Different sandboxes serve different purposes. A clear strategy avoids "everything in one sandbox" chaos.
Common sandbox tiers:
1. Developer sandbox(es) — per-developer, for individual feature work. Refreshable daily. Small.
2. Integration / Build sandbox — shared by the project team for integration testing. Daily/weekly refresh.
3. UAT sandbox — for business user testing. Near-production data; refreshed less often (Partial Copy or Full).
4. Staging / Pre-Production — final testing environment that mirrors production. Last stop before deploy.
5. Training sandbox — separate so users can practice without disturbing UAT.
6. Production org — the live system.
Sizing decisions:
- Developer sandboxes: 200 MB metadata-only.
- Developer Pro: 1 GB; useful when sample data is needed.
- Partial Copy: 5 GB with selected production data; useful for UAT.
- Full sandbox: same as production size; for performance testing, full UAT, training.
Refresh cadence:
- Dev sandboxes: refresh frequently (weekly).
- Integration sandbox: refresh weekly or biweekly.
- UAT/Full sandbox: refresh less often (every 2-4 weeks); preserves test data.
- Training sandbox: refresh less; training material based on stable data.
Refresh discipline:
- Refreshes destroy in-flight changes. Coordinate.
- Schedule refreshes during low activity.
- Pre-refresh: export anything you can't lose. Post-refresh: redeploy custom code.
- Communicate refresh dates well in advance.
Source-control alignment:
- Each sandbox has a corresponding Git branch.
- Deploy from Git -> sandbox via CLI / DevOps platform.
- Avoid "edit metadata in sandbox UI without committing to Git" — drift surfaces.
Anti-patterns:
- One shared dev sandbox for the team — collisions, lost work.
- Refreshing UAT during UAT — destroys test progress.
- Production-only data in non-prod — compliance risk if not anonymised.
- No staging environment — production is your test.
Senior consultant move: sandbox strategy in the SDD on day one. Includes which sandboxes exist, who refreshes when, what's in each.
Sandbox costs add up — Full sandbox is a significant licensing line. Plan accordingly; don't over-provision but don't under-provision (running out of sandboxes mid-project is painful).