Email is considered the backbone for any organization's communication. That’s even more true for transactional emails, which are operation-critical for any business. When setting up a system for sending these transactional emails, it’s natural to want to test it in shallow waters before going into the deep end.
You may be new to ZeptoMail, or you simply want to integrate it with your system in a new way. No matter what the case is, every business should test the setup before going live.
While you can simply send a test email out to the recipient of your choice to test the connection, there are some drawbacks to that.
First, you run the risk of accidentally sending the test emails to your actual customers, making your business look bad. Second, while receiving these test emails, email servers might perceive them to be suspicious and associate them to you, which means your sender reputation could take a hit. To avoid such mishaps, it is best to avoid live testing and find a safe space to test and experiment.
Introducing the sandbox mode in Zoho ZeptoMail
You can now create Mail Agents in sandbox mode and use them as your testing ground. When creating a Mail Agent, you can select the Create in sandbox mode checkbox. No emails will be sent out from the Mail Agent in sandbox mode.
How does the sandbox mode work?
You can use the SMTP and API credentials of the sandbox Mail Agent to test your connection with ZeptoMail. You can also use the Send test email pop up to trigger test emails.
Once the connection is made, the email trigger sends a call to the ZeptoMail server.
That server then returns a success code or error code that tells you if your connection with ZeptoMail works.
You’ll also be able to see the log of these test emails in the Processed email logs section inside the Mail Agent.
Email bounce testing
Beyond testing your connection with ZeptoMail, you can also mimic email bounces in your ZeptoMail account to see how they’re handled. You can use the test email addresses provided inside the Mail Agent to generate fake bounce logs—hard bounces, soft bounces, and bounces with specific reasons.
For example, if you want to generate bounces due to connection issues, you can send a trigger test email to "test+connection_issues@associateddomain". All of the relevant test email addresses can be viewed by clicking the Generate bounce logs button inside the Mail Agent. These logs can then be found under the Processed emails section.
Using the fake delivered and bounce logs generated in the processed email logs, you can also set up webhooks to test the full cycle of the data.
Take a look at our help documentation for more detailed instructions on using the sandbox mode.
Give our sandbox mode a try and let us know what you think. Tell us what you need, and we'll get it done! In the meantime, drop your thoughts and feedback in the comments section.
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