Use a Data 360 sandbox to test data ingestion, modeling, and identity resolution without affecting live customer profiles. A sandbox provides a secure testing environment by copying metadata from your production Data 360 org. Sandbox usage consumes credits from your production org.
Benefits of a Sandbox Environment
With sandboxes and deployment tools, you can:
- Test changes against copies of your production data and users.
- Provide a training environment.
- Test AppExchange packages or integrations.
- Isolate customization and development work from your production environment until you’re ready to deploy changes.
Types of Sandboxes
Data 360 supports all sandbox types: Developer, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, and Full Copy. When you provision Data 360 in a sandbox, it contains only metadata. You can't replicate data even in Partial Copy and Full Copy sandboxes.
Data 360 Sandbox Storage and Limits
Data 360 sandboxes follow production limits and guidelines. They bypass the storage restrictions of Salesforce sandboxes, such as the 200-MB limit for Developer sandboxes.
Data 360 License and Setup Requirements
To use Data 360 in a sandbox, provision Data Cloud licenses and maintain an active Data 360 tenant in your production org. The sandbox depends on this production setup. To activate Data 360 in the sandbox, first turn on and configure it in production.
Supported Features
This table lists the Data 360 features available in a Data 360 sandbox and describes their expected behavior.
- Data 360 Feature
- The specific Data 360 capability or feature.
- Functional in Sandbox
- The feature operates in the sandbox environment.
- Replicated in Sandbox
- The sandbox copies the feature's metadata from your production org during creation.
- Deployable from Sandbox
- You can deploy the feature's configuration changes from the sandbox to your production org.
When you create a sandbox, it excludes some Data 360 features from production replication. However, you can manually recreate these features in the sandbox. For available features, you can create objects directly in your sandbox. These objects remain local to the sandbox environment and bypass deployment back to production.
Additional Resources
To learn more about this topic, review the associated Trailhead content.
- Considerations for Sandbox in Data 360
Refer to these considerations when creating a sandbox and deploying changes from a sandbox in Data 360. - Billing Considerations for Data 360 Sandbox
Understand how Data 360 sandbox usage consumes flex credits and learn strategies to reduce sandbox costs. - Create a Data 360 Sandbox
Develop, test, and train on Data 360 without affecting your production org. Data 360 supports all sandbox types—Developer, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, and Full Copy—but provisions only metadata. Even when you create Partial Copy or Full Copy sandboxes, your production data stays protected. No data is replicated to Data 360 sandboxes. - Remove Legacy Metadata from a Data 360 Sandbox
Data 360 sandboxes configured before August 2024 may contain legacy metadata. Use the cleanup process to remove legacy metadata from the sandbox. - Deploy Data 360 Changes Across Orgs
You can make Data 360 changes in a sandbox and then deploy them to a production org or another sandbox org. Additionally, you can deploy changes from one production org to another production by using a sandbox. Use a DevOps data kit and a change set to deploy the changes to a production org. - Replicate Data 360 Configurations Using Local Data Kits
Move Data 360 metadata and process definitions between data spaces within the same sandbox using the local data kit deployment method. Create a standard data kit in your default data space, and then use a change set to deploy it to other data spaces. - Replicate Data 360 Sandboxes Using Cloning
Clone an existing parent sandbox to reuse Data 360 metadata and configurations, create testing environments faster, and streamline complex DevOps workflows. When you clone a sandbox with Data 360 provisioned, you automatically carry over the same Data 360 metadata and configurations to the cloned sandbox. This process saves setup time and avoids manual configuration. - Deploy Direct-DMO Customizations to Production with Sandbox Mergeback
Starting in Winter '26, you can package and deploy customizations containing direct data model object (DMO) relationship metadata from sandbox to production environments.