Random vs. Fixed Email Addresses

Introduction

There are two types of email addresses you can create with the Email Testing feature: Random email address and Fixed email address. Even if you have a general idea of what these two email addresses do, utilizing their properties may be challenging when creating scenarios. It can also be challenging to use Email Testing to its fullest potential and increase efficiency.

In some situations and test cases, it’s better to opt for a random email address, while in other cases, a fixed email address makes more sense. In this article, you will find examples of when to use which email address.

Examples

Testing new account registration

In this example, Autify is used to test whether a user can register a new account.

1. Display the account registration page.
2. Enter an email address and password.
   • The system will display an error if the email address is already registered. 
3. The provisional registration is completed, and an email is sent to the email address entered in step 2.
4. Open the email received at step 3 and click the link in the main body.
5. A page that says “Account registration complete” appears, completing the account registration process.

In a test flow like this, we recommend using a random email address With random email addresses, a new email address is generated every time a scenario is run. This allows you to create an efficient test that you can run time and time again without worrying about duplicating accounts.

If necessary, please consider whether you need to delete the accounts that are created by running the test.

Testing with an existing test account

In this example, let’s say you want to run the following test:

1. Display the login page.
2. Log in with a pre-registered test account.
3. On the Change Password page, click the Change Password button.
4. Open the email received at step 3 and click the link in the main body.
5. Change the password on the Change Password page.

In a test like this, it’s best to create a test account in advance using a fixed email address and use that when recording.
This way, the email address would remain the same no matter how many times you run the test. Also, the same email address will be used in any scenario, ensuring that the email is received in the same inbox to be verified.

A test that involves receiving similar emails in different Scenarios

Let’s take a look at another scenario configuration.

• Scenario 1 - Testing regular product purchases
  1. Display the login page.
  2. Log in with a test account.
  3. Display the product page for purchase testing.
  4. Add the product to the shopping cart, make payment, and complete the purchase process.
  5. Verify that an email with the subject line “Thank you for your purchase” was received.
• Scenario 2 - Testing limited edition product purchases
  1. Display the login page.
  2. Log in with a test account.
  3. Display the product page for limited edition product purchase testing.
  4. Add the product to the shopping cart, make payment, and complete the purchase process.
  5. Verify that an email with the subject line “Thank you for your purchase” was received.

Although the product type is different, both Scenarios test whether an email with the same subject line was received.

Autify’s [Email Testing feature] opens and verifies the email with the best matching subject line from emails that are unread at the time of the test. Therefore, in a scenario configuration like the above, if multiple scenarios are executed simultaneously using parallel execution, the wrong email may be opened.

To run this type of test successfully, please issue two fixed email addresses and use them to create two separate test accounts: a test account for testing regular product purchases and a test account for testing limited edition product purchases. This way, there will be two independent inboxes, allowing Autify to identify the correct email.

We hope this guide was helpful. By looking at three examples, perhaps you’ve thought of test cases where a random/fixed email address would be useful.

If none of the above applies to you and you’re unsure which email address to use, please feel free to reach out.😊