Testing changes in your Standard sandbox

Fastpath: Admin Center > Account > Sandbox

The Support Enterprise plan provides two help desk instances: a customer-facing production instance and a development instance known as the Standard sandbox. Use the sandbox to test, learn, and make mistakes before making your changes public. For example, you can use the sandbox to test and fine-tune new templates and branding without affecting your customers. You can create a new sandbox anytime you want. The Support Enterprise plan allows you to have a single sandbox at a time.

After you're done testing and deploying your changes, you can reset the sandbox for a fresh round of development.

You manage your sandbox in Admin Center. This topic describes how to use Admin Center to create and work with your sandbox.

This article contains the following topics:

• How the sandbox works
• Creating a sandbox
• Working in your sandbox
• Replacing your sandbox

How the sandbox works

The sandbox takes the following settings from your production instance of Zendesk Support. This matching ensures your starting point is as close to the current production instance as possible.

• Templates (standard emails, welcome emails, etc.)
• Branding (colors, account names, etc.)
• Settings (channels, agent permissions, etc.)
• Add-ons (excluding Answer Bot)

Any changes you make in the sandbox are not copied to your production instance. Once you're satisfied with the changes, you must reproduce them manually in the production instance. If you need to configure additional syncing from production to your sandbox, you can do so using our REST API.

You can start a trial in your sandbox for another Zendesk product, such as Chat or Talk. Any trial is subject to limitations and has a fixed time limit, as specified when you sign up for the trial.

The production instance owner is listed as the sandbox owner by default. This is true even if another admin creates or replaces the sandbox.

The sandbox does not replicate the following items:

• Help Center content and customizations
• Zendesk Talk data
• Zendesk Chat data and customizations
• Security settings (including SSO)
• API tokens
• Apps and integrations
• Conditional fields
• Twitter user identities
• Zendesk Support triggers, automations and custom fields

Sandbox replication does not include items like business rules, views, macros, groups, orgs, custom fields, users, user fields, and tickets.

Tip: If you want to replicate more information from your production instance, you can purchase Premium Sandbox as an add-on. See About the Premium Sandbox. If you want to buy Premium Sandbox, contact your sales representative or Zendesk Customer Support.

Creating a sandbox

Before using your sandbox you must initialize it. The sandbox is created with settings from your current production instance of Zendesk Support.

To create a sandbox

1. In any product, click the Zendesk Products icon () in the top bar, then select Admin Center.
2. Click the Account icon () in the left sidebar, then click Sandbox.
3. Click the Create Sandbox button.
4. Enter a Name that describes your sandbox.
5. Click Create.

You will see a message that your sandbox is being created. When your sandbox is successfully created, a message appears at the top of the page, and the status of the sandbox becomes Active. The sandbox has a unique URL with a ten-digit number after your domain name.

Working in your sandbox

Once you create your sandbox and it's active, you can start working in it. See Creating a sandbox above.

To switch to the sandbox from the production instance of Zendesk Support

1. In any product, click the Zendesk Products icon () in the top bar, then select Admin Center.
2. Click the Account icon () in the left sidebar, then click Sandbox.
3. Click the options menu (), then select Open Sandbox to launch the sandbox instance in a new browser tab. You can also bookmark the sandbox and access it from your browser.

   

4. Sign in to the sandbox with your normal administrator credentials.
5. Make changes, test, and fine-tune.

Warning: Sandbox changes are not copied to the production instance. Once you're satisfied with the changes, you must reproduce them manually in the production instance.

Replacing your sandbox

After you're done with a round of testing and updates, you can create a new sandbox for a fresh round of development and testing. Creating a new sandbox is also useful if you mess up and want to start from scratch.

The Support Enterprise plan allows you to have a single sandbox at a time. A typical procedure would be to delete the existing sandbox and create a new one based on the settings of your current production instance of Zendesk Support. See How the sandbox works.

To replace your Enterprise sandbox

1. In any product, click the Zendesk Products icon () in the top bar, then select Admin Center.
2. Click the Account icon () in the left sidebar, then click Sandbox.
3. Click the options menu (), then select Delete Sandbox.

   

4. Create a new sandbox using the steps in Creating a sandbox.

   A new sandbox is created with a new URL.