How to create test Users

Need to test your learning pathways and onboarding journeys from your end User perspective? We have got you covered in this support article!

Ryan Collier avatar
Written by Ryan Collier
Updated over a week ago

We would highly recommend creating a test User to run through your onboarding process and any learning pathways you've created so that you can see what it will be like from the end Users' point of view. You can check how clear it is and that any of the Custom Rules you've applied have been set up correctly.

To do this, you will need to head to Dashboard, then to the Users page and click 'Add User':

Once you've gotten to this stage, you will then need to follow the steps below that apply to you. Or you can create a temporary email address, and use this as your test User email address.

For Gmail Users:

Head to Dashboard > Users > Add User. When it asks for your email address, add your email address with '+1', '+2', etc. For example, 'john.smith+1@gmail.com'. You can then choose which Learning Groups the test User should be added to and assign the User Role you would like them to have.

You should then receive the email invitation to your normal email address, e.g. 'john.smith@gmail.com', where you can follow the steps and log in for the first time, just as an end User would.

For Outlook Users:

You will need to create the alias email address by following the steps below. Then you can head to Dashboard > Users > Add User, where you can enter this new alias email address into the email field.

  1. Go to Add an alias. Sign in to your Microsoft account, if prompted.

  2. Under Add an alias, do one of the following:

    • Create a new Outlook.com email address and add it as an alias.

    • Add an existing email address as an alias.

  3. Select Add alias.

Note ✨ :

  • You can't add an email address that's associated with a work or school account as an alias.

  • An alias or email address can only contain letters, numbers, dot (.), underscore (_) or dash/hyphen (-). Spaces and other special characters aren't allowed.

  • Existing Hotmail, Live, Outlook.com, and MSN addresses can't be added as aliases, and you can't add an alias that is already associated with another Microsoft account.

  • It isn't possible to create a new alias using @hotmail, @live.com, or @msn.com. If a Hotmail address is important to you, you need to sign out and create a new account.

For Office365 Users:

You will need to create the alias email address by following the steps below. Then you can head to Dashboard > Users > Add User, where you can enter this new alias email address into the email field.

You must have admin permissions to do this.

  1. In the admin center, go to the Users > Active users page.

  2. On the Active Users page, select the user > Manage username and email. You won't see this option if the person doesn't have a license assigned to them.

  3. Select + Add an alias and enter a new alias for the user.

  4. When you're done, choose Save changes.

  5. Wait 24 hours for the new aliases to populate throughout Microsoft 365. The user will now have a primary address and an alias. For example, all mail sent to Eliza Hoffman's primary address, Eliza@NodPublishers.com, and her alias, Sales@NodPublishers.com, will go to Eliza's Inbox.

  6. When the user replies, the From address will depend on her Outlook client. Outlook on the web will use the alias at which the email was received (we'll call this the ping-pong principle). Outlook desktop will use her primary email alias. For example, let's say a message is sent to Sales@NodPublishers.com, and it arrives in Eliza's inbox. When Eliza replies to the message using Outlook desktop, her primary email address will appear as Eliza@NodPublishers.com, not Sales@NodPublishers.com.

Note ✨ :

  • If you get the error message "A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'EmailAddresses," it means that it's taking a bit longer to finish setting up your tenant, or your custom domain if you recently added one.

  • The setup process can take up to 4 hours to complete. Wait a while so the set-up process has time to finish, and then try again.

  • If the problem persists, call Microsoft Support and they will do a full sync for you.

There you have it - now you can create as many test Users as you need!


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