your automation scope.
The Bigger Picture: Building Confidence, Not Just Tests
The real goal of regression automation in Dynamics 365 isn’t speed for its own sake. It’s confidence. Confidence that when Microsoft ships its next wave update, your supply chain won’t stall. Confidence that your sales team won’t face downtime during a critical campaign. Confidence that integrations with legacy systems will keep humming along.
Russell & Bromley achieved this confidence by adopting a platform purpose-built for complex, integrated enterprise systems. Their journey shows what’s possible when automation is designed around resilience, not just test execution.
Conclusion
Dynamics 365 offers incredible potential for agility and growth—but only if organizations can manage the risks of frequent change. Manual regression testing simply can’t keep pace with Microsoft’s update cadence or the complexity of integrated business ecosystems.
Automation, when done right, bridges this gap. As Russell & Bromley’s experience shows, a no-code, AI-powered approach doesn’t just accelerate testing. It ensures that critical integrations remain intact, data remains compliant, and business continuity is never compromised.
For enterprises navigating the Dynamics 365 landscape, the takeaway is clear: regression automation isn’t just a technical choice—it’s a strategic imperative. The right approach will help your business embrace Microsoft’s innovations with confidence, not fear.