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The sandbox instance are introduced for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 as a non production environment or test instance.

You can easily differentiate the sandbox environment from the Production environment using Navigation bar

Production instance will have a blue color where as sandbox instance will have orange color with a SANDBOX watermark.

The Prerequisite for doing sandbox environment is office 365 Portal user should have  Administrator role.

Creation of Sandbox environment:

  • Browse to the Office 365 admin center and sign in using Office 365 Global administrator or CRM System Administrator credentials.

  • Choose Admin > CRM.

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  • Choose the instance tab.
  • select the instance and click on copy option.

 

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  • Source instance will be the selected instance and it will ask for target instance which is a sandbox environment.
  • Select the target instance from the drop down list.
  • There are two types of Copy options are available.

 

    • Full Copy
    • Minimal Copy

 

Full Copy

Copy the full application database from the source to the target.  This make an exact copy of the source instance, including all application data, users, customizations, etc.  You’ll need to make sure you have enough available storage space to copy before you copy the instance.

Minimal Copy

Copy only the customizations, core configuration data, and users from the source to the target.  This is primarily useful for development scenarios when the full production database is not needed.  You will need to import your custom configuration and sample data to complete the process.

  • When you select the target instance and copy option then only other fields will be in editable other wise they will be in read only
  • Enter the general settings.
  • Enter the name for the sandbox environment
  • Enter the URL.
  • Purpose for making sandbox environment.
  • Instance type will be sandbox.
  • select the security role for the sandbox environment.
  • Finally click on Copy.

 

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  • This will take few minutes to prepare the sandbox environment.
  • The status will be shown in the instance area,
  • Once sandbox environment is ready you can able to see the open option in editable and navigation bar in orange color with sandbox watermark.

 

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