Translate policy into explicit rules
Business language such as 'recent customers' or 'do not over-survey' is too ambiguous for reliable configuration. Convert each statement into testable conditions, precedence, and an owner.
- Eligibility source and event
- Exclusion precedence
- Contact frequency window
- Journey and channel priority
- Consent and suppression treatment
Test boundary conditions
Most failures happen at boundaries: missing timestamps, duplicate events, late files, timezone changes, reopened cases, or contacts qualifying for more than one journey.
- Exactly-on-boundary timestamps
- Duplicate and corrected records
- Missing or malformed attributes
- Multi-journey qualification
- Late-arriving data
Separate send logic from survey logic
Invitation eligibility, message delivery, link behavior, survey branching, and response handling are different control points. Validate them independently before testing the end-to-end journey.
Keep release evidence
A compact test pack should show input conditions, expected decisions, actual results, and sign-off. This reduces repeated debate when rules change later.