1) Overview
2) Access to the sandbox account
3) Data relationship and copying process
4) Sandbox environment usage
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1) Overview
In software development terms, a sandbox is an isolated testing environment that enables users to run programs or open files without affecting the application, system, or platform on which they run.
In Easy Employer's particular context, the sandbox account is a copy of a client's main production account (also known as live account), used for testing any configuration changes before committing these to the ‘live’ environment. This is a particularly important function for account administrators.
2) Access to the sandbox account
To access the sandbox environment navigate to https://sandbox.easyemployer.com (please ensure you include the https:// At the beginning of the web URL).
Sandbox is a copy of your ‘live’ account. To access your sandbox you must ensure you have online access enabled to your production environment and know your credentials (e.g. login email and password).
- The login email and password for the sandbox environment is the same as your production environment from the day before
- Access is only available for clients based in Australia and New Zealand.
- Service availability for the Sandbox environment is not guaranteed.
You will not have access to sandbox until the day after you have completed online access signup to your production environment.
3) Data relationship and copying process
Data is copied from the production environment to the sandbox account each morning around 2am AEST.
Please keep in mind:
- The data in the sandbox is a destructive copy of the live data, meaning it flows in one direction only (from the production account to the sandbox), therefore, any configuration change or data uniquely created in the sandbox account will be destroyed when the live data refreshed each morning.
- Creating data in the sandbox that is intended to be used in the live account is not recommended, as there is no data merging between the two accounts, or any way to transfer this data back to the production account.
4) Sandbox environment usage
The Sandbox account is best used for any preliminary testing of new configurations, before committing them to the production environment.
An example of this could be an award update – where you need to check the output on your payroll report. This allows you to test and confirm the configuration changes needed (e.g. rate table updates) in an environment which is not your production account. Once you have made your configuration changes in sandbox and confirmed you have achieved the desired outcome; you can then take those configuration changes and also apply them to your production account.
- There is no option to copy data from your sandbox environment back to your production environment. Any configuration changes that you wish to have applied in your ‘live’ environment will need to be manually actioned by yourself.
- As the sandbox environment is not persistent, any updates to the configuration are not preserved across more than 1 day.
- Further to this, it is not possible to use the sandbox environment for any API integrations. if you require a testing server that is able to be integrated with an external product via API, please email support@easyemployer.com.
- The sandbox environment should only be used to test Easy Employer web application functionality. That is functionality directly in the Easy Employer web application, not functionality from an external system or the Easy Employer mobile app.
NOTE:
- The sandbox environment is a small scale shared environment in which customers are able to test configurations changes. This environment is not suitable for more complex feature testing, such as imports/exports, large pay runs, some reports and award interpretation or cost processing.
- In the event you need to do this sort of testing, we offer dedicated UAT deployments, scaled to the size that is appropriate for the account and the use cases required. Please contact our support desk for further information on dedicated UAT deployments.