A guide to automated regression testing for Dynamics 365

If your system runs on Microsoft Dynamics 365, every update and release can make it susceptible to breakdowns. Dynamics 365 powers everything from finance and operations to sales and customer service, so ensuring smooth functionality, especially during and after updates, rollouts, and customizations, is essential.

This is where regression testing comes in. It ensures that your Dynamics 365 ecosystem can handle continuous evolution while operating and scaling as expected.

In this quick guide, we walk you through the types of changes you can expect in the Dynamics 365 ecosystem, key steps and best practices for running regression tests, and how Fortude’s tool Fortest, can help you stay on top of updates and changes without risking system failure.

Updates to anticipate in the Dynamics 365 ecosystem

Let’s take a look at the breakdown of updates and releases you can expect throughout the year. Major releases or feature rollouts happen from April through September (Release Wave 1) and October through March (Release Wave 2). During each wave, you can also expect Proactive Quality Updates (PQUs) and smaller, targeted fixes and improvements.

Microsoft requires customers on Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations apps to take a minimum of two service updates per year, but up to seven updates are available annually. Customers can choose which updates to adopt, depending on their internal readiness.

Major wave releases

These biannual releases introduce significant functional enhancements across the Dynamics 365 suite. Common updates include:

• Expanded automation and warehouse management features in Supply Chain Management.
• New AI and analytics capabilities in Sales and Customer Service.
• Financial regulatory updates and reporting enhancements in Finance.
• Cross-app usability improvements and platform-wide refinements.

Proactive Quality Updates (PQU)

Delivered mid-wave, these contain:

• Minor feature enhancements.
• Targeted performance improvements.
• Fixes for non-critical issues identified post-release.
• Updates triggered by telemetry insights or customer feedback.

Other critical updates

Beyond the scheduled releases, you also need to anticipate ad hoc security patches, platform-level updates, and feature toggles within the Dynamics 365 environment. These changes can impact the performance and stability of your system. Platform-level changes include updates to Dataverse, Power Platform connectors, or Azure infrastructure, which can affect integrations and backend processes. In addition, feature toggles allow Microsoft to roll out new functionality selectively, enabling organizations to test and validate features in sandbox environments before full deployment. While these changes often happen behind the scenes, they can still influence custom workflows, user permissions, or API behavior, making regression testing essential.

Timing your regression testing in Dynamics 365

Knowing when to test your Dynamics 365 environment is key to staying prepared for what’s ahead. Here’s a breakdown of the most important moments to run regression tests:

• Following every update or customization: Ensure new features or configurations haven’t disrupted existing functionality.
• Prior to go-live or deployment to production: Confirm that end users won’t be impacted by untested changes.
• After data migrations or system integrations: Validate that data is correctly transferred and systems operate as expected.
• During on-prem to cloud migrations: Ensure that existing functionality, workflows, and custom code behave as expected in the new cloud environment.
• Right after quality updates or hotfixes: Check that the fixes haven’t introduced new issues elsewhere in the system.
• Regularly, during support or operational cycles: Maintain overall system stability with routine regression checks.

Key steps for effective regression testing

We have outlined a few steps to help ensure your testing is carried out in a more methodical and structured way.

1. Define regression test scope

Identify high-impact business processes and system areas:

• Core financial processes
• Supply chain workflows
• Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE) customizations
• Integrations (e.g., Power Platform, third-party APIs)

2. Prioritize based on risk and frequency

Not everything needs to be tested every time.

Focus on:

• High-volume transactions
• Custom code or workflows
• Areas touched by recent changes

3. Build smart test data

Use realistic and varied data to simulate actual usage:

• Include edge cases and exceptions
• Ensure test environments mirror production as closely as possible

4. Run and monitor regression tests

Use a mix of manual and automated approaches:

• Manual: UI flows, one-off checks
• Automated: Repetitive, rule-based test scripts

Track:

• Pass/fail rates
• Root causes of failures
• Areas most affected by updates

5. Fix and re-verify

Work with developers to resolve issues and re-run affected tests to confirm fixes.

6. Document everything

Maintain a reusable library of:

• Test cases and scripts
• Known issue logs
• Regression test cycles and outcomes

What can go wrong without regression testing?