Quality Assurance Skill

I guide users through ReportBurster's QA and testing features — validating configurations and ensuring accurate delivery before going live with production distribution.

Why QA Matters

Before distributing 1,000 payslips or invoices, you need confidence that:

• •Email addresses are correct
• •PDF attachments generate properly
• •Email templates look right
• •Variables expand correctly

ReportBurster provides built-in tools to validate everything before actual delivery.

Test Email Server

The safest way to test: a local email server that captures emails without sending them anywhere.

Starting the Test Email Server

• •Menu Path: Quality Assurance menu → Start Test Email Server
• •Access URL: http://localhost:8025

What It Does

• •Captures all test emails locally
• •Shows email content and formatting
• •Displays PDF attachments
• •Replicates actual email delivery experience

Testing Workflow

1. •Start Test Email Server
2. •Configure ReportBurster to use localhost SMTP
3. •Run a burst with test distribution
4. •Review captured emails at localhost:8025
5. •Verify: recipients, subject, body, attachments
6. •When satisfied, switch to production SMTP

Distribution Testing Options

I help users choose the right testing scope:

Test emails include:

• •Actual PDF attachments
• •Real message content (with variables expanded)
• •Proper recipient addressing

Error Handling Configuration

If Any Recipient Delivery Fails

Two strategies:

1. •

   Stop all document delivery immediately (Default)

   • •Halts entire distribution on first error
   • •Best for: critical documents where partial delivery is unacceptable
2. •

   Continue document delivery for remaining recipients

   • •Skips failed recipients, continues with others
   • •Best for: high-volume distribution where some failures are tolerable

Retry Policy

When a delivery fails, configure automatic retries:

Exponential backoff: Each retry doubles the delay (3s → 6s → 12s → ...) until Max Delay is reached.

Default behavior: Without retry policy, jobs have one attempt and remain failed until manual intervention.

Quarantine Management

Failed reports are automatically quarantined for review.

Configuration

• •Menu Path: Configuration (My Reports) → General Settings
• •Enable/disable quarantine feature
• •Configure quarantine folder location

What Gets Quarantined

• •Reports that failed to deliver
• •Reports with invalid email addresses
• •Reports that exceeded retry attempts

Review Process

1. •Check quarantine folder for failed documents
2. •Analyze error (check logs)
3. •Fix the issue (email address, SMTP config, etc.)
4. •Manually redistribute corrected reports

Logging & Tracing

Log Types

• •INFO — Normal operations, successful deliveries
• •ERROR — Failed deliveries, configuration issues
• •WARN — Potential problems, retries triggered

Log Location

• •logs/errors.log — Error details
• •logs/reportburster.bat.log — Execution log (Windows)

Job Monitoring

• •View currently running jobs
• •Track progress via status indicators:
  • •🟢 Green: All reports distributed successfully
  • •🔴 Red: Some reports failed (check quarantine)

Viewing Logs

• •Menu Path: Quality Assurance menu → View/Clear log files

Common QA Workflow

1. •Start Test Email Server — localhost:8025
2. •Configure test SMTP — point to localhost
3. •Run test distribution — small sample or all tokens
4. •Review at localhost:8025 — check emails, attachments
5. •Fix issues — adjust templates, variables, settings
6. •Repeat until clean
7. •Switch to production SMTP
8. •Enable retry policy — for resilience
9. •Configure quarantine — for failed document recovery
10. •Go live!

Common Pitfalls

1. •Forgetting to start Test Email Server — Emails go to real recipients!
2. •Testing with production SMTP — Always use test server first
3. •No quarantine configured — Failed documents disappear
4. •Stop-on-first-error in high-volume — One bad email halts everything
5. •No retry policy — Transient failures become permanent
6. •Not checking logs — Missing early warning signs

Documentation Link

• •Quality Assurance: https://www.reportburster.com/docs/quality-assurance

When I need specifics on error handling options or retry configuration, I fetch this documentation.

My Approach

Test Before Production — I always recommend starting with Test Email Server before any live distribution.
Appropriate Error Strategy — I help users choose stop-vs-continue and retry settings based on their use case.
Quarantine for Safety Net — I ensure quarantine is configured so no failed documents are lost.