Premium sandbox provides a test environment that mirrors your production instance in configuration and, potentially, data. This allows you to accurately test updates to workflows, experiment with integrations, and provide training for new agents in an environment that closely mirrors the production environment.
This article contains the following topics:
Premium sandbox overview
- Support Enterprise includes one standard sandbox. Premium sandbox is available as an add-on.
- Suite Enterprise includes one standard sandbox and one partial premium sandbox.
- Suite Enterprise Plus includes one standard sandbox and one full production premium sandbox.
- Brands
- Dynamic content
- Ticket fields
- Ticket forms
- User fields
- Organizations
- Organization fields
- Targets (set to inactive in the sandbox by default)
- Groups
- Custom roles
- Shared views
- Shared macros
- Triggers
- Trigger categories
- Automations
- Agents
- Group memberships
- Webhooks (set to inactive in the sandbox by default)
For more information about data replication, see About Zendesk sandbox environments.
Creating a premium sandbox through replication
Replication occurs automatically when you create a premium sandbox through Admin Center. The replication retrieves data from the production instance and creates the configuration and content in the sandbox, creating a new subdomain. 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. For a complete list of the data that is replicated, see Understanding premium sandboxes.
The configuration of your sandbox instance will change rapidly while the replication is occurring, so we recommend waiting to use it until the replication completes. The time it takes for a replication to complete varies depending on the amount of content involved. A simple metadata copy with a small amount of fields and business rules takes less time, ranging from a few minutes to a few days. A full copy with 100,000 tickets and the related users and organizations can take up to a week or more to complete. When the replication is complete, the status of the sandbox changes to Active.
To create a premium sandbox
- Before creating a new sandbox, make sure you've configured a default group for your account.
- In Admin Center, click
Account in the sidebar, then select Sandbox > Sandboxes. - Click the Create Sandbox button.
- Enter a Name that describes your sandbox.
- 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.
- Standard Sandbox - A standard sandbox with none of your settings, business rules, or tickets.
- Premium Sandbox - Metadata - A copy of your production settings and business rules, but no tickets
- Premium Sandbox - Partial / Production - A copy of your production settings, business rules, and tickets.
- If you selected Premium Sandbox - Partial / Production, 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.
- 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.
- (Optional) Activate the Zendesk Agent Workspace on your sandbox. It's deactivated by default in new sandbox environments.
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.
39 Comments
re: Apps and EAP functionality are disabled within the sandbox.
I have a question about it. is there any way to create the sandbox account with all the Apps I have in production? (besides doing it manually)
For context, I'm trying to replicate the same UI & functionality from production in order to test it as a whole while adding new internal developed apps. For now I have been adding the apps one by one which takes time if you have quite a few.
Thanks!
Since the App functionality is disabled in the Sandbox instance, I'm afraid that the |apps installed will also not be replicated from the production to your Sandbox. You may need to re-install them manually for UI purposes but functionality will not be guaranteed to work.
I could not find an answer for this.
When you create a partial premium sandbox, up to 10,000 non-closed tickets and associated end users will be copied. how does it handle PII and sensitive information in those tickets? Notes?
What is the "standard" sandbox in the Note at the top of this article? Is it the "metadata premium" sandbox described in the article? If so, you should change the terminology to make it consistent.
Also, if sandboxes do not replicate Guide, is there a way to keep drafts of existing articles to be published at a later date?
I just created a Sandbox to be used as a testing tool for some new customer care agents. I have Zendesk Enterprise Suite so essentially it allows me to generate a full production replica in the sandbox. One thing I noticed it doesn't fully replicate is that only 4 of the 8 ticket forms that we use were replicated. Unfortunately, those 4 were not any of the ticket forms I really needed to be replicated. Does anyone know why this may be happening or how I can ensure that all (or at least the forms I want) are replicated? I have stared at this for a while now and cannot figure out the logic as to why it is pulling the forms that it is and not the others.
Anyone else experience this?
Hi Chuck Hemesath
Not sure this helps any but I recently had a similar issue. The premium sandbox replicated our production instance but not all of the business rules (triggers) were replicated. I have no idea why this didn't replicate correctly and TBH haven't followed it up with Zendesk.
Just thought I'd add it here as well.
Chad Susa (Gravity CX - Zendesk Partner), sounds like the same problem, different symptom. I have not been able to figure out any sort of logic as to why some things are being copied while other/similar things are not. It's been a real show stopper for us as we really need for these particular ticket forms to be replicated in the sandbox and for some reason they are not being replicated. Very frustrating.
Hi Chuck Hemesath
Investigating this kind of issue requires reviewing our logs. So, in order for us to assist you further - I have created a ticket on your behalf. One of our advocates will reach out to you to further assist you on this.
Have a great day!
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