Force.com Apex Code Developer's Guide

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Using a Developer or Sandbox Organization

There are three types of organizations where you can run your Apex:
  • A developer organization: an organization created with a Developer Edition account.
  • A production organization: an organization that has live users accessing your data.
  • A sandbox organization: an organization created on your production organization that is a copy of your production organization.

Apex triggers are available in the Trial Edition of Salesforce; however, they are disabled when you convert to any other edition. If your newly-signed-up organization includes Apex, you must deploy your code to your organization using one of the deployment methods.

Note

You can't develop Apex in your Salesforce production organization. Live users accessing the system while you're developing can destabilize your data or corrupt your application. Instead, you must do all your development work in either a sandbox or a Developer Edition organization.

If you aren't already a member of the developer community, go to http://developer.force.com/join and follow the instructions to sign up for a Developer Edition account. A Developer Edition account gives you access to a free Developer Edition organization. Even if you already have an Enterprise, Unlimited, or Performance Edition organization and a sandbox for creating Apex, we strongly recommends that you take advantage of the resources available in the developer community.

You cannot make changes to Apex using the Salesforce user interface in a Salesforce production organization.

Note

Creating a Sandbox Organization

To create or refresh a sandbox organization:
  1. From Setup, click Sandboxes or Data Management | Sandboxes.
  2. Click New Sandbox.
  3. Enter a name and description for the sandbox. You can only change the name when you create or refresh a sandbox.

    We recommend that you choose a name that:

    • Reflects the purpose of this sandbox, such as “QA.”
    • Has few characters because Salesforce automatically appends the sandbox name to usernames on user records in the sandbox environment. Names with fewer characters make sandbox logins easier to type.

    Tip

  4. Select the type of sandbox you want.
    Developer Sandbox
    Developer sandboxes are special configuration sandboxes intended for coding and testing by a single developer. Multiple users can log into a single Developer sandbox, but their primary purpose is to provide an environment in which changes under active development can be isolated until they’re ready to be shared. Just like Developer Pro sandboxes, Developer sandboxes copy all application and configuration information to the sandbox. Developer sandboxes are limited to 200 MB of test or sample data, which is enough for many development and testing tasks. You can refresh a Developer sandbox once per day.
    Developer Pro Sandbox
    Developer Pro sandboxes copy all of your production organization's reports, dashboards, price books, products, apps, and customizations under Setup, but exclude all of your organization's standard and custom object records, documents, and attachments. Creating a Developer Pro sandbox can decrease the time it takes to create or refresh a sandbox from several hours to just a few minutes, but it can only include up to 1 GB of data. You can refresh a Developer Pro sandbox once per day.
    Partial Data Sandbox
    Partial Data sandboxes include all of your organization’s metadata and add a selected amount of your production organization's data that you define using a sandbox template. A Partial Data sandbox is a Developer sandbox plus the data you define in a sandbox template. It includes the reports, dashboards, price books, products, apps, and customizations under Setup (including all of your metadata). Additionally, as defined by your sandbox template, Partial Data sandboxes can include your organization's standard and custom object records, documents, and attachments up to 5 GB of data and a maximum of 10,000 records per selected object. A Partial Data sandbox is smaller than a Full sandbox and has a shorter refresh interval. You can refresh a Partial Data sandbox every 5 days.

    Partial Data sandboxes require a sandbox template to select the data from your organization. For more information, see Creating Sandbox Templates.

    Note

    Full Sandbox
    Full sandboxes copy your entire production organization and all its data, including standard and custom object records, documents, and attachments. You can refresh a Full sandbox every 29 days.

    If you don’t see a sandbox option or need licenses for more sandboxes, contact salesforce.com to order sandboxes for your organization.

    Note

    If you have reduced the number of sandboxes you purchased, but you still have more sandboxes of a specific type than allowed, you will be required to match your sandboxes to the number of sandboxes that you purchased. For example, if you have two Full sandboxes but purchased only one, you cannot refresh your Full sandbox as a Full sandbox. Instead, you must choose one Full sandbox to convert to a smaller sandbox, such as a Developer Pro or a Developer sandbox, depending on which types you have available.

  5. Select the data you want to include in your sandbox (you have this option for a Partial Data or Full sandbox).

    For a Partial Data sandbox, select the template you created to specify the data for your sandbox. If you have not created a template for this Partial Data sandbox, see Creating Sandbox Templates.

    For a Full sandbox, choose how much object history, case history, and opportunity history to copy, and whether or not to copy Chatter data. Object history is the field history tracking of custom and most standard objects; case history and opportunity history serve the same purpose for cases and opportunities. You can copy from 0 to 180 days of history, in 30–day increments. The default value is 0 days. Chatter data includes feeds, messages, and discovery topics. Decreasing the amount of data you copy can significantly speed up sandbox copy time.

    You can choose to include Template-based data for a Full sandbox. For this option, you need to have already created a sandbox template. Then you can pick the template from a list of templates you’ve created. For more information, see Creating Sandbox Templates.

  6. Click Create.

    The process may take several minutes, hours, or even days, depending on the size and type of your organization.

    Try to limit changes in your production organization while the sandbox copy proceeds.

    Tip