Testing Process Flow Emails

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Amy Swanson
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    We have several process flows that send emails to employees to notify them of various things, especially registration for training. The employee email address is read from HR11.  While these flows were in development and testing we have inadvertantly sent emails to employees that should not have gone out.  We are looking for suggestions to keep these emails from going to employees and instead have them sent to a tester or pre-defined email address.  Ideally, we'd like to have the UAT tester be able to control the email address they are sent to without having to contact a technical resource to change the email address.  Also, we do not want to have to modify the process flow between test and prod. 

    We have considered changing the hr11 email address for everybody in test to a testing email address.  This creates extra work for the sys admin after every refresh and mucks up the data some, but allows for user testing to change the email address on hr11 for test subjects without the risk of emails being sent to every employee. 

    We've also considered using a configuration file or other coding changes to tell the PF which product line it is in and where to send the email.  This means that the PF is not executing exactly as it would in prod and also requires testers to contact IT to update the config file before each test.  It may not allow emails to be sent to multiple testers of a single PF.

    Are there other approaches that we haven't considered?  Do you use one of these approaches? What problems or successes have you seen with it?

    Thanks, Amy

    David Burnham
    Basic Member
    Posts: 9
    Basic Member
      Instead of a config file We use a a javascript switch in an assign node to set a variable to either the employee's email (production), or to a task (Test and Dev). The email's TO field is then set to that variable. When it comes time to test the PF admin just assigns the users that are testing to the task.

      Yes we cannot test exactly like production, we tested it once limited to a small group who knew the emails would be coming and that the emails were tests. Since then we assume the risk that it still works and copy the logic to any new flows.
      Nick
      Veteran Member
      Posts: 50
      Veteran Member
        I've generally do something similar. To make sure that the correct data (email address) is being pulled for the employees, I usually include that variable (empEmail) on the subject line of the email and then use the PFIAdmin task in the 'To:' field. I can also add any additional testers to the 'CC:' field. That way only the samll group of testers get the emails, but we can verify that it is pulling all of the correct data.

        Nick
        John Henley
        Posts: 3353
          Assuming you are testing on a test server, one technique I use is a simple SMTP server (http://papercut.codeplex.com/) which captures the emails so they don't go out, and you can view them. =
          Thanks for using the LawsonGuru.com forums!
          John