Test a Guidance

You can test a guidance before activating it. You can perform the test on a very limited number of records and the test skips any wait steps to make it easier to test. However, any steps that update fields and take automatic actions including aromatically sending emails work as normal. You must ensure that you enter test email addresses so you don't spam your contacts. You can only test guidances in the Draft status.

Before you start

• You must create a guidance that meets the minimum requirements and the guidance must be in the Draft status.
• For each test, you must create no more than 3 new records that meet the testing criteria. The testing criteria are a combination of the guidance criteria and the additional criteria you specify in the test. For example, your guidance applies to all opportunities that use the Accelerated Sales Process with a win probability greater than 10 percent. During testing you specify that you want to test opportunities with names starting with TEST. In this case you must create at least 1, but no more than 3, opportunities that meet those criteria and use them to test. You must pick different opportunities for testing each time. That's because the guidance may make changes in the opportunities as it runs.

Here's what to do

1. On the Guidance Setup page, click Actions (the three dots on the right side of the page) and select Start Testing.

   A warning is displayed to prevent accidentally sending communication to external contacts and also to inform you that Wait type steps aren't tested.

2. In the Test Guidance dialog box, click Accept.
3. In the Test Guidance page, enter additional selection criteria for the records you want to test. The page displays the number of records that meet the combined criteria entered in the guidance and on this page.
4. Click Start.
   The application validates your setup. You must correct any errors displayed on the page. The application displays only one error at a time, so you might need to test multiple times to fix them all.
5. When you see the message Testing started, open one of the opportunities that match your testing criteria and start your testing.
   Here's a sample of the guidance panel for the Opportunities page from where you can test your opportunity test record.

   

6. When you're done, go back to the Guidance Setup page, and click Actions (the three dots on the right side of the page) and select Stop Testing.
   Note: You must associate the guidances you want to test or activate to existing records by running the Associate Guidances scheduled process. The process is required only to associate existing records; new records are automatically associated with the appropriate active guidance. You can set up the program to run periodically. See Associate Records to Guidances for more information.