Set Yourself Up for Success with Salesforce Sandbox Refreshes

This blog was originally published on March 28, 2019.

Salesforce Sandboxes are crucial to testing new releases and functionalities in a controlled environment before they are placed in your live production environment. Before you test on your Salesforce Sandbox environment, we highly recommend taking the time to refresh your Sandbox’s metadata with the production org.

Despite this, many associations overlook the importance of planning a sandbox refresh. Here are a few things that you need to do in preparation of refreshing your Salesforce Sandbox:

Find Out The ‘Why?’

This may be obvious, but solidifying why you need to do a Sandbox refresh should be the first planning step. Sandbox refreshes are often done for the following reasons:

• A Salesforce upgrade is scheduled to be released
• Major updates are being made to existing functionality

Based on your needs, you can then decide if you need a Partial Sandbox or a Full Sandbox. Partial and Full Sandboxes contain different default objects, data limits, and refresh intervals.

In most cases, we highly suggest a Full Sandbox. A Full Sandbox is the most exact copy of your production environment, which is important if you’re adding a major new functionality, or if you’re upgrading.

Remember, you want to have the most accurate copy of your live environment, so there are no surprises when changes are then deployed.

Build A Plan With Stakeholders

Prior to refreshing your Sandbox, we highly recommend communicating with other vendors and internal staff on the timing of your Sandbox Refresh.  Sandbox refreshes will overwrite any development that is in progress on your Sandbox environment, so it is important that any approved development or maintenance tasks on Sandbox are moved to production before it is overwritten. Full Sandbox refresh can only be done once every 29 days.

Contact fusionSpan For More

Once your Sandbox is refreshed, you are able to start development or test your Salesforce upgrade! Having an accurate copy of your live environment will ensure you are set up for success when changes are then deployed.

For more Salesforce best practices and assistance, contact our talented team here at fusionSpan!