Problem
The Department for Education (DfE) needed a secure, compliant, and scalable way to test email and SMS communications end-to-end, especially one with UK-based servers. Their existing setup relied on a patchwork of open-source tools and temporary fixes.
Solution
With a wealth of features, and UK-based data storage, Mailosaur addressed both security and technical gaps for DfE. Mailosaur's robust testing capabilities allowed staff to test 2FA flows, as well as how emails looked across devices and more.
Key results
- Estimated 120% increase in email testing volume
- Smooth automation setup
- Increased confidence in 2FA workflows
- Enhanced UX/ UI validation
- Proactive cross-team adoption
Mailosaur has an extremely easy to use and understand user interface.
Department for Education challenges
Prior to Mailosaur, DfE relied on a combination of Mailinator and manual testing methods. This setup posed multiple problems including:
- Compliance concerns around where data would be stored
- Limited testing support for 2-factor authentication, with workflows requiring messy workarounds and compromises
- Time-consuming manual QA that involved digging through Gov Notify logs to verify message delivery
- Low test coverage due to technical constraints
With frequent activity across their service lines and growing pressure on the QA team, they needed a solution that simplified workflows, enabled better test visibility, and met their internal compliance standards.
Why Mailosaur
Mailosaur met DfE's most pressing need with its UK-based data storage, easing security concerns, while its intuitive dashboard layout made their previous patchwork testing fixes redundant. Beyond this, however, DfE appreciated the intuitive UI of Mailosaur.
Navigation is easy, the look and feel is great... it's kind of glossy, it's modern... supports dark mode. That's a big plus for me.
There were also unexpected benefits, like the potential to trigger automated workflows from inbound messages, or leveraging the previews feature which has further expanded its value across departments.
If we couldn’t use Mailosaur anymore, it’d be a serious disruption. I’d only hope the replacement looks and works half as well.
The outcome
- Security concerns quelled by Mailosaur's extensive security precautions and UK-based storage
- Huge uptick in testing volume, including automation, with further plans to expand use across teams and departments
- Reduced manual debugging, as this was originally needed due to over-complex log diving
- Increased confidence in 2FA workflows with virtual multi-device simulations
Every tester’s got their own personal manual server. We’ve got our automation server, we’ve got a server for local automation runs… life’s good in automation
Peter Gabriel-Tomas, Department for Education