{
  "id": 1332294,
  "title": "How to Handle O365 Shared Mailboxes in CI/CD Test Automation",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/16/how-to-handle-o365-shared-mailboxes-in-ci-cd-test-automation",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-16T19:14:06.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/shell_qa/how-to-handle-o365-shared-mailboxes-in-cicd-test-automation-pfa"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Automating Office 365 Shared Mailboxes through UI logins or outdated IMAP authentication proves challenging. Microsoft Graph API offers a robust alternative by utilizing Client Credentials (App-Only) Flow within automation frameworks. This guide outlines the steps to implement this solution:\n\n1. Configure Azure AD (Entra ID) permissions:\n- Register an application in the Azure Portal.\n- Add Microsoft Graph permissions: Mail.ReadWrite and Mail.Send.\n- Grant Admin Consent for these permissions.\n- Generate a Client Secret or upload a Certificate.\n- Save Tenant ID, Client ID, and Client Secret in environment variables.\n- Restrict app registration scope to the specific shared mailbox using ApplicationAccessPolicy.\n\n2. Obtain OAuth 2.0 Tokens:\n- Send a POST request to the Azure AD token endpoint.\n- Include Client ID, Client Secret, and grant_type as client_credentials.\n\n3. Interact with the Shared Mailbox:\n- Retrieve the latest unread email for OTP or link extraction using a GET request.\n- Parse the JSON response to extract verification links, tokens, or body text.\n- Send emails through the shared mailbox using a POST request to the sendMail endpoint.\n\nThis approach provides fast, reliable, and flake-free email validation in CI/CD pipelines. Direct HTTP API execution is significantly faster than UI navigation, eliminates MFA blockers, and ensures consistent execution without relying on Outlook web interfaces or loading delays.",
  "summary": "Testing email workflows—like OTP verification, password resets, or automated notifications—is a core requirement for robust end-to-end (E2E) automation. However, automating Office 365 (O365) Shared Mailboxes via UI logins or legacy IMAP basic authentication is a nightmare. UI logins trigger MFA, IMAP basic auth is deprecated across Microsoft 365, and browser automation for Outlook web is…",
  "key_points": [
    "Register Azure AD app with Mail.ReadWrite and Mail.Send permissions",
    "Obtain OAuth 2.0 tokens via Azure AD token endpoint",
    "Send emails through shared mailbox using POST request to sendMail endpoint"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}