Testing & Sandbox

Validate your integration before going live with sandbox environments and debug tools.

Sandbox Environment

Every integration can operate in two environments: production and sandbox. Sandbox uses separate credentials and configuration, keeping production data completely isolated.

If no sandbox-specific configuration exists for a given integration, the system automatically falls back to mock responses. This means you can start testing immediately without configuring a second set of credentials.

environment configuration

Integration credentials
  ├── environment: "production"   → Live API credentials
  └── environment: "sandbox"      → Test API credentials (optional)

Brand configuration
  ├── environment: "production"   → Live brand config
  └── environment: "sandbox"      → Test brand config (optional)

Fallback chain:
  sandbox config → mock endpoints → production config

Mock Endpoints

Hotelinking can store mock responses for any API endpoint. When no live sandbox endpoint is available, these mock responses are returned instead of making a real API call.

This is particularly useful for testing field mappings and transforms without calling your real API. You can provide sample responses that represent different scenarios (empty stays, missing guest data, cancelled reservations) and verify that each is handled correctly.

Mock responses are stored per endpoint and include the full HTTP response body that would be returned by the partner API. You can provide sample responses during onboarding.

Debug Mode

Debug mode performs a full end-to-end dry run and shows step-by-step results. It can be triggered by your Hotelinking contact or via the API during integration testing.

During a debug execution, you can inspect every stage of data processing:

Raw API Response

The unmodified JSON response from the source API, before any parsing or transformation.

Parsed Records

Records extracted by the response parser with field mappings and value maps applied.

Transform Step Output

The result of each compute, normalize, and filter step showing data changes at every stage.

Final Payload

The exact payload that would be sent to the destination system, ready for inspection.

No data is actually delivered to destinations in debug mode. The processing runs all steps up to and including the transform, but skips the final delivery to the destination system.

Testing Checklist

Follow these steps in order to validate a new integration before enabling it in production.

Configure sandbox credentials

Provide sandbox-environment credentials to your Hotelinking contact during onboarding.

Verify authentication

Run a test API call from the playground to confirm your credentials work and the correct auth method is detected.

Check field mappings

Ensure all required fields are mapped: reservation_id, check_in, check_out, status, and guest first_name.

Validate transforms

Review that value maps, split transforms, and coalesce operations produce the expected results for your data.

Test with sample data

Run debug mode with a small date range (1-2 days) to verify the full processing on real records.

Review normalized output

Check that phone numbers are in international format, emails are lowercased, and names are properly cased with accents handled.

Verify destination format

Confirm the transformed data matches the destination system's API requirements, including required fields and data types.

Enable production

Switch from sandbox to production environment and activate the integration for the target brands.

Pre-Production Validation

Before activating a new integration in production, always:

Run at least one full debug execution with real data from the source API
Verify guest email and phone normalization handles your data formats correctly
Confirm board type and reservation status value mappings produce the expected canonical codes
Check that nested stays and guests are correctly parsed, flattened, and deduplicated