Sandbox - Your Secure Testing Space in Zoho Projects

Sandbox - Your Secure Testing Space in Zoho Projects

Managing projects often involves fine-tuning processes, setting up new automations, or making configuration changes. Making changes directly in a live environment can disrupt production as it does not leave room for trial and error.

Sandbox in Zoho Projects is a dedicated testing space where you can try out configurations, automations, and customizations without impacting your production or live data. It helps you validate changes in a controlled setup before making them available to your wider team in the production portal.

Why Use Sandbox?

  • Test configurations and automations without affecting live data.
  • Confirm that workflow rules and other customizations work as expected before deployment.
  • Add developers to work in a secure space to collaborate without compromising the production data.
  • Deploy thoroughly tested changes to the production portal to ensure seamless implementation.
 
In a software release process, when a task's Completion Percentage is 100%, you would want to update the task status to Ready for Deployment and trigger an email alert to notify the relevant team.

With Sandbox, teams can thoroughly test and validate workflow rules before they are applied to live projects. Here’s how it works:

Create a Sandbox portal and provide access to relevant team members (e.g., project managers, developers, testers) to the Sandbox portal for collaboration.



Create a Workflow Rule for the task to test, set the trigger as task update, specifically when the completion percentage field is updated. Set the condition that the Completion Percentage field is equal to 100. Set the action to update the Status field as Ready for Deployment to reflect the task's completion. Select Email Alert as another action to inform the relevant team.

Test the Workflow in Sandbox by executing it. In the Sandbox, create or update a task and set the Completion Percentage to 100%. Verify that the task’s status changes to Ready for Deployment, and that the email notification is triggered and sent.

After testing the rule in the Sandbox and ensuring it functions as expected, deploy the rule to the production environment from Changesets. The production portal will automatically handle tasks as they reach 100% completion.
 


Try this feature and share your experience in the comments below!