Lifecycle Center is available in all orgs from the App Launcher. To evaluate it without affecting your production org, access it from a Developer Edition (DE) org and connect non-production orgs as pipeline environments. Connecting non-production orgs keeps your evaluation separate from live business data.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience in Professional (API access required), Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
| Not available in: Government Cloud Plus. Contact your Salesforce account executive for more details. |
| Not available in: EU Operating Zone. EU Operating zone is a special paid offering that provides an enhanced level of data residency commitment. Lifecycle Center is supported in orgs in the EU that aren't part of EU OZ, per standard product terms and conditions. |
Before You Start
Confirm these prerequisites before you select a configuration:
- Sandbox license: Option 1 (recommended) requires a Developer or Developer Pro sandbox license. Use options 2 or 3 if you don't have one.
- Source control account: Lifecycle Center requires GitHub or Bitbucket. Set up your account before you configure. See Plan Your Setup.
- Scratch orgs: Options 2 and 3 require Salesforce CLI and a Dev Hub org.
Choose a Configuration
Salesforce supports these configurations, listed in the recommended order. Use this table to select the best option for your situation.
| Option | Pipeline and Release Environments | Development Environment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (Recommended) | Developer Edition orgs | Source-tracked Developer or Developer Pro sandbox |
| 2 | Developer Edition orgs | Scratch org. Enable Dev Hub in the DE org to create scratch orgs. |
| 3 | Scratch orgs | Scratch org. Enable Dev Hub in the DE org to create scratch orgs. |
Considerations
- Evaluation length: DE orgs and sandboxes don't expire as long as you log in regularly. Scratch orgs are temporary. The default is 7 days, with a 30-day maximum.
- Scratch org allocations: A DE org as your Dev Hub limits you to 3 active (concurrent) scratch orgs and 6 per day. If your production org has Dev Hub enabled with allocations to spare, use that instead.
- Realism: A source-tracked sandbox (option 1) mirrors your existing production configuration with no extra setup.
About Each Org Type
Developer Edition Orgs
Developer Edition orgs provide free, non-expiring environments ideal for pipeline and release environments. Because DE orgs don't support source tracking, don't use them as development environments.
- Sign up for as many DE orgs as needed for the release environment and pipeline stages.
- Enable Dev Hub in the DE org if you plan to use scratch orgs.
- Avoid using DE orgs as permanent Hub orgs. DE orgs have very low limits that impact the long-term use of Lifecycle Center.
Developer or Developer Pro Source-Tracked Sandboxes
Use a source-tracked sandbox for your development environment. It mirrors your production org's configuration and metadata with no extra setup.
Choose a Developer sandbox for isolated testing or a Developer Pro sandbox if you require more storage, integration testing, or user training. For storage limits and refresh intervals, see Sandbox Types and Templates.
- Both sandbox types include a copy of your production org's metadata.
- Sandboxes don't expire as long as you log in regularly and refresh them periodically.
Scratch Orgs
Scratch orgs are temporary, source-tracked environments for development and pipeline testing. Unlike sandboxes, scratch orgs start completely empty. They contain only what you deploy from source control. Plan for additional time to provision data and configure your scratch org to match production.
- Set scratch org duration to 30 days when you create the org to get the full evaluation period. The default duration is 7 days.
- Configure a Dev Hub to create scratch orgs. Your Dev Hub edition determines your active scratch org limit.
- Use built-in source tracking for development or pipeline use.
- Create scratch orgs quickly using Salesforce CLI.
For full setup steps, including the scratch org definition file, see Access Lifecycle Center in a Scratch Org.
What to Try During Your Evaluation
Focus your evaluation on the core change management workflow: creating a project, moving work items through a pipeline, and deploying to a release environment.
Follow a Guided Learning Path
Complete the DevOps Center Setup Trailhead module as your guided starting point to practice creating a project, building a pipeline, and assigning a work item.
To evaluate Lifecycle Center from your team's perspective, see Get Started with Lifecycle Center by Role. It maps the responsibilities and key tasks for admins, development team members, testing managers, and deployment managers. Try at least one role's core tasks during your evaluation.
Test These Scenarios
- Promote a stage. Create two work items and promote them together to test how Lifecycle Center handles concurrent work.
- Review the audit trail. Check the activity history to confirm it meets your team's governance needs.
- Test your integrations. If your team uses Jira, test the integration during evaluation.
Know When You're Ready for Production
You're ready for production when you can answer YES to these questions:
- Does Lifecycle Center's pipeline model match your release process?
- Can your admins use it without significant retraining?
- Does it integrate with your source control provider?
When you're ready to move to production, see Get Started with Lifecycle Center for a complete setup and deployment learning map.
- Access Lifecycle Center from a Developer Edition Org
Sign up for a Developer Edition (DE) org and access Lifecycle Center from the App Launcher to evaluate it in a non-production environment. - Access Lifecycle Center in a Scratch Org
Scratch orgs offer a temporary evaluation environment with a maximum duration of 30 days.