Definition
Test Deliverability is a Setup tool that sends a test email from Salesforce to a specified address to verify that outbound email delivery is working correctly. It helps administrators diagnose email deliverability issues by confirming that emails can successfully leave the Salesforce platform and reach recipients.
Real-World Example
After configuring email relay through the company's Exchange server, the admin at Apex Dynamics uses Test Deliverability to send a test email to her personal Gmail account. The test email arrives within 30 seconds, confirming that the relay is properly configured and emails are flowing from Salesforce through Exchange to external recipients.
Why Test Deliverability Matters
Test Deliverability is a diagnostic tool in Salesforce Setup that lets administrators send a test email to any specified address to verify that outbound email delivery is functioning correctly. When organizations configure email relays, SPF records, or DKIM signing, things can break silently — emails simply vanish without any error visible to the sender. This tool provides immediate confirmation that emails are leaving Salesforce and reaching their destination, eliminating guesswork when troubleshooting delivery issues.
As orgs scale and add complexity like email relay servers, compliance gateways, and multiple verified sending domains, the email delivery chain becomes fragile. A single misconfigured relay or expired certificate can silently block all outbound email, impacting workflow notifications, case auto-responses, and critical alerts. Admins who regularly use Test Deliverability as part of their post-change validation process catch issues before they affect end users. Without this simple check, organizations often discover email problems only when a customer complains about missing a response — sometimes days later.
How Organizations Use Test Deliverability
- Granite Financial Services — After migrating their email relay from on-premise Exchange to Microsoft 365, Granite's admin uses Test Deliverability to confirm emails flow through the new relay. The first test fails, revealing a missing connector rule in Exchange Online. After fixing the connector, the retest succeeds within 15 seconds, confirming the migration is complete.
- PrimeHealth Insurance — PrimeHealth's compliance team requires all outbound Salesforce emails to route through a Proofpoint gateway for DLP scanning. After configuring the email relay, the admin uses Test Deliverability to verify the routing works. The test email header analysis confirms the message passed through Proofpoint before reaching the recipient.
- Lakeview Education Partners — When Lakeview's admissions notifications stopped reaching prospective students, the admin used Test Deliverability to isolate the problem. The test email to a Gmail address succeeded but the test to university .edu addresses failed, pinpointing the issue to the university's spam filter blocking the Salesforce IP range.