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E-mail Task Force:
Product Evaluation Script

Phase I

• Message Creation
• Incoming/Outgoing Messages
• Attachments
• Address Book
• Folders
• Overall Product Evaluation

Phase II

• Interoperability
• Off-line Mail Features

 

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Message Creation

1.   Send the following simple message to yourself (with typo's):

"Nancy and David wwent to the library to study, but the books theyneeded were checkedout."

Now correct the typos exercising the features in 1.a.
 
a.   Check simple editing capabilities:

Copy and paste

Cut and paste

Word wrapping

Re-aligning paragraphs (Justify)

b. Check spell checking capabilities

Does Spell checking work?

Can you create a personal dictionary? Does it work?

Can you use an existing dictionary? Does it work?

c. Searching Capabilities

Search for and replace a word

Search forward for a word

Search backward for a word

2.   Examine the message you receive.     Is its text intact?

3.   Send yourself a message inserting a text file(Free flowing text using copy and paste from any word processing application).

a.   Examine the message you receive.  Can you readit?

b. Was the line longer than the composition window or reading windows?

c. Did the e-mail client handle text wrapping correctly?

d. What word processing application did you use?

4.  Delete a message.

a. Can you recover a deleted message?

5.  Print a message.

Print several contiguous messages

Print several non-contiguous messages

Request "2-up" printing (and repeat 5.)

6.  Reply to a message.

Can you include the text of the original message?

Can you edit that text?

7.  Forward a message.

Can you add a preface to the body of the message?

Can you change the subject?

Can you edit the forwarded message?

Are MIME encoding correctly preserved?

8.  Can you re-send a sent message without having to create a new message?

9.  Open a message in your desktop word processing package.

 

Was the message easy to locate and open?
 

Can you configure your email client to launch an external editor when composing or reading an e-mail message?

10.   Can you preview a message before you download it locally to your desktop?

11. Can you change your password from within the e-mail client?

12. Mistype your password when you logon, what type of response did you get from the client?
 

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Incoming/Outgoing Messages

1. Test Message handling capabilities enable:

Delivery Receipt

Precedence Receipt

Expiration Date

 

Send a message to another user

1a  Did you receive a delivery receipt?
1b  Could the recipient recognize the confidentiality sensitivity?
1c  Could the recipient recognize the expiration date?

2.   Test Filtering Capabilities - Enable filtering to route incoming mail to specific folder

2a.   Can you create a filter that can be triggered by the sender's identity?
2b.  Can you create a filter that can be triggered by the text of the message?
2c.  How many # of conditions can you establish for filtering?
2d.  How many # of actions in response to filtering?
2e.  Must all conditions be met for filtering to work?
2f.  Can some of the conditions be met for filtering to work?
2g.  Test filtering with store local copy of message =off and filtering =on, does filtering continue to work?

3.   Test sending and receiving anonymous email. If the system allows anonymous mail to be sent, send some to yourself. Read it. Can you determine who sent the message from anything in either the body or headers of the mail? (Make sure that mail system is displaying all mail headers.)

4.  Test creation of signature files and stationery files

Create a signature file

How many signature files can you make?

Can you create a stationery file with preset changes and modifications?

How many stationery files can you create?

5.   Test sending and receiving a message with embedded web functionality

5a.   Send a message to yourself with the address

FTP Server

Web Server

5b.   Send a message to another user. Select using the html format.

Is the message intact

can the html document be used?

can html be turned off

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 Attachments

1.   Send yourself a message with a text file as an attachment.

a. Examine the message you receive.  Can you read it?

2.   Send yourself a message with an attachment.

With images and sound files.

With Spreadsheets

With Word and any other word processing application

With database files

MIME, BinHex, and Uuencoded files

 
Please make sure to document which application you used. Answer each of the questions below:

Can you read it?

Does the package tell you what to do with the attachment?

Does the package automatically process your attachment (i.e., automatically launch an application, store the file, etc.)?

How much control does the reader/sender have over the processing of an attachment when it is received?

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Addressbook

1.   Definition:

Alias or Nickname = 1 users' e-mail address
Personal Distribution List = More than 1 users' e-mail address
Personal Address book = Contains users e-mail addresses or aliases or nicknames.
Systems' Address book = Contains system wide e-mail addresses, nicknames and aliases
of all users on the system. There maybe multiple Addressbooks.

 

2.   Look up an e-mail address in the Systems'Address Book (from the public LDAP Servers). Add the e-mail address to your personal addressbook and distribution list. PLEASE REFER TO DARYL'S DOCUMENT.
 

Could you add the address without re-typing or copying and pasting it?

Could you copy and paste the address without re-typing it?

3.   Look up an e-mail address in the Public LDAP Servers. Could you determine which LDAP Server did the e-mail come from?
 

How many hits did you receive?   Did the application list where it found the e-mail address?

Could  you tell which e-mail address you want.

Did the system list all available addresses or was there a set number limit?

Is the set number limit configurable?

If the application found 1 e-mail did it list which LDAP Server it came from?

Could you select the order in which to search for an e-mail address in the LDAP Server or Directory?

4.   Send a message to a personal alias, did it work?

5.   Send a message to a personal distribution list, did it work?

6.   Send a message to a system distribution list (if one exists)did it work?

7.  Look up an address in the System Addressbook and send a message without adding the
address to your addressbook. Did it work?

8. By default can you get information other than name and e-mail address?  Is that option configurable?

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Folders

1. Create some folders on server and on PC. Create some sub-folders.

2. Save some messages in some folders on the server and on the PC.

a. Copy a message from one folder to another on the server using the copy command. Did it work? And how much time did it take.  (Please contact Peggy Yetter to assist in timing the process)

b. Using click-drag-drop drag an e-mail message from one folder to another folder on the server. Did it work? Did the message move?

c. Using click-drag-drop drag an e-mail message from one folder on the server to another server on the PC. What happened? Did the message move or was the message copied?

 

3a.   Search a folder on the server and the PC for a message containing a word.

3b.  Search selected folders for messages containing a word.
3c.   Could you designate a search order? Server, PC,...
3d.  Search for a word in a body of a message in a large folder. Did it work?

 

4. Read messages in a folder in sequential order

5. Read several non-contiguous messages. Can you mark several non-contiguous messages for reading one after another, without going back too an index or directory?

6. Reorganize the way messages are listed in a folder:

By date received/sent

By priority

By confidentiality

By sender

By recipient(s)

By Subject,etc..

 

7. How many folders are automatically generated by the system?

8. What are the default location (Server or PC) for:  And can you change the location?

Inbox

Sentbox

Trash

9. Send yourself a message with filtering disabled where did the message land?

10. Can you enable BCC:yourself all sent messages? Send a message to another user. Did you receive a copy of the sent message in your inbox?

11.  Delete a message.  Was the message marked for deletion or was deleted?

12. Undelete a message? Is there an undelete option or did you have to move the message from the deleted folder?

13. Can you permanently delete a message by moving it to trash/delete folder and emptying/expunging the
trash?

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Overall Product Evaluation

1.Is the configuration process easy and error proof?

2. Is it easy to mess-up the configuration?

3. Did you think the application is sturdy and robust enough to handle configuration problems? (i.e. did it crash a lot?)Did it auto recover when the system crashed? (if it crashed?)

4. Is the application resource intensive? Did you notice slowdown of your machine during the testing process?

5. Is the e-mail application easy to use? Intuitive? Can you change/personalize the user interface?

6. Do you consider it end user friendly?

7. How difficult will the learning curve be for a beginner user?

8. Did the application have the ability to multi-task? When waiting to send messages with lengthy attachment can you perform other tasks within the program?

9. Will cost be a factor for this product?

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Phase II

Interoperability Testing

The user is testing the interoperability between ELM and the IMAP GUI client. When possible the tester should begin: initiate the step from within the GUI client and examine the behavior in the ELM client repeat the process in reverse order whenever required Please make sure to logout after using each client and before login on to another client unless otherwise specified.

I. Message Creation

Send yourself a message inserting a text file (free flowing text using copy and paste) from a GUI client. Using the ELM client, read the message.

a. Was the line longer than the composition window or reading window?

b. Did ELM handle the text wrapping correctly?

II. Incoming/Outgoing Messages

Using a GUI client create a filter to filter an incoming message to a specific folder. Send yourself a message fitting the criteria. Using ELM read the message. Using GUI client did the filter worked on an already read message?

From within a GUI client send yourself an e-mail message with the following http://www.upenn.edu.

III. Attachments

Test any form of attachments sending and receiving from both the ELM and the GUI IMAP Client.
Using a GUI client send yourself an e-mail message with

text attachment.

Word or any Word Processor Attachment.
  Using ELM:
    Did you receive the attachment?
    In What format?

IV. Address book

Using the GUI client send a message to a personal mailing list.

Using ELM read that message.

Did you see the list name?

Did you see the list of individual recipients?

Did you see both?

V. Folders

Test folder state-- Mark a message for deletion using a GUI client.

Using an ELM can you locate the message?
b) Where is the message stored?
c) Can you UN-mark for deletion in ELM?
d) If you were able to UN-mark for deletion.

Using a GUI can you locate the message?

e) Restart the GUI application is the state the way we left it?

Delete/Expunge a message using a GUI Client.

a) Using ELM can you locate the message?
b) Where was the message stored?
c) Using ELM can you retrieve the message?

Move the Message to the trash using GUI Client.

a) Using an ELM can you locate the message?
b) Where is the message stored?
c) Could you move the message to the inbox?
d) Using a GUI client, locate the message.
Where did you find the message?

Sort messages by Subject using GUI Client.
Using ELM client how are the messages sorted?

Using a GUI client create a folder send a message to yourself and store it in the newly created folder.
Using ELM can you locate the newly created folder and e-mail message.

Can you read the message?
How many copies do you see?

Repeat Item #5 but stay logged on to both clients.

Did the change appear on both clients automatically?

What did you have to do? Refresh? Logout?

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Off-Line (Disconnected or On the Road) Testing

A. While disconnected, using the GUI IMAP client create a message and send it to yourself.

Did you get an error message?
What happened to the message?
Was the message placed in a queue?
Is this option configurable?

B. Connect to the Server.

Was the message sent out as soon as you connected?
Did you get a notice from the application?
How did the application update the server?

In Phase I test script test for potential time/speed and synch problems. Item # 1 - 3 under Folders

3. You need to be able to mark some folders as being ones that should get downloaded when you go offline.  Once offline, you should be able to access the messages in these folders, move the messages around, delete them, reply to messages (the replies will get queued).  When you go back online, the changes should get played back to the server.  This is very similar to what happens with Meeting Maker, except for the need to download folders as you go offline.       

Testing Process  EMTF

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Please note: This material is no longer current and appears online for archival purposes only. Use the search and navigation tools above to locate more up-to-date materials, if they exist.