Testing in Test Mode

This topic is OH so important and something that really fires me up. 
​Please tell me you're doing all of your Cvent site testing in TEST MODE!?

I actually bring this up because I see a TON of testing happening in LIVE mode and so I wanted to cover a few things related to this phenomena. 

First off, why you should not do your testing in live mode:

1. ​​Making and testing changes within your reg site are infinitely harder once your site is live. So if you're sending stakeholders live sites to look at on their first pass (because there will always be changes after they look through it), it's going to make your job harder when it comes to updating.
2. If your stakeholder is not attending that specific meeting, they've now just registered for it. That means that they will show up on all of your reports moving forward. Even if you cancel them out, they'll still show up as a cancelled attendee forever. 
3. The point I most like to drive home because many of your average users don't realize this, once you "test" in a live site, you're using up real registrations which cost your company money. Sure, your company probably has a great per-registration rate so it's probably "only" a few dollars here or there but over time you could save (or cost) your money hundreds of dollars (depending on how much you're testing in live mode, of course).

So then you're probably thinking "but how do I send a test to my stakeholder who is not a user in my account because I can only send tests to account users or test users???"

So glad you asked!

Here are a few ways to perform tests while still in test mode to appease your stakeholders:

1. Most obvious and easy, if they're an active user, send them a test. (I have to include this option)
2. Use the Weblink option. If your stakeholder(s) are not users so you cannot send the test directly to them, you can send yourself a test of an open weblink that you can forward along to whomever needs to test the site! {MAGIC!} You can either create links for the Website (Summary Page) or go right to the registration process (Identity Confirmation page), skipping the Summary Page all together. {Caveat: using this method, the person can only use the same email address one time. If they need to test it again, you'll want to cancel them in Invitees & Registrants so they can start a new test. No need to fully remove them if you don't want to but at least cancel them.}
3. If you're going to be inviting people via email from the system, you can go ahead and add your tester as a "real" invitee by doing Quick Add under Invitees & Registrants. You can choose whether to send them an email invitation right then and there or you can continue adding all your testers and manual send their invitation later on. This would give them the full registration experience from start to finish, as a real registrant would see it, but doesn't use up real registrations. Just a reminder, though, same as with #2, if your tester needs to test more than once you will need to cancel them before you send them their next test.

Please feel free to comment with any other suggestions, questions or how YOU like to test! Looking forward to connecting with you!

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