We have put together some guidelines for your future sandbox refreshes to maximize the benefits of leveraging this functionality and to reduce some of the administrative burden needed to initiate a successful sandbox refresh. Leverage these guidelines to build your own NetSuite sandbox refresh checklist.
- Avoid customization overload – In other words, do not attempt to implement a large number of NetSuite Customizations in the same refreshed sandbox environment. You run the risk of introducing dependencies across these customizations. Testing may prove to be successful in sandbox but fail in production if not all customizations are migrated at the same time.
- NetSuite upgrade – Has your production environment recently been upgraded to the latest NetSuite version? If so, it might be a good time to initiate a sandbox refresh, so you are creating new customizations and testing in the latest system version.
- Change color. Always – For some this might be obvious, but always change the color settings of your sandbox environment to differ from production. It is far too easy to forget which environment you are working in and risk making a change to the wrong environment. This applies to NetSuite customers with multiple NetSuite sandbox environments (some will have a dedicated NetSuite developer sandbox). Navigate: Home – Set Preferences – Appearance – change “Color Theme”
- Update your shortcuts – For any NetSuite user that has configured shortcuts in their production account that reference NetSuite production specific URLs, they will need to update these references in sandbox. This should only take a few minutes following a refresh and will save on frustration further down the road when you click on a shortcut link and taken to the NetSuite login page vs the desired shortcut page.
- Sandbox access post refresh – Intentionally repeated from questions to ask yourself. The user list very likely differs between production and sandbox environments, so you should consider exporting the list of users/roles from the sandbox environment prior to refresh. This can be achieved with a simple saved search. Post refresh, perform a quick CSV import to re-upload the users/roles to grant access in a matter of minutes. Do not do this manually unless you only have a handful of users.
- When to refresh – It is more broadly recommended to update the NetSuite sandbox account every 3-4 months. This is not always practical, especially if larger customization projects are in flight and expected to take longer than 4 months to complete. There is often a trade off between working with the latest production data and the time needed to fully back up in-flight customizations. In short, there is no right or wrong answer here. Do what works best for your business. Bottom line, be transparent with your sandbox refresh timeline to avoid losing customizations that have not been deployed to production.