Managing premium sandboxes

Fastpath: Admin Center > Account > Sandbox > Sandboxes

This article describes how to use Admin Center to create a premium sandbox, work in your sandbox, and create a new sandbox when you need to start a new round of testing. For more information about premium sandboxes, see About the Premium Sandbox.

This article contains the following topics:

• Creating a premium sandbox through replication
• Working in your sandbox
• Replacing your sandbox
• Managing premium sandboxes when upgrading to Zendesk Suite

Creating a premium sandbox through replication

Replication occurs automatically when you create a sandbox through Admin Center. The replication retrieves data from the production instance and then creates the configuration and content in the sandbox. The process will not affect the performance of your production instance. Data is only retrieved from the production instance, so nothing will be added, updated, or deleted there. The configuration of your sandbox instance will change rapidly while the replication is occurring so it is best to not use it during the process.

The time to complete a replication varies depending on the amount of content involved. A simple metadata copy with a small amount of fields and business rules can take as little as an hour. A full production copy with 100,000 tickets and their associated users and organizations can take a week or more to complete. When the replication is complete, the status of the sandbox changes to Active.

To create a sandbox

1. Before creating a new sandbox, make sure you've configured a default group for your account.
2. In Admin Center, click the Account icon () in the sidebar, then select Sandbox > Sandboxes.
3. Click the Create Sandbox button.
4. Enter a Name that describes your sandbox.
5. Select your preferred sandbox to set up. You can only select sandbox types that are available in your plan or that you've purchased as an add-on.
   • Blank - A standard sandbox with none of your settings, business rules, or tickets.
   • Production copy with no ticket storage - A copy of your production settings and business rules, but no tickets
   • Production copy with ticket storage - A copy of your production settings, business rules, and tickets.
6. If you selected Production copy with ticket storage, you must also select the number of tickets to copy to the sandbox.
   • Up to 10,000 tickets - The maximum number of unsolved tickets you can copy with the Zendesk Suite Enterprise plan. This is referred to as a partial copy.
   • Up to 100,000 tickets - The maximum number of unsolved tickets you can copy with the Zendesk Suite Enterprise Plus plan. This is referred to as a full production copy.
7. 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.

With your newly-replicated sandbox, you will have an environment that closely mirrors your production instance. This enables you to test out new workflows, give your agents a safe place to train, and provide a high-quality environment for development purposes.

Working in your sandbox

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

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

1. In Admin Center, click the Account icon () in the sidebar, then select Sandbox > Sandboxes.
2. Click the options menu () next to one of your sandboxes, 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.

   

3. Log in to the sandbox with your normal administrator credentials.
4. Make changes, test, and fine tune.

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.

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. When you do so, you should consider the effects of creating a new sandbox. To learn more details, see Considerations when creating a new sandbox.

To replace your premium sandbox

1. In Admin Center, click the Account icon () in the sidebar, then select Sandbox > Sandboxes.
2. Click the options menu (), then select Delete Sandbox.

   

3. Create a new sandbox using the steps in Creating a premium sandbox through replication.

   A new sandbox is created with a new URL.

Considerations when creating a new sandbox

When you create a new sandbox, you need to be aware of the following:

• The sandbox URL will change
• All object IDs in the sandbox will change, for example, ticket field IDs will be different
• Any custom Guide themes will be lost, though they can be exported
• All apps will be removed
• Any sharing agreements will be removed

Remember to coordinate with your internal development teams before you create a new sandbox. If they have an integration with your sandbox, they will likely be making reference to the unique object IDs in the sandbox. You won’t want to surprise them with a deletion and break all of their integrations.

Managing premium sandboxes when upgrading to Zendesk Suite

If you have a premium sandbox and upgrade to a Zendesk Suite Enterprise or Enterprise Plus plan, your sandbox instance remains unchanged until you decide to delete it. After it is deleted, you can create a new premium sandbox of the type included in your Suite plan (metadata, partial, or full). If you've been using metadata premium sandboxes, the Suite Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans offer you an upgrade to more realistic testing environments using data from your production Zendesk Support environment. For example, if you have a metadata premium sandbox when you upgrade to Suite Enterprise, that sandbox environment remains a metadata premium sandbox. However, after you delete the metadata sandbox, you can create a new partial premium sandbox, which also includes some ticket data. For more information about Premium Sandbox types, see Premium Sandbox set up options.