Quite often multiple developers work on the same developer org and the other team members must work on their development environment. After the development, separate environments are required for testing and training purposes. So, before implementation, every stage of SDLC requires a separate environment. Sandboxes help to increase the efficiency of your project teams. You can use different types of sandboxes or different copies of the same sandbox type for serving your area of interest. Sandboxes can be created with production instances and the user gets a notification when the sandbox creation is completed.

What are Sandboxes?

Sandboxes are special types of boxes in Salesforce which are copies of the production organization for the developers, used to serve multiple purposes of development, Quality Assurance(QA), staging, UAT and training. However, sandboxes are fully isolated from the production org. The developer can deploy change sets from one sandbox to another within the production org.

Sandboxes help the developers to incorporate change requests or changes in code and then migrate to the production environment. The source of truth for sandboxes is the production organization. Salesforce offers provisions for creating partial and full copy templates but not for developer and developer pro type of sandboxes. Sandboxes can be refreshed and cloned from other sandboxes as well.

The sandboxes contain the metadata related to configurations, customizations, apps and code, used in the production environment. There may be some instances of sandboxes that are related to the production environment.

How to Create a Sandbox template?

A sandbox template is created with the following steps:

Step 1: Go to Setup->Quick Search Menu->Sandbox

Step 2: Click New Sandbox. 

Step 3: Enter the Sandbox name and the description. 

Step 4: Select the type from the list. 

Step 5: Click Start Copy

On completion of the copying the user receives a notification email. There is a link inside the mail, clicking which the user can access the sandbox. After adding objects to the sandbox template the user needs to Click on Save to save the sandbox.

How to Login in Salesforce Sandbox?

• Use the Salesforce sandbox login using the following link by adding sandbox name to the user name :  

https://test.Salesforce.com

Or 

• Log into a newly created or refreshed sandbox, the user need to go the same link as above and just add the sandbox name. 

There are different types of sandboxes. What are these? Let us find out more.

What are the Different types of Sandboxes?

• Developer Sandbox
• Developer Pro Sandbox
• Partial Copy Sandbox

Developer Sandbox

This is the most basic type of sandbox which is available with the majority of Salesforce licenses. Here the testing environment gets created with a metadata copy from the production environment.

Developer Pro Sandbox

A developer Pro Sandboxes have higher storage limits and differs slightly from the standard developer environment. They are available only in Performance and unlimited Salesforce Versions. They provide 1 GB of data and file storage.

Partial Copy Sandbox

This allows the developer not only to copy the metadata but a part of your data. This is beneficial for the developers when they need to test new functionality based on live data or alternately train the users with live data for testing purposes.

Full Copy Sandbox

Here all metadata and data related to production get copied. This replicates the production org for complete testing of functionality and using it for training. The refresh interval here is 29 days and the storage limit is similar to the production org.

What are the benefits of Sandbox?

• Increase the efficiency of your project team.
• Provide a training environment.
• Improve Productivity.
• Reduce risks related to operations.
• Reduce time for testing trials.
• Enable email in Salesforce Sandbox organization to configure options on email delivery.

Best practices for Sandboxes

The best practices are:

• Create an environment plan at the initial stages of the project.
• Create a strategy to orient the org releases with the releases from Salesforce to save developer’s time for refreshing sandboxes.
• Use standard nomenclature for the sandbox to understand the usage of the sandbox quickly.
• Focus on sandboxes based on size limits and capacity.
• Improve productivity with streamlined processes by aligning the sandbox strategy, as well as the refresh intervals, align with the Sprint Calendar.
• Refresh sandboxes for every release to ensure the availability of the new features.
• Classify the checklist of actions taken before refreshing the sandbox as preactions, refreshing actions and post-actions.
• Document all sandbox configurations which need to be updated after the refresh to avoid a loss of current sandbox configurations.
• Use data masking tools. or your tool to protect the sensitive Salesforce data
• Make sure not to send the Sandbox data into the integrated production environment.

Conclusion

After the development, separate environments are required for testing and training purposes. So, before your team reaches an implementation stage, it is important for every SDLC stage to have a separate environment. Sandboxes help to streamline processes and improve the productivity of the processes when the sandbox strategies and the refresh intervals align with the sprint calendar when your team works with Agile methodologies.

Moreover, a Salesforce full sandbox refresh takes time and there is no single checklist for all sandboxes. Sandboxes are also beneficial for version control, code management, app development, training and above all for testing purposes. They cater to the user’s needs and also provide technical documentations. And, finally, sandboxes do not compromise on the data in the Salesforce organization.