Jira Image of the Day: Using a Jira Sandbox

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Concept Relates To

Application Type	Jira Work Management, Jira Software, Jira Service Management
Deployment Type	Jira Cloud

What is shown?

Settings for a sandbox application in Jira Cloud Premium or Enterprise.

Visit: Admin > Billing > Products (top nav) > Sandbox (left nav)

What can we learn?

If you have Jira Cloud Premium or Enterprise, sandbox functionality is built in and ready to use. You can create sandboxes, delete them, and copy production data at any time.

Tip: I think the sandbox area is hard to find. Here’s how to get to it.

1. In Jira, click the cog icon on the top right and select “Billing.”

2. On the next page, click the “Products” link in the top navigation bar. It’s already highlighted but click it anyway.

3. Then, click the sandbox link on the left sidebar.

Create a Sandbox

To create a test environment, login as an organization admin and click the “Create sandbox” button at the top left of the sandbox admin page. You can create one sandbox per product. E.g., one for Jira and another for Jira Service Management. Next, go get some coffee and the sandbox will likely be ready by the time you’re back to your desk. You’ll receive an email when it’s created. The sandbox URL is generated automatically.

Next, if desired, click the “Copy production data” button to copy issue and configuration data from the production application down to the sandbox application. You can choose whether to copy specific projects or all projects. You can also choose whether or not to include attachments. For the full list of what is copied, see: https://support.atlassian.com/organization-administration/docs/what-data-is-copied-to-sandboxes/ Another email notification is sent when the data copy is complete.

Good to Know

• As shown in the screenshot above, the active sandbox is in online status. Deleted sandboxes, or sandboxes inactive for 28 days are automatically put into offline status. Offline sandboxes are deleted after 30 days. Sandbox data and configuration settings can’t be restored after deletion.

• Automation rules are not automatically copied, but you can export them as one or more JSON files and import them manually.

• Your organization’s security policy may require you to remove issue data from the sandbox environment. Currently, there’s no easy way to do this, but you can use the bulk change tool to delete many issues at once. Just triple check that you’re deleting from the sandbox and not from production.

• There’s currently no way to push changes made in the sandbox environment to production. If you’re interested in this capability, checkout the backup, restore, and configuration management apps in the Atlassian Marketplace.

• The only visual difference between the sandbox and production environment is the URL. I recommend changing the sandbox’s application title, changing the look and feel (color scheme), and adding a banner at the top. The banner displays on most, but not all Jira pages.

Add a banner to visually distinguish between environments

Read more about the sandbox feature here: https://support.atlassian.com/organization-administration/docs/manage-atlassian-product-sandboxes/

Alternate Methods

Don’t have Cloud Premium or Enterprise? Read more about the sandbox and test environment options for Cloud and Data Center on my website. See: Jira Sandbox and Test Environment Options and How to Install Jira on Windows

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[Jovin]

A great informative Article @Rachel Wright ! I've been enjoying these "Jira Image of the Day" posts! Sandboxes are so useful, and we heavily utilise it for developing new automation rules or proof of concepts.

Fingers crossed they one day allow "change sets" so we can natively push to production!