Test automation at Eneco: insight, speed and smarter ways of working

Test Consultant Wouter van Praag has worked as a tester in the energy market for more than eleven years. After his time at grid operator Enexis, he now works at Eneco, where he helps digitize marketing, sales and service processes in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Customer expectations change quickly, so Eneco is building an environment where customer contact becomes more personal, faster and more consistent. That makes the testing approach just as important.
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Digital transformation with Dynamics 365
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In the Lighthouse project, Wouter is helping create a single customer view. That requires new processes, new integrations and a new CRM environment, and Eneco chose Microsoft Dynamics 365. The Microsoft world was new territory for Wouter, which is exactly what makes the assignment interesting. He is learning to work with Azure DevOps, test automation in Visual Studio and the Dynamics environment itself. On top of that, several applications are being connected to Dynamics, together forming the chain in which all tests run.
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Replacing manual testing with automation
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A large part of Wouter's work revolves around test automation with Tosca. As a result, the business has to do far less manual testing, which saves a lot of time and energy. Wouter focuses on smoke and regression tests and makes sure test data is loaded correctly. He also helps with technical tasks, such as sending large volumes of emails and importing anonymized customer data. Automation makes the work clearer and more stable for the teams.
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Insight from daily test scenarios
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The automated scenarios run every morning. As soon as something fails, Wouter investigates the cause. Sometimes it's a change in the system. Sometimes it's an update from Microsoft. Occasionally there's a full rebuild in which everything is set up again from scratch. The strength lies in the rhythm: insight every day, and clarity every day about what works and what needs attention.
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Collaboration with other testers strengthens that process. Several consultants work on Dynamics environments at Eneco, so parts of the testing can be built generically and shared. There is also an Eneco Tosca community where employees and partners exchange knowledge.
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Sharing knowledge and growing together
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The automation now runs in a pipeline and is used by more and more teams. Colleagues can start tests themselves and no longer depend on Wouter. To strengthen that independence further, he is training two new colleagues who will take over his work. That keeps the automation stable and lets the team keep building on quality.

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