The Goal: Set up dedicated, obviously “fake” contact records that let you safely test member access levels, merge fields, event registrations, invoicing, and other GrowthZone behaviors without affecting real data.
Before You Begin:
- Have a test email address ready that is NOT attached to any staff member’s GrowthZone access (back office) or member Info Hub login. Several email providers let you create a temporary address for this purpose — many of our support staff use Mailinator to create “fake” email addresses that are still accessible if needed, or a personal email account that is not tied to any GrowthZone login.
- Decide on clearly identifiable test names so the records are easy to spot and never mistaken for real members.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Create an individual contact record using an obviously fake name — for example, “Test Member” or “Test Agent.”
- Create an organization contact record using an equally obvious name — for example, “Testing Company” or similar.
- Assign each test record a test email address from outside your domain (a free service such as Gmail or Mailinator usually works well), so emails sent from GrowthZone are not blocked by your domain’s mail server.
- Populate the records with the data you intend to test — complete custom fields, register for (and cancel) events, create invoices, and apply payments. This lets you exercise merge fields in both your email templates and document generation templates.
- When testing merge fields, make sure the intended field is actually filled in on the test record — an empty merge field will not populate.
Common Pitfalls
- Using an active staff email address: If a test record uses a known/active staff email, the system often cannot determine which record to use and will not populate merge fields correctly.
- Testing with an in-domain email: Emails sent from GrowthZone originate from outside your domain (GrowthZone’s pool of email servers). Even when SPF records are set correctly, a server may block an email that looks as though it came from your own server but did not. Use an email address outside your domain for email testing.