Sandbox Design Strategies for Enterprise Implementations

In this post, we will talk about what sandbox is in Salesforce and sandbox design strategies for enterprise implementation. It is inevitable to avoid Sandboxes in most enterprise implementations. As different teams work on different processes like testing, development, pre-release, and final rollout, it is essential to have a strong Sandbox strategy for a number of reasons? parallel development (teams can work simultaneously, without halting any of their processes), shortened cycle times, reduced operational risks, increased productivity and efficiency, and enhanced delivery.

What is Salesforce Sandbox?

A sandbox is an isolated copy of your organization’s production environment that is used for development and testing purposes. Your production environment has your live data and active users logging in. A sandbox will always include a copy of your production organization’s metadata (objects, fields, page layouts, etc.), but it may or may not include a copy of your production organization’s data (account records, contact records, files, etc.).

  1. Copy of your Salesforce Org/Production as a separate environment
  2. Development, Testing, and Training.

Type of sandbox in Salesforce?

There are 4 types of Salesforce sandbox environments

Type of sandbox in Salesforce

Developer Sandbox

Developer sandboxes are special configuration sandboxes intended for coding and testing by a single developer. Just like Developer Pro sandboxes, Developer sandboxes copy all application and configuration information to the sandbox. Developer sandboxes are limited to 200 MB of test or sample data, which is enough for many developments and testing tasks. We can refresh a Developer sandbox once per day.

Developer Pro Sandbox

The main difference between this and Developer is the amount of data that can be stored.  It also grabs some product data from production.  If those two things are important, use this one. Developer Pro sandboxes copy all of your production organization’s reports, dashboards, price books, products, apps, and customizations under Setup, but exclude all of your organization’s standard and custom object records, documents, and attachments. It can only include up to 1 GB of data. We can refresh a Developer Pro sandbox once per day

Partial Copy

Partial Data sandboxes include all of your organization’s metadata and add a selected amount of your production organization’s data that you define using a sandbox template. A Partial Data sandbox is a Developer sandbox plus the data you define in a sandbox template. It includes the reports, dashboards, price books, products, apps, and customizations under Setup (including all of your metadata). Additionally, as defined by your sandbox template, Partial Data sandboxes can include your organization’s standard and custom object records, documents, and attachments up to 5 GB of data and a maximum of 10,000 records per selected object. A Partial Data sandbox is smaller than a Full sandbox and has a shorter refresh interval. You can refresh a Partial Data sandbox every 5 days.

Full Sandbox

Full sandboxes copy your entire production organization and all its data, including standard and custom object records, documents, and attachments. We can refresh a Full sandbox every 29 days. Sandbox templates allow you to pick specific objects and data to copy to your sandbox so you can control the size and content of each sandbox. Salesforce Sandbox templates are only available for Partial Data or Full sandboxes.

Salesforce Sandbox – Key Features

  1. Sandbox Templates: Pick a specific object and data to copy to your Full or Partial Copy sandbox
  2. Sandbox Cloning: All Metadata – Copied to new sandbox, Same license type, Refresh a cloned sandbox from its source.

Sandbox Allocations in Salesforce

Each type has different features to support the activities it’s designed for

Sandbox TypesProfessionalEnterprisePerformance**Unlimited
Developer1025100100
Developer Pro55
Partial Copy111
Full copy11

Agile Development Life Cycle

Agile Development Life Cycle

Sandbox Use-Cases

Let’s have a look at when we should choose which sandboxes.

Use CaseDeveloperDeveloper ProPartial CopyFull
Build
Proof of Concept
QA
Integration Testing
Batch Data Testing
Training
User Acceptance Testing
Performance or Load Testing
Staging

Deployment Flow

Here is the standard environment Strategy we used in deployment flows.

Deployment Flow in Salesforce

Strategy-1: Small Implementation

Strategy-2:  Large Implementation

Large Implementation sandbox flow

Strategy-3:  Enterprise Level Implementation

Enterprise Level Implementation for sandbox

Recording

Here is a recording of the session. This session will teach you industry best practices for effective Sandbox strategies.

YouTube video

Please subscribe our YouTube channel to get notification for video upload. Check our “Session in 2019” page for all upcoming and old sessions of 2019.

Summary

Salesforce sandbox is a copy of your production org containing all the configuration, customization, app, and code. Some sandboxes contain some or call databases based on sandbox type. I hope this session helped you understand how to make Salesforce Sandbox design strategies for a large implementation.

Amit Chaudhary
Amit Chaudhary

Amit Chaudhary is Salesforce Application & System Architect and working on Salesforce Platform since 2010. He is Salesforce MVP since 2017 and have 17 Salesforce Certificates.

He is a active blogger and founder of Apex Hours.

Articles: 469

2 Comments

  1. Hi Amit, Thanks … I’ve a question please. Can we create a sandbox in a Developer Edition ? Trailhead Playground, … ? Thanks

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