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bpolbpol 

Refreshing the Sandbox

I understand that the sandbox can be refreshed through eclipse.  How do I do this?

 

I can see the meta elements in Production (objects, custom objects, tabs, layouts, etc).  But when I use "Deploy to Server" and deploy to the Sandbox, it doesn't copy over these elements.

 

Suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Best Answer chosen by Admin (Salesforce Developers) 
JonPJonP

A sandbox "refresh" is a very specific term, and it refers to when you replace an existing sandbox entirely with a fresh copy of your production organization.  To refresh a sandbox, log into your production organization as a System Administrator, navigate to Setup | Data Management | Sandbox, and click "Refresh" next to the sandbox you want to refresh.  A sandbox can only be refreshed every 29 days, so if you've recently created or refreshed a sandbox, you'll have to wait before you can refresh it again.

 

However, if your goal is to migrate customizations between different organizations (sandboxes or otherwise), there are several alternative approaches which use the Metadata API.

 

1. Force.com IDE for Eclipse -- Create a project against your source organization and download the components you want to migrate into your local project.  Then right-click on the "src" folder and select Force.com > Deploy to Server.  Follow the steps in this wizard, entering your credentials for the target organization.  When the wizard completes, you will see results listing all the items that have deployed successfully.

 

2. Force.com Migration Tool for Apache Ant -- This library for the popular Ant build scripting tool exposes Metadata API verbs like "retrieve" and "deploy" as Ant tasks.  You can modify the example Ant scripts to retrieve your metadata components from the source organization and then deploy them to your target organization, using the respective "retrieve" and "deploy" tasks.

 

3. Change Sets -- This beta feature lets you migrate changes between related organizations entirely from within a browser.  First, if you've never used this feature before, log in to your target organization (e.g. sandbox) and go to Setup | Deploy | Deployment Connections.  Edit the connection for the source organization (e.g. production) to authorize inbound change sets.  Now, log into the source organization and navigate to Setup | Deploy | Outbound Change Sets.  Create a new Change Set and add the components you want to migrate.  When you're done, click "Upload" and select the target organization.  Finally, log into the target organization, navigate to Setup | Deploy | Inbound Change Sets and locate the change set you just uploaded.  Click "Deploy" to apply the change set to your organization.

 

If you're getting error messages trying to deploy with any of these features, post them here and I'll do my best to help you resolve them.

 

If this answers your question, please post that here as well, and mark this response as an "Accepted Solution" so others can find it quickly.

 

Thanks,

Jon

salesforce.com Product Manager 

All Answers

JonPJonP

A sandbox "refresh" is a very specific term, and it refers to when you replace an existing sandbox entirely with a fresh copy of your production organization.  To refresh a sandbox, log into your production organization as a System Administrator, navigate to Setup | Data Management | Sandbox, and click "Refresh" next to the sandbox you want to refresh.  A sandbox can only be refreshed every 29 days, so if you've recently created or refreshed a sandbox, you'll have to wait before you can refresh it again.

 

However, if your goal is to migrate customizations between different organizations (sandboxes or otherwise), there are several alternative approaches which use the Metadata API.

 

1. Force.com IDE for Eclipse -- Create a project against your source organization and download the components you want to migrate into your local project.  Then right-click on the "src" folder and select Force.com > Deploy to Server.  Follow the steps in this wizard, entering your credentials for the target organization.  When the wizard completes, you will see results listing all the items that have deployed successfully.

 

2. Force.com Migration Tool for Apache Ant -- This library for the popular Ant build scripting tool exposes Metadata API verbs like "retrieve" and "deploy" as Ant tasks.  You can modify the example Ant scripts to retrieve your metadata components from the source organization and then deploy them to your target organization, using the respective "retrieve" and "deploy" tasks.

 

3. Change Sets -- This beta feature lets you migrate changes between related organizations entirely from within a browser.  First, if you've never used this feature before, log in to your target organization (e.g. sandbox) and go to Setup | Deploy | Deployment Connections.  Edit the connection for the source organization (e.g. production) to authorize inbound change sets.  Now, log into the source organization and navigate to Setup | Deploy | Outbound Change Sets.  Create a new Change Set and add the components you want to migrate.  When you're done, click "Upload" and select the target organization.  Finally, log into the target organization, navigate to Setup | Deploy | Inbound Change Sets and locate the change set you just uploaded.  Click "Deploy" to apply the change set to your organization.

 

If you're getting error messages trying to deploy with any of these features, post them here and I'll do my best to help you resolve them.

 

If this answers your question, please post that here as well, and mark this response as an "Accepted Solution" so others can find it quickly.

 

Thanks,

Jon

salesforce.com Product Manager 

This was selected as the best answer
DodiDodi

Hi Jon,

 

I had a couple of problems when trying to use the changeset tool. Was hoping you maybe could provide some insight. Please see my postings below:

 

http://community.salesforce.com/t5/General-Development/Change-Set-Error/td-p/187596

 

http://community.salesforce.com/t5/General-Development/Change-Set-Problem-Report-definition-is-obsolete/td-p/187595

 

Thanks in advance.