Testing changes in your standard sandbox

Fastpath: Admin Center > Account > Sandbox > Sandboxes

The Support Enterprise plan provides two help desk instances: a customer-facing production instance and a test environment 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, but you can only have one sandbox at a time. After you're done with testing and deploying your changes, you can reset the sandbox for a fresh round of development.

If you want to replicate information from your production instance, you can upgrade to a Zendesk Suite Enterprise or Enterprise Plus plan to get a premium sandbox instead. If you need more than one sandbox at a time, you can purchase one or more premium sandboxes for your Support Enterprise plan.

You manage your sandbox in Admin Center. This article 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.)

Any changes you make in the sandbox are not copied to your production environment. 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. Any trial is subject to limitations and has a fixed time limit, as specified when you sign up for the trial. These trials are maintained as separate accounts. They are not included as part of the sandbox.

Sandboxes created after May 2023 include a Talk trial of an unlimited duration as long as the production account has an active Talk subscription or trial. The sandbox Talk trial will be suspended when the Talk credits run out.

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 standard 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. Additionally, the Zendesk Agent Workspace is disabled in new sandbox environments by default, but can be activated manually.

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 Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Sandbox > Sandboxes.
2. Click the Create Sandbox button.
3. Enter a Name that describes your sandbox.
4. 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.

Note: If you are using messaging, you may need to take additional steps to include that functionality in your sandbox. See Using messaging in your sandbox.

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

1. In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Sandbox > Sandboxes.
2. 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.

   

3. Sign in to the sandbox with your normal administrator credentials.
4. 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.

You can 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 sandbox

1. In Admin Center, click Account 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 sandbox.

   A new sandbox is created with a new URL.