Using Salesforce’s Sandbox

Salesforce provides different types of sandboxes, which are copies of your production organization used for various purposes such as development, testing, training, and more. These sandboxes allow you to experiment, build, and test changes in a safe and controlled environment before deploying them to your production instance. Below are the main types of Salesforce sandboxes:

Developer Sandbox: 

Typically used by individual developers for coding and testing new applications and features.

Small data storage and refreshes occur every 1-2 weeks.

Developer Pro Sandbox: 

Similar to the Developer sandbox but with more storage capacity.

Ideal for individual developers or small teams.

Refreshes occur every 1-2 weeks.

Partial Copy Sandbox: 

Contains a subset of production data based on the data selection criteria you define.

Useful for testing with a representative sample of real data.

Storage capacity is greater than Developer Pro.

Refreshes can occur every 5 to 30 days.

Full Sandbox: 

A replica of your production organization, including all data and metadata.

Ideal for comprehensive testing, user training, and integration testing.

Large data storage and similar to production capabilities.

Refreshes can occur every 29 days.

Testing Sandbox:

Available for a limited duration (1-7 days).

Useful for short-term testing and development efforts.

Data refreshes occur every 1-7 days.

Sandbox Templates:

A way to create a predefined sandbox configuration (metadata and data) that can be used to quickly create new sandboxes.

Helps in maintaining consistency and reducing setup time for new sandbox instances.

Each type of sandbox serves a specific purpose based on your organization’s needs, allowing you to manage the development and testing lifecycle efficiently while minimizing risks associated with changes to your Salesforce configuration and data. It’s important to choose the appropriate sandbox type based on your specific use cases and requirements.