Use a Sandbox

You use sandboxes to make application changes and test them without impacting other users in the environment. Make changes to the application whenever you're in a sandbox rather than making direct changes in the mainline environment.

To access the sandboxes, navigate to Configuration > Sandboxes work area.

Completed application changes created within a test-only sandbox have to be published if they have to be available to other users in the application in the mainline metadata. While creating the sandbox, in the Publishable field, select Yes or No. If you set the Publishable option to No, you can use your sandbox for testing only, but can't publish it. When you're in a sandbox, you can open Application Composer and work without changing the production interface pages.

Also, a best practice is to create a new sandbox for each process change you intend to implement. As an example, say you want to create a set of new basic fields that fit your business process but have no dependency on the other fields, do that in one sandbox and publish it. If you want to create a validation for field or set of fields, do all of that in one sandbox and publish it. Therefore, you can group your modifications together according to the functionality that you want to provide and release or publish them incrementally one sandbox at a time.

Use the Unified Sandboxes user interface. This is the default feature that you get.

Warning:

• Don't create or publish a sandbox for Application Composer or Page Composer configurations while other users or processes are deploying extensible flexfields and descriptive flexfields changes for Product Development objects.

• Don't deploy flexfields while you've an open sandbox in which you're making Application Composer or Page Composer configurations that you want to publish. Don't deploy the flexfields until the publish operation is complete. Ensure that all the Application Composer or Page Composer configurations in sandbox are tested and published before deploying any extensible flexfields and descriptive flexfields configuration changes for Product Development objects.