How the Refresh and Merge Processes Work in Sandboxes

Sandbox changes are refreshed and merged when two different users make changes to the same file using two different sandboxes. Let's look at an example.

Suppose your manager creates a sandbox named Sandbox1 and you create another sandbox named Sandbox2. Your manager then makes a change to a file using Sandbox1 and publishes it to the mainline environment. Now if you make changes to the same file and refresh Sandbox2, all changes published in the mainline environment are merged into Sandbox2. What if both you and your manager entered different values to the same attribute of the file? In that case, the value that your manager entered using Sandbox1 persists because Sandbox1 is published to the mainline metadata. To bring back the changes that you made in Sandbox2, you need to reenter the sandbox and make the changes again.

Application Changes That Can or Can't be Merged

Let's again take the same example of Sandbox1 and Sandbox2. Here's a list of application changes made in Sandbox2 that can merge with the mainline environment, when the same file is changed in both sandboxes.

Application Changes	Tools Used to Make the Changes
Changes in business objects and their related fields	Application Composer and Configure Business Objects
Changes in data security	Data Security
Changes in lookups	Lookups
UI text changes	User Interface Text
Changes to messages, such as warning messages and information messages	Messages
Changes to the appearance of the application	Appearance

Note: Flexfields and setup tasks, apart from the ones listed in the table, aren't supported in sandboxes. So changes in these artifacts aren't merged when Sandbox2 is refreshed.

And here's a list of changes made in Sandbox2 that can't merge with the mainline environment when the same file is changed in both sandboxes. To bring back those changes, you can create another sandbox, make the changes in it, and publish that sandbox.

Application Changes	Tools Used to Make the Changes
Configure the Navigator and the icons on the home page for navigation	Structure
Changes in pricing configuration	Manage Service Mappings
Changes to the page content	Page Composer
Changes to global page template	Page Template Composer
New pages created	Page Integration