Program testing overview

Once you have a fully configured SheerID program, SheerID’s recommended best practice is to test prior to launching. To make testing easy, you can put verifications in Test Mode.

See this related article describing how to test using Test Mode.

Implementation stage	What	How to test
Initial build out	This is the initial testing of your program after it has been built. Depending on how your program was built, this may be in your staging environment. You will go through each verification path and review copy, styling, etc.	Ensure your program status is set to ‘test’. This will give test mode to all verifications.
Pre-launch	Before you publicly release your offer, we recommend you do some end-to-end testing to ensure everything looks good. This will always be in your production environment.	Set program status to ‘live’ and use the testing allowlist to get test mode on specific verifications.
Future program updates	At some point you’ll likely want to make an update to your already-launched program. After you’ve published those changes to your production environment, you’ll likely want to smoke test the end-to-end customer journey.	Use the testing allowlist to get test mode on specific verifications. All the rest of your traffic will continue to receive regular verification behavior, using real data sources and real document review.

Testing a program with status = ‘test’

When a program’s status is set to ‘test’, all users who go through the flow will experience the same behavior, which is dependent on the First Name submitted on the verification form. You can tell that a program is in Test Mode because it will have a banner across the top of the form, in addition to a Go Live button within the program in MySheerID.

When you are testing a program in Test Mode, refer to this article as a guide to take you through the different verification paths. The paths available on your program will depend on the consumer community you are verifying.

Testing a program with status = ‘live’

When a program’s status is set to “live”, the default user experience is real verification and real document review. However, you can still experience test mode behaviors by utilizing the allowlist testing feature in MySheerID. This is useful when:

1. You want to test recent edits you made to a program that has already been launched to the public (recommended); the public will get verified using real data sources, whereas the specified testers will get test mode.
2. You want to smoke test a separate production program instance prior to launching, which is common for custom hosted and API programs.

To enable allowlist testing, navigate to the list of programs in your MySheerID account. At the top of the program list, you'll see 'Live testing is Off'. Click the gear icon to open a modal where you can enter the emails you want to experience test mode behavior. You can enter up to 20 email addresses. Simply toggle the feature ON, enter the addresses, and click save.

When this feature is on, any verification for any program in your account will get compared against your allowlist. When there's an exact match on the email, (e.g. [e-mail] is in the allowlist and a verification comes in with [e-mail] as the email) then that verification will automatically be treated as a test mode verification and adhere to the first name and document naming rules found here. This can be used for manual or automated testing.

Verifications submitted once the program is 'live' are billable unless the testing allowlist is used.

When you're done testing, we recommend turning off the testing allowlist to prevent any unauthorized use.

If partnering with our Professional Services team during development of a new program, there will be a brief period in which a member of the SheerID QA team will add themselves to your testing allowlist. This will allow that individual to test your program prior to launch. They will remove themselves from your allowlist as soon as they've completed testing.

Using Mock Steps

Mock steps are useful for developers when fine-tuning styling and verbiage, with repeated page refreshes. Use mock steps to jump to an explicit step in the verification UI, using the URL. This lets you skip filling in the verification form.

Mock steps do not use real data. The purpose is purely visual, to see what each step looks like. To test the flow and/or how data is shared between SheerID and your platform, use test mode.

For further instructions, see our developer center article on mock steps.