Overview

Testing is an important part of configuring an inquiry template, especially if you have conditional logic or branching.

What your users experience within the Inquiry flow may depend on the inputs they provide. You can use Simulate to mimic different user inputs in a Sandbox inquiry so you can see what different users may experience and test your template.

Simulate also enables you test conditions that are difficult to replicate in real life. For instance you would be able to test a template that depends on the extracted age being under 18 without an actual ID or document in hand.

Using Simulate

After you build out your inquiry template, you can test it within Simulate. To do so, click Preview in the upper right hand corner.

Simple Mode vs. Advanced Mode

Simulate has two modes, simple and advanced.

• Simple mode allows you to control if verifications should pass or fail on a given screen. This is useful for progressing through simple inquiries with simple branching logic around verification pass/fail like "Gov ID Verification failed"
• Advanced mode gives you more granular control over the outcomes of simulated verifications. This is useful for for progressing through complex inquiries whose branching logic references more granular verification checks results like "Compromised Submission"

Using Simple Mode

With Simple Mode, you can toggle if the relevant verification(s) will pass or fail on any given screen, no matter what you submit. You can then click through and see how different branches will work.

To navigate around the template, you can also use the read-only steps panel on the left.

Using Advanced Mode

Sometimes your testing and simulation requires more nuanced than Pass or Fail. In that case you can toggle on Advanced Mode at the top right of the right panel.

Simulated data

When simulating an Advanced mode, Persona provides a default set of simulated PII relevant to the verification. For example, for a Government ID verification a fictional but otherwise valid US drivers license for “Alexander J Sample” is provided as a Preset. What simulated data provided will vary by the verification types. Each types include a Preset that passes and a second that will fail, with Database include an additional fail preset.

Presets by verification

Government ID

• Valid US Driver's License — a clean, valid US driver's license (the default sample).
• Expired US Passport — a passport that has expired; forces the "ID expired" check to fail.

Selfie

• Valid Selfie — a good selfie that passes liveness.
• Replicated Selfie — a selfie that fails liveness detection (looks like a replica/spoof).

Document (supplemental Document / Document AI)

• Valid Document — a captured document that passes.
• Tampered Document — a document that fails as tampered/unprocessable.

Database (identity lookup against records)

• Valid Individual — the person is found and valid.
• Unknown Individual — the first and last name fail to match anyone.
• Deceased Individual — the details match a deceased person.

Database – TIN (tax ID check)

• Valid Individual — the person is valid.
• Deceased Individual — the details match a deceased person.

Database – Standard

• Valid Individual — the person is valid.
• Unknown Individual — the details fail to match anyone.

Database – eCBSV (SSN verification with the SSA)

• Valid Individual — the person is valid.
• Unknown Individual — the details fail to match anyone.

AAMVA (driver's license data check against the DMV network)

• Valid Individual — the person is valid.
• Unknown Individual — the ID number fails to match anyone.

Bank Penny-drop (bank account verification)

• Service Available — the bank service responds successfully.
• Service Unavailable — the bank service is down (external service error).

Database – Business (business/KYB lookup)

• Valid Business — the business is found and valid.
• Unknown Business — the business name and registration number fail to match.

Custom Presets

While simulating your inquiry, you can make edits to the default Presets. If you want reuse this edited Preset, you have the option to save it via the Save drop down. You can select “Create New” to save a new Preset. If you’re editing one of your saved Presets, you can also select the “Update” option to save additional changes to the Preset.

Advanced mode: Current Step

Start on the Current Step tab in Advanced Mode to simulate the verifications relevant to the current step. “Relevant” verifications means verifications that about to be performed upon transitioning to next screen, and thus simulated checks and check reasons would be immediately used.

You can toggle any relevant verification to pass or fail.

Verification Checks

The result of a verification is directly driven by the results of the checks that it performs. Toggle Checks to simulate certain verification checks passing and failing which will impact the result of a verification. You can edit which verification checks will fail by either deleting them via the trash icon, or clicking the edit icon to the right of “Verification Checks”.

⚠️ Note which verifications have been set as required or not. The simulated verification will only fail if a Required verification check is set to fail.

In the example above, “Account Comparison” is set to fail in the simulated inquiry, but by itself it would not cause the verification to fail.