About Zendesk sandbox environments

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">A sandbox is a test environment with the replicated configurations and data from your production environment. You can use the sandbox to test, learn, and make mistakes without affecting your production environment.</p>
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Use sandbox environments to test and experiment without affecting your live
setup. Sandboxes replicate your settings and data, allowing you to try new
workflows, integrations, and train agents safely. Note that some features
like SMS and advanced encryption aren't supported, and data isn't continuously
synced. Regularly update sandboxes to keep them current, and remember changes
in sandboxes don't impact your live environment.
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<p class="p">A sandbox is a test environment with the replicated configurations and data from your
production environment. You can use the sandbox to test, learn, and make mistakes
without affecting your production environment. </p>
<div class="p">This article contains the following topics:<ul class="ul" id="topic_y5c_2jd_5yb__ul_kxd_33f_5yb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ldj_1md_5yb">Essential facts about sandboxes</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_eyb_2pd_5yb">Working with sandboxes</a></li>
</ul>
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<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_ldj_1md_5yb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Essential facts about sandboxes</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">Consider the following information when using sandboxes:<ul class="ul" id="topic_ldj_1md_5yb__ul_x2w_cmd_5yb">
<li class="li">
<div class="p">The availability of sandbox environments vary by plan:<ul class="ul" id="topic_ldj_1md_5yb__d8e13">
<li class="li">Support Enterprise includes one sandbox.</li>
<li class="li">Suite Enterprise and Enterprise Plus include two sandboxes.</li>
<li class="li">Support Professional and above and Suite Growth and above can purchase sandbox
environments. Contact your sales representative or <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843597850" target="_blank">Zendesk Customer Support</a> to purchase
sandboxes as an add-on.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="note note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> On Suite Growth and Support Enterprise plans and above, you can also
contact <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843597850" target="_blank">Zendesk Customer Support</a> to
request a sandbox trial of a different plan or add-on with your existing
account configurations. These sandbox trials aren't counted as regular
sandboxes and you can't deploy changes from sandbox trials to
production.</div>
</li>
<li class="li">The production instance owner is listed as the sandbox owner by default.
This is true even if another admin creates or replaces the sandbox.</li>
<li class="li">
<div class="p">To provide a more realistic testing environment, all sandboxes take the
following settings from your production instance of Zendesk Support:<ul class="ul" id="topic_ldj_1md_5yb__ul_zjj_mld_5yb">
<li class="li">Templates (standard emails, welcome emails, etc.)</li>
<li class="li">Branding (colors, account names, etc.)</li>
<li class="li">Settings (channels, agent permissions, etc.)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">A lot of your production content is also replicated, including tickets
and their associated end users. See <a class="xref" href="#topic_n2f_gsm_tgb">Understanding data replication</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">In sandbox environments, closed tickets are automatically archived after
three days.</li>
<li class="li">The activation status of the Zendesk Agent Workspace is replicated in all
new sandbox environments.</li>
<li class="li">Some security settings aren't replicated in sandbox environments. However,
if you're using two-factor authentication (2FA), that will continue to work
in your sandbox, too, as long as the user has a password set in the
production account.</li>
<li class="li">Sandboxes reflect a moment in time for your production account settings and
data. Replicating settings and data isn't instantaneous and the data doesn't
stay synchronized with production after the sandbox is created. However, is
it possible to <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9474556880922" target="_blank">deploy configurations</a> from
production to your sandbox, and you can <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7414296161818" target="_blank">sync product and add-on subscription
changes</a>.</li>
<li class="li">We recommend deleting your old sandboxes and creating new ones regularly to
keep your sandbox environment up to date. </li>
<li class="li">Deleting a sandbox is a permanent change and can't be recovered.</li>
<li class="li">Changes you make in a sandbox don't affect your production environment.</li>
<li class="li">You can start trials for other Zendesk products in your sandbox. Any trial
is subject to limitations and a fixed time limit, as specified when you sign
up for the trial. <ul class="ul" id="topic_ldj_1md_5yb__ul_bgq_prd_5yb">
<li class="li">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 is suspended when
the credits run out.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">When a sandbox is provisioned, two AI agents are automatically created for
you, one for messaging and one for email. If needed, you can <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10563002554394#topic_ns3_bgc_2jc" target="_blank">clone additional AI agents</a> from
your production environment into your sandbox or <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10488757995034" target="_blank">create a new AI agent</a> in your
sandbox environment.</li>
<li class="li">SMS text messaging isn't supported in sandbox
environments.</li>
<li class="li">Sandbox environments can't be created after activating <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5043582015898" target="_blank">advanced encryption</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_eyb_2pd_5yb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Working with sandboxes</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Sandboxes provide a test environment that closely mirrors your production instance in
configuration and data. This enables you to more accurately test updates to
workflows, experiment with integrations and new business rules, and train agents
without affecting production.</p>
<p class="p">When creating a sandbox, you can choose how many tickets are replicated, up to
10,000. The end users associated with the tickets are also replicated.</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">Additionally, the following content is replicated:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_eyb_2pd_5yb__ul_jdq_qlg_5yb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Brands</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Dynamic content</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Ticket fields</li>
<li class="li">Ticket forms</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">User fields</li>
<li class="li">Organizations</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Organization fields</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Targets (set to inactive in the sandbox by default)</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Groups</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Custom roles</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Shared views</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Shared macros</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Triggers</li>
<li class="li">Trigger categories</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Automations</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Agents</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Group memberships</li>
<li class="li">Support addresses (Internal support addresses, such as
<em class="ph i">help@mybusiness.zendesk.com</em>, are copied with slight modification to
contain the brand's unique subdomain within the sandbox. If you've configured
external support addresses, such as <em class="ph i">help@mybusiness.com</em>, they're converted to
internal addresses when replicated to a sandbox using the following structure:
<em class="ph i">help-at-mybusiness-com@sandboxsubdomain.zendesk.com</em>. If you've set an
external support address as the default, the sandbox reverts to using the original
default internal address: <em class="ph i">support@mybusinesssandbox.zendesk.com</em>.)</li>
<li class="li">Webhooks (set to inactive in the sandbox by default)</li>
<li class="li">Apps (only free <a class="xref" href="https://www.zendesk.com/marketplace/apps/" target="_blank">Marketplace apps</a> that don't require authentication or
additional configuration at installation)</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5914453843994" target="_blank">Custom objects</a> (this doesn't include
custom object records, lookup fields related to custom objects, or legacy custom
objects)</li>
<li class="li">(Optional, with <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7908817636378" target="_blank">Copilot add-on</a>) Guide default brand and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7924047699738" target="_blank">auto assist procedures</a>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">For more information about how data replication works and limitations of the
replicated data, see <a class="xref" href="#topic_n2f_gsm_tgb">Understanding
data replication in sandboxes</a>.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested2" id="topic_n2f_gsm_tgb">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title4">Understanding how data replication works</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Replication occurs automatically when you create a sandbox through <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4581766374554#topic_hfg_dyz_1hb" target="_blank">Admin Center</a>. The replication
retrieves data from the production instance and creates the configuration and
content in the sandbox, creating a new subdomain. The process will not affect
the performance of your production instance. Data is only retrieved from the
production instance, so nothing will be added, updated, or deleted there. For a
complete list of the data that is replicated, see <a class="xref" href="#topic_eyb_2pd_5yb">Working with sandboxes</a>.</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">The configuration of your sandbox instance will change rapidly while
the replication is occurring, so we recommend waiting to use it until the
replication completes. The time it takes for a replication to complete varies
depending on the amount of content involved. A small amount of fields, business
rules, and data takes less time, ranging from a few minutes to a couple hours,
while a full copy with up to 10,000 tickets, a million organizations, and the
related users can take up to a week or more to complete. When the replication is
complete, the status of the sandbox changes to <em class="ph i">Active</em>
. To expedite the creation of
sandboxes, you can use the express sandbox setting to reduce the amount of
organization data that is replicated.</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">To complete the replication, Zendesk creates an internal copy of the
data to be migrated. Once this migration is complete, this copy is deleted. </p>
<p class="p">After a sandbox is created, you can <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7414296161818" target="_blank">update the product and add-on
subscriptions</a> to reflect changes to your production account and
snapshots to <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9474556880922" target="_blank">deploy configuration changes</a>. No other
replicated data can be updated after a sandbox is created.</p>
<p class="p">You can view creation reports to help you better understand exactly what was and
wasn't replicated and why. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7502268225690" target="_blank">Generating a creation report for a
sandbox</a>.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested3" id="topic_fcj_1bs_vgc">
<h4 class="title topictitle4" id="ariaid-title5">Data retention policies for sandboxes</h4>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can perform a maximum of 10 replications per month.</p>
<p class="p">When a user manually deletes a sandbox, or when its trial or subscription
expires, the deletion of the sandbox and its data begins in accordance with
the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883628954-Zendesk-Service-Data-Deletion-Policy" target="_blank">Zendesk Service Data Deletion
Policy</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested3" id="topic_yc1_1df_5yb">
<h4 class="title topictitle4" id="ariaid-title6">Limitations of replicated data</h4>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">The replication will be as close of an exact copy of the production
instance as possible. However, there are several situations where the copy
cannot be exact:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_yc1_1df_5yb__ul_u3j_yxr_tgb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Sandbox test environments include Zendesk Support
functionality in Zendesk Suite only. They do not include, for example,
Talk or Guide.<div class="note note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> There is one exception to this if you have the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7908817636378" target="_blank">Copilot add-on</a>, in which
case, you can choose to replicate your default Guide brand and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7924047699738" target="_blank">auto assist procedures</a> in
sandboxes.</div>
</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Brands are replicated, but because brand names need to be
unique across all Zendesk instances, they cannot be an exact match. The
brand names will be modified to contain a unique string. </li>
<li class="li">Webhooks are replicated. However, all webhooks are deactivated in the
Sandbox by default to prevent unintended interactions with the live APIs
they're designed to connect to.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">User emails will be invalidated before being added to the
sandbox instance by the use of the @example.com domain. This is to
prevent emails from being inadvertently sent to your users. This
includes both agents and end-users. An administrator can reverse the
invalid emails for testing by editing the users' email addresses.</li>
<li class="li">APIs are enabled, but API tokens must be
recreated.</li>
<li class="li">Because API tokens aren't replicated for sandboxes, when tickets created
by the API are replicated in a sandbox environment, their
<code class="ph codeph">via</code> type is changed from <code class="ph codeph">via:api</code>
to <code class="ph codeph">via:web</code>. </li>
<li class="li">Apps and EAP functionality in production are deactivated within the
sandbox upon creation but can be manually enabled.
</li>
<li class="li">Side conversations are deactivated within the sandbox upon creation but
can be manually enabled.</li>
<li class="li">Non-closed tickets that haven't been updated in the last six months,
closed tickets, linked incident tickets, and ticket sharing agreements
are not replicated.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883282458" target="_blank">Targets</a> requiring a password
will be replicated, but they will have invalid credentials and be in a
disabled state.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Invalid rules and objects that reference unsupported
configurations aren't replicated. Examples
include:<ul class="ul" id="topic_yc1_1df_5yb__ul_ljg_m2n_l1c">
<li class="li">Conditions that reference ticket agreements</li>
<li class="li">Conditions that reference a deleted option or inactive
field</li>
<li class="li">Unsupported conditions or conditions with dependencies that
haven't been set up, such as a condition referencing custom
objects or certain channels and integrations, such as WhatsApp
and messaging </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">Inactive configurations are replicated, but business rules (for example,
triggers and automations) that have conditions or actions which
reference an inactive ticket field are not replicated.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">External email addresses are not copied to the sandbox.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Changes made within a sandbox are not copied automatically
into the production account and must be manually reproduced within the
production account.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Only the items identified in this article are replicated.</li>
<li class="li">Legacy agents can't be replicated. If you want them to be replicated,
you must assign new roles to them.</li>
<li class="li">Views, triggers, and automations may appear in a different order in the
sandbox. Personal views and macros aren't replicated.</li>
<li class="li">Only the first 100 comments are replicated per ticket.</li>
<li class="li">Skills used for skills-based routing aren't replicated.</li>
<li class="li">Custom object records can't be replicated. Tickets with lookup
relationship fields that reference custom objects and business rules
that reference custom objects can't be replicated either.
</li>
<li class="li">Action flows can't be replicated. </li>
<li class="li">Not all apps are replicated when you create a sandbox. To be replicated,
an app must be a free app installed from the <a class="xref" href="https://www.zendesk.com/marketplace/apps/" target="_blank">Zendesk Marketplace</a> and it can't require
authentication or additional configuration during installation. </li>
</ul>
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