Prevent emails being sent to customers

Question

I am currently doing a Service Cloud implementation for a customer. We have just tackled the email to case needs and we would like to start testing this.

We are only facing one problem now: prevent emails being sent to customers. The sandbox we are using is currently filled with actual contact/account information. In order to allow our key users to start testing the email part we have to open up the send email. Yet this also opens up the potential risk of sending emails to real customers from the sandbox. We would like to avoid this.

I saw one option by changing all contact emails and masking them. Yet we would like to avoid this type of approach since our contacts are in sync with our external systems.

Does anybody know a different approach for this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

How about system solution, there is option to manage outbound emails.

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=emailadmin_deliverability.htm

Answer 2

Salesforce has a new feature called Salesforce Data Mask, which allows you to replace sensitive data (e.g. address, email, phone no, etc) with random characters and numbers.

You can learn more in this trailhead module: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/salesforce-data-mask/install-and-configure-salesforce-data-mask

Answer 3

Salesforce lets you set up Email Relays so that you can use a different email provider for your outbound emails (https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.email_relay.htm&type=5).

If you couple that with an sandbox email server you can get email visibility in test without actually sending emails.

Disclaimer: this is my tool:

For an example, please see https://imitate.email/guides/salesforce