Don’t get caught without a full sandbox for your Salesforce-based AMS.
Your Salesforce-based association management software system should include a full sandbox. Here’s why.
Considering an association management software (AMS) system built on Salesforce? Congratulations! Salesforce is the leading CRM and cloud development platform, and it has the potential to transform your organization.
But here’s something you might not have considered:
Your organization will need a full Salesforce sandbox.
Some vendors of AMS systems built on Salesforce might give you the option of not purchasing a full Salesforce sandbox, which might sound appealing if you’re trying to cut costs. A Salesforce sandbox can be expensive, but having one is crucial.
Why is it so important?
A sandbox is a testing environment where you can test code changes separately from your live production environment. A full sandbox allows you to copy your entire production organization and its data, including standard and custom object records, documents, and attachments. Sandboxes are completely isolated from your Salesforce production environment, so operations you perform in your sandboxes do not affect your Salesforce production environment and vice versa.
Why not use a different type of sandbox (developer or partial copy) instead?
Only full sandboxes support performance testing, load testing, and staging. A full sandbox is a replica of your production environment, including all data, such as object records and attachments as well as metadata.
Here are three specific reason why your Salesforce-based AMS needs a full sandbox:
1. Proper upgrade testing – A full sandbox enables testing of Salesforce upgrades and AMS upgrades in a safe environment before they are moved to production. Salesforce is upgraded three times per year. Approximately three weeks before the Salesforce upgrade is applied to production, it is applied to the full sandbox. Similarly, Nimble AMS is upgraded automatically three times a year, also first to the full sandbox.
TECH TIP: Nimble AMS the only enterprise AMS in the world in which every customer remains on the same AMS version. Customers are upgraded automatically at least three times a year at no cost.
2. Safe prototyping – Having a 100 percent replica of your production organization empowers your team to make changes in a safe environment, with your real data, and see the results. For example, you could experiment with new member types or rates and get an accurate depiction of the effects of those changes. Plus, Salesforce provides robust tools (like change sets) to easily and safely move to production once your changes are tested.
3. Better support – The Nimble AMS support team often uses the full sandbox to test reported issues with clients’ actual data. Having the ability to test things in a safe environment with actual customer data helps our team give a higher level of support.
Nimble AMS and full sandboxes
At Community Brands, the integrity and security of our clients’ systems are always top of mind. With Nimble AMS, your organization always get a full Salesforce sandbox at no additional cost for the entire time you use the system.
