Best Practice to test workflows on AEM as a Cloud

[Darmien]

We have recently moved the project from AEM 6.5 on prem to AEMaaCS. Please do suggest some practices to test the workflows to ensure they are working perfectly fine on cloud. Thanks!

[giuseppebag]

hi @Darmien, as a general rule of thumb, the best practice is to implement a comprehensive testing suite case:

• Unit Testing: Write unit tests for individual workflow steps and components to ensure they work as expected.
• Integration Testing: Test the integration of your workflows with other AEMaaCS services and external systems.
• Load Testing: Perform load testing to ensure your workflows can handle the expected volume of content and user interactions.
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Conduct UAT with end-users to validate that the workflows meet their requirements and expectations.

You might find helpful information in this adaptTo() talk: Testing patterns with AEMaaCS.

[Darmien]

Thanks for the clarity!!

[AmitVishwakarma · Accepted solution]

Hi @Darmien ,
I recently supported a migration from AEM 6.5 on-prem to AEMaaCS, so I can definitely relate.

Here are a few best practices that helped us ensure workflow reliability in the cloud environment:

Practical Best Practices to Test Workflows in AEM as a Cloud Service (from real project experience)

1. Test Custom Workflow Steps in Isolation (Unit Testing):
We used AemContext from the AEM Mocks library (JUnit5) to simulate workflow steps and test them independently. This helped us quickly catch logic issues before deploying.

2. Run End-to-End Testing on AEM Cloud SDK:
We did full cycle testing using the local AEMaaCS SDK — including custom steps, participant steps, and transitions. It's close enough to the cloud runtime to give confidence before pushing to higher environments.

3. Avoid Runtime Model Creation:
Since AEMaaCS doesn't retain runtime-created workflow models across deployments, we packaged all workflows under /conf and deployed them using Maven. This avoided accidental deletions after code deployments.

4. Use Cloud Manager Logs to Monitor Failures:
After deployment, we actively used AEM's Developer Console and Cloud Manager logs to trace workflow failures. For example, we once caught an intermittent failure in a custom step that was due to permissions in production.

5. Business UAT with Authors:
For one DAM-heavy use case, we created a sandbox workflow model for business users to simulate real approval flows. Their feedback helped us refine participant roles and email templates early.

6. Performance Testing with Batch Ingestion:
During QA, we triggered the workflows on 1000+ assets using pre-packaged content. This helped us spot delays in steps involving metadata updates, and optimize those parts before going live.

7. Error Handling & Logging:
I’d recommend wrapping custom step logic with structured logging and try-catch blocks, so you can catch and handle errors gracefully in production.

Regards,
Amit