An approach is provided for testing a change (i.e., configuration change) in a configuration of a computing environment. First configurable attributes of a user identifier (ID) of a user are determined. The user ID was received from an administrative user having an administrative user ID providing the administrative user with an authority of an administrator in the computing environment. A temporary simulation user ID (TSID) having second configurable attributes is generated so that the values of respective first and second configurable attributes are identical. The configuration change is associated with the TSID and with no other user ID. Based on the configuration change being associated with the TSID and with no other user ID, a simulation with the change in the configuration applied in the computing environment is performed. The user ID and administrative user ID are unaffected by the configuration change.