Salesforce Developer Deployment Sandboxes
salesforce-developer-deployment
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/alm_deployment/alm_sandbox - done reading
http://salesforce.vidyard.com/watch/ztQE-qJseZsWPUOYg7krfg - Release Management: Developing and Testing on Sandbox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afK95S3UeyU - From Sandbox to Production: An Introduction to Salesforce Release Management
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/alm_deployment/alm_deploy
Sandboxes aren’t available in Developer Edition orgs. Sandboxes are available
in some editions, including Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited.
// Types of sandboxes:
There are four kinds of sandboxes:
1. Developer: Developer sandboxes copy only the org’s configuration, no data.
You can create or load up to 200 MB of data, which is enough for many
development and testing tasks. You can refresh a Developer sandbox once per
day.
2. Developer Pro: A Developer Pro sandbox can store up to 1 GB of data (about
500,000 records). It’s otherwise similar to a Developer sandbox.
3. Partial Copy: A Partial Copy is a Developer sandbox, plus a sampling of data
that you define in a sandbox template. You have limited control over the data
that is copied. You can choose the objects, but not the records to pull. The
sandbox can include up to 5 GB of data, which is about 2.5 million records,
with a maximum of 10,000 records per object. You can refresh a Partial Copy
sandbox every five days.
4. Full: A copy of your production organization and all its data. Because the
Full sandbox is an exact copy, the amount of data in the sandbox is the same
as your production org. You can refresh a Full sandbox every 29 days.
Full sandboxes are required only for performance and scalability testing, as
well as for staging before final deployment. You might also need a Full sandbox
to test triggers that make non-selective queries. For all other use cases, a
partial copy of data is enough. For testing, it’s often better not to copy data
at all, but rather load the same set of data every time. Data is time consuming
to copy, and a large volume of data can take days to complete.
// Creating and Refreshing sandboxes:
Creating or refreshing a sandbox doesn’t happen via the Metadata API, so the
components copied aren’t restricted to objects that have XML representations.
Therefore, you get a true and complete copy of everything in the production org.
After initial creation, you can refresh the sandbox, creating a new sandbox in
place of the old one.
To create a sandbox:
1. Click on Setup
2. Click on Sandbox under the Deploy section in the left hand side
3. Click on Create Sandbox
You can supply data for testing in sandbox in several ways:
1. Use sandbox templates to provide real-world data that makes your testing
environment more closely resemble your production instance. Sandbox templates
are available only in a Partial Copy or Full sandbox.
2. Import external data into your sandbox to make repeatable testing easier
because the data set is static and can be relied on not to change.
Refresh your sandbox periodically to update it with data and metadata components
from production. Refreshing sandboxes ensures that your sandbox doesn’t miss any
changes that were deployed to production by another sandbox or manually
introduced in production. When you refresh a sandbox, Salesforce rebuilds your
environment and erases its old contents. The content in your new sandbox is
replaced with a copy of the production org. Beware that it’s possible to
overwrite all the development you’ve done in your sandbox. Therefore, it’s a
good practice for each developer to have their own sandbox and make their own
backups. Establish a process with the rest of the team for refreshing sandboxes.
How often you can refresh your sandbox depends on the sandbox type.
// Copying Production Data with Sandbox Templates:
If you have a Partial Copy or Full sandbox, you can pick which standard and
custom objects to copy over from production by using sandbox templates. Sandbox
templates help you limit the size of your sandbox by limiting the data that is
copied over. Generally, you need only a representative set of data for testing
in sandbox, not all the data from production. Reducing the amount of data that
is copied to sandbox can significantly reduce the sandbox copy time.
The sandbox template editor understands the object relationships defined in
your org’s schema. Some objects are always included because they’re required in
any org. As you select objects to copy, the editor ensures that the associated
required objects are added.
To access sandbox templates:
1. From Setup, enter Sandboxes in the Quick Find box, select Sandboxes, then
click the Sandbox Templates tab.
2. Click New Sandbox Template or click Edit next to an existing template you
want to modify.
// Salesforce - Developer - Sandboxes - Importing Test Data:
You might think it’s more convenient to use a Partial Copy or Full sandbox, and
simply avoid having to load data, but that’s not necessarily better than loading
test data. Data on the production org changes all the time, so anything you’re
repetitively testing can give you unexpected results. Static data provides
consistency.
Generally, it’s better to load a small, representative set of test data into
your Developer and Developer Pro sandboxes. When functionality changes
unexpectedly, it’s easier to pinpoint where the problem occurred when the data
is static. Developer and Developer Pro sandboxes also have a shorter refresh
cycle.
Most people load data using CSV files and the data loader.
If you’re loading large sets of data, you can use the Force.com Bulk API.
The Bulk API and supporting web interface allows you to upload and create
import jobs, monitor and manage jobs, and receive notifications when the jobs
complete. For more information, see Loading Large Data Sets with the Force.com
Bulk API: https://developer.salesforce.com/page/
Loading_Large_Data_Sets_with_the_Force.com_Bulk_API
// Managing Sandbox Users and Logins
Anyone with a production login can log in to a sandbox. Although most users in
the production org probably aren’t aware of the existence of a sandbox, you
probably don’t want them poking around your development environment either. To
manage access, you can deactivate production users in sandbox. That works out
well, because the deactivated production users make room for developers, who
usually don’t have a login to the production system, but need a login to
sandbox. This user license trading is necessary, because you have a finite
number of licenses.
The easiest way to give developers a login to sandbox is to create them as users
in production, but don’t activate them until needed. After creating or
refreshing a sandbox, deactivate production users who don’t need access and
then activate the developer users. Just make sure that the user you deactivate
in sandbox isn’t someone who logs in to that environment.
All licenses are copied from production to sandbox. If a new license is applied
in production and you want to apply it to sandbox, you must refresh with the
sync tool (see Match Production Licenses to Sandbox without a Refresh:
http://releasenotes.docs.salesforce.com/en-us/summer14/
release-notes/rn_forcecom_sandbox_copy_licenses.htm).
When you create a sandbox, all email addresses, except the sandbox creator, are
modified so that people don’t receive emails from sandbox testing. Note that
email delivery defaults to off, so if you need to test automated emails from
Apex or workflow rules, you must turn this setting on. Not only are emails not
sent, but unit tests fail when Messaging.sendEmail throws exceptions.
// Use Profiles to Limit User Access
During a deployment window, you can use profiles to limit end-user access to the
production organization.
1. Alert all active users about the maintenance window using the email wizard.
From Setup, enter Mass Email Users in the Quick Find box, then select Mass
Email Users.
2. Create a profile to lock users out during the maintenance window by editing
the login hours. Be sure that system administrators or integration users have
access if they need it.
3. Roll out objects, tabs, and apps to different user profiles if you want to
allow some users access for acceptance testing.
If your organization includes many profiles, use the following strategy for
setting up a maintenance window:
1. Create a profile named Maintenance with all login hours locked out.
2. Use the Data Loader to extract and save a mapping of users and their user
profiles.
3. At the beginning of the maintenance window, use the Data Loader to change all
user profiles, except the administrator’s, to the Maintenance profile. It is
important to leave login access with the administrator. Otherwise, all users
could be locked out of the system indefinitely. If integrations are going to
run during the maintenance window, also don’t lock out the integration user.
4. At the end of the maintenance window, use the Data Loader to reload the
users with their original profiles.
page revision: 12, last edited: 09 Jan 2017 04:26