Delivering quality customer experience is one of the major priorities of almost every company. Evidently, customers prefer upgraded and customized general solutions. Thus, to ensure the adaptability with customers’ evolving behavior, the companies must evolve their solutions and services regularly. This can be possible with salesforce sandbox, which allows businesses to upgrade with their ongoing business processes, including the complete metadata of the ongoing customization, configuration, codes, and apps.

The salesforce sandbox enhances experimenting skills of companies by minimizing the chances of risk and streamlines the ongoing business plans and strategies by increasing efficiency. Lets understand in detail what sandbox is, types of salesforce sandbox and how to use them in an organization effectively.

What is a Sandbox?If you are planning to experiment with new ideas of salesforce but don’t want to ruin or hamper your database, then Sandbox is the solution. “Sandbox” is a specific testing area where you can try to implement new things such as, fields, objects, page layouts, and workflow processes – that can be done without introducing any changes in your ongoing configurations. Sandboxes are used to create multiple copies of all the available data of an organization. These multiple copies can be created for different departments i.e., development, testing, and training. All this can be done effortlessly without affecting the data of the organization. Sandboxes don’t interact or get along with the organization, so the new operations that are performed do not affect salesforce production or vice-versa.  In contrast to that, there are multiple salesforce sandbox options and not all are the same, therefore it is important to understand the differences before you set up a new work area.
What is the Salesforce Sandbox?Having an isolated development and testing environment where users can run and execute their programs or files without affecting the application or system within the salesforce where the live data is saved is termed as ‘Salesforce Sandbox’. It is mostly used by salesforce developers to run a new programming code.Based on the type of salesforce sandbox, users existing data can be saved and included. Thus, the salesforce sandbox is not a separate version of organization data, rather it is a copy of the original one. Any practical or testing phase changes will not be automatically reflected in the salesforce sandbox. The salesforce sandbox are not considered for long-time or permanent data backup, due to following reasons;

  • Sandboxes can only be refreshed once in every 29 days.
  • Complete and full sandbox  can only be accessed through performance and unlimited versions, whereas others have to purchase it as an add-on.
  • The multiple sandboxes can be created and managed relying on the type of license. All the sandbox instances are separated from each other, so the operation on one sandbox doesn’t affect the others. 

Sometimes to fulfill different requirements the different environments are needed. Such as, in the construction phase of sandbox, multiple development teams can work, therefore each team requires a separate sandbox. Hence, to fulfill different requirements of the team separate environments are created with the salesforce sandbox. To make all this possible based on the different data sizes of the organizations, different types of salesforce sandboxes are available, let’s learn about them in detail.

What is the Salesforce Sandbox?Having an isolated development and testing environment where users can run and execute their programs or files without affecting the application or system within the salesforce where the live data is saved is termed as ‘Salesforce Sandbox’. It is mostly used by salesforce developers to run a new programming code.Based on the type of salesforce sandbox, users existing data can be saved and included. Thus, the salesforce sandbox is not a separate version of organization data, rather it is a copy of the original one. Any practical or testing phase changes will not be automatically reflected in the salesforce sandbox. The salesforce sandbox are not considered for long-time or permanent data backup, due to following reasons;

  • Sandboxes can only be refreshed once in every 29 days.
  • Complete and full sandbox  can only be accessed through performance and unlimited versions, whereas others have to purchase it as an add-on.
  • The multiple sandboxes can be created and managed relying on the type of license. All the sandbox instances are separated from each other, so the operation on one sandbox doesn’t affect the others. 

Sometimes to fulfill different requirements the different environments are needed. Such as, in the construction phase of sandbox, multiple development teams can work, therefore each team requires a separate sandbox. Hence, to fulfill different requirements of the team separate environments are created with the salesforce sandbox. To make all this possible based on the different data sizes of the organizations, different types of salesforce sandboxes are available, let’s learn about them in detail.

Where are the Salesforce Sandboxes used?The types of Salesforce Sandboxes are used for high risk customization such as;

  • Workflows and Validation rules
  • Applications
  • Tabs
  • Linked/Integrated apps
  • Custom Objects, Labels, and Fields
  • Visualforce
  • Apex Codes
Where Salesforce Sandboxes are not used?The types of Salesforce Sandboxes are not used for following things;

  • Dashboards
  • Reports
  • Email Templates
  • List Views
  • Folders
Types of Salesforce Sandbox1. Developer SandboxThe Developer salesforce sandbox is planned for a single salesforce developer to perform coding and testing. Whereas, multiple clients can sign into and share a single Developer salesforce sandbox. All things considered, the prime purpose of a Developer sandbox is to deliver an environment during which updates in the active development are frequently detached until those updates are shared.Developer sandboxes copy the whole metadata or setup information of the organization. However, it includes custom object definition, custom settings, Apex classes and triggers, Visualforce pages, price books, reports, dashboards etc.The Developer sandboxes give a restricted document and data storage  that is enough for multiple development and testing.2. Developer Pro SandboxDesigner Pro sandbox is a type of salesforce sandbox that provides similar functionality as Developer sandbox does, with enhanced file and data storage size. With the additional storage space, the Developer Pro sandbox can store and host bigger and more complete data sets. So you can use this sandbox for extra tasks, which includes user training and data loading and integration testing.

It is known for configuration only sandbox, has no production data, and possesses all the features of Developer types salesforce sandbox. 

3. Partial Sandbox

It is one of its kind of Sandbox that permits you to not only copy metadata, but also a portion of your data. As the name Partial sandbox suggests, you can pick a sample or partial set of data using a Sandbox Template.

The Partial Salesforce Sandbox is exceptionally useful, when you aim for testing new functionality on live data, or as a matter of fact you plan to train your users by exercising live data, under a testing environment.

Partial Copy Sandboxes are well incorporated with Enterprise, Unlimited and Performance version Salesforce CRM licenses, and can be purchased independently.

The Partial Copy Sandbox has a data refresh timespan of 5 days, and permits data storage up to 5GB, and document storage mirrors of your salesforce business organization.

4. Full Copy Sandbox

Full Copy sandbox method is an enhanced or copied version  of your whole organization and all of its data, including customized and standard object records, attachments, documents, settings, codes etc.

Build a sandbox template that stores everything except the sensitive information. To create a Full sandbox, apply a sandbox template to restrict the data that is copied. So that the Sandbox stores just the records that are required  for testing or other tasks. 

For example, you may exclude sensitive or confidential data if it’s not required for testing. So, once you apply the sandbox template to a Full copy sandbox type, the copy engine of the sandbox duplicates all the chosen objects records within the template.

Some Limitations of Salesforce SandboxThe different types of salesforce sandboxes come with a few limitations, and here are the important details that you must be aware of.

  1. For the Full Copy Sandbox and Partial Sandbox, the performance edition of both the sandboxes comes with the option of switch licenses, i.e., thirty sandbox developers and five developer pro sandbox.
  2. The Enterprise editions possess the license for single developer sandbox.
  3. The unlimited edition of sandbox possesses five developer licenses for Pro Sandboxes, 15 developer sandboxes, and 1 Full sandbox developer.
  4. Apart from that, if based on your businesses or organizations demand you require more licenses for sandboxes, then you need to contact the salesforce services to place more orders.

These types of Salesforce Sandboxes offer different storage limits as well. The Partial salesforce sandbox provides only 5 GB of free storage limit, Developer Pro sandbox provides storage limit of 1 GB, whereas the Developer sandbox is available with only 200 MB data storage limit, whereas, the storage limit of Full sandboxes is equal to the organization’s data size.

How to Create A Salesforce Sandbox Template?During the development phase the salesforce sandbox template can created. However,  just 5 GB of data files can stored in the 5 GB of file through a partial or full sandbox. So, let’s learn how to use the sandbox template and created, which could either full or partial sandbox. These are the following steps to followed for setting up the sandbox template;

  • Track down Sandboxes from the instant search menu
  • Click New Sandbox
  • Enter name and Sandbox description
  • Select sandbox types
  • Click start copy

Based upon the size of your organization you can choose the suitable sandbox you can pick anybody. You will receive the confirmation mail when the copying is done. You can go through the shared link on the mail to access the sandbox. To add objects in the Salesforce sandbox template, check each object box. Then the list of chosen objects will appear, and the objects can also be deselected. Subsequent after choosing the required objects, you can save the sandbox template.

Conclusion

Here we have learned about the types of salesforce sandbox, limitations, and how to create a salesforce sandbox template. By using these sandboxes, can make events and testing easier by delivering a different environment to each team. Salesforce can provide these sandboxes to each team member of the software development, such as developer, tester, etc.

If you are an organization and planning for salesforce implementation in your organization, then it would be easier for you to choose the right sandbox based on your organization’s size. In addition to that, you can also hire expert salesforce service providers on this platform. Supersourcing, also has its own salesforce expert, for more details you can reach out to us, check out the portal, or can reach out to customer assistance.