Sandbox seeding
April 21, 2023

IT leader’s guide to investing in sandbox seeding automation

Unlock cost savings and boost agility with automated data seeding

As an IT leader, you’re aware of the benefits of sandbox seeding automation and how it can enhance the efficiency and velocity of your Salesforce release management process. Before you decide which sandbox seeding solution to invest in, it’s critical to determine which one can optimize your Salesforce ROI, offer an accelerated time to value, increase velocity, and ensure security and compliance. To select the right solution for your business, keep these four considerations in mind.

1. Does it help optimize your Salesforce ROI?

To optimize your Salesforce ROI, your development and testing processes need to be as efficient as possible. Sandbox seeding software plays an important role in this endeavor. 

However, because sandbox seeding solutions vary in quality, it’s crucial to assess their value. The software must be both cost-effective and efficient—free of bugs or other issues that could compromise your business operations. Ask yourself the following questions about the solutions you’re comparing:

Does it reduce spend? 

To take full advantage of your Salesforce subscription, your team needs to actually use the features it includes. Unfortunately, the platform’s lack of automation and the need to use code for certain critical tasks—like scratch org creation—detract from its usability. 

Declarative users find it challenging to overcome these obstacles, and programmatic developers all too often don’t have the time to set up high-quality production environments. Subsequently, everyone ends up working in the same Full or Partial sandbox, which is far from ideal. 

And to remedy this situation, you might be allocating resources to expensive Full and Partial Copies that only marginally benefit the release process—while there’s a much more cost-efficient alternative.

You might also like: 5 tips for saving money on Salesforce sandboxes

Prodly’s sandbox seeding automation is specifically designed with your bottom line in mind. With Prodly, your development team can effortlessly transform the dev environments that come with your subscription into production-grade environments with just a few clicks. 

With Prodly, you can reserve your Full and Partial sandboxes for UAT and staging purposes—not development and testing—and give each developer their own high-quality dev environment. Then you can redirect the funds you save towards other investments.

Does it increase efficiency and agility?

Salesforce is a powerful CRM platform. However, its out-of-the-box-release management offering involves many manual processes. And without third-party solutions, it’s prone to error and often requires debugging or rework. Consequently, the Salesforce release process typically requires a relatively high headcount while remaining sluggish and unresponsive.

Prodly sandbox seeding helps you minimize non-development time by optimizing developer productivity and streamlining operations. Because you need fewer resources to do the work, you can maintain a lean team and reassign other team members to other projects where they can contribute more effectively. This increases your company’s efficiency and productivity.

In addition, by helping streamline the release process, our solution improves the responsiveness of your development team. As a result, your business becomes more agile.

2. Does it offer an accelerated time to value?

Another critical factor to consider is how quickly the data seeding solution will deliver value. The velocity of your release process depends on how quickly the software is functional and the speed at which your development team learns how to use it. That’s why it’s crucial to think about these points:

Does it have a short implementation time?

Many third-party Salesforce apps have a lengthy go-live time due to the complexity of the integration with your systems. During this implementation period, projects often get off track and new initiatives can be delayed because developers don’t have all the tools they need.

Prodly: G2 Spring 2023 Fastest Implementation Product - Enterprise

G2, the world’s largest consumer-rated review site for technology, named Prodly the Fastest Implementation Product in its Spring 2023 Reports. In fact, our go-live time is unparalleled—you can be operational in minutes. And with a short go-live time, your team can concentrate on other priorities. 

G2 spring 2023 badge for fastest implementation - enterprise

Instead of complicating matters with an extended implementation period, Prodly helps keep current and planned projects on track. This in turn accelerates time to value significantly.

Does it offer ease of adoption?

Even the best software is inefficient if users need to study a 1,000 page manual and complete 20 hours of training before they can use it. That’s why at Prodly, we’ve made it our mission to take the complexity out of Salesforce sandbox seeding.

Our cutting-edge sandbox seeding automation features a user-friendly interface that’s easy to learn for both admins and developers. Its intuitive, uncluttered UI is easy to navigate with just a few clicks and offers templates for common data seeding use cases. Your Salesforce team can use it right out of the box—without having to earn a degree in engineering.

And in the unlikely event of an issue, our world-class customer support team is always ready to provide assistance.

3. Does it increase velocity?

It’s critical to your business growth to leverage tools that accelerate the Salesforce release process and facilitate your business operations. But increasing the release process isn’t just about the speed of deployments. It’s also about minimizing bugs and reducing bottlenecks so your developers can be more productive. Here are the most important factors to keep in mind.

Does it provide production-grade environments?

The success of any project depends on the use of production-grade environments for development and testing. This minimizes the risk of inconsistencies that could cause issues and delays later in the release process—when they’re incredibly expensive to fix.

Without automation, setting up environments with high-quality test data is time consuming and labor intensive. Moreover, this drawn-out preparation work detracts from the time your team has to perform development work.

Prodly sandbox seeding eliminates the requirement for hours of manual, non-development work. It provides instant data replication into any scratch org or type of sandbox—and in up to five sandboxes simultaneously. It also offers scheduling capabilities that ensure your environments are always in sync, so you can circumvent constraining sandbox refresh limits that delay the release process.

Does it improve the quality of the code or configurations?

The functionality, reliability, and security of your changes and new features are directly correlated to the quality of your code. The data you get with Prodly sandbox seeding is identical to the data in your production environment, which facilitates more accurate development and testing—and contributes directly to higher-quality code. Now your team can confidently implement enhancements while at the same time minimizing the risk of bugs and issues.

Does it enhance productivity?

As we’ve discussed, Salesforce releases without automation involve hours of tedious manual labor to complete repetitive tasks. Prodly sandbox seeding enables your team to set up high-quality development environments in an instant. And with minimal preparation and troubleshooting required, they can accomplish more per sprint.

With Prodly, your development team can be much more efficient and productive. They can focus on higher-value work and more interesting projects. This contributes to the business’s growth and success—plus, it enhances employee satisfaction and engagement.

4. Does it ensure data security and compliance?

To set up high quality environments, your development team needs test data that’s replicated from your production org. When they replicate this data, it’s essential to ensure data security, as well as to comply with privacy regulations like GDPR. Research the following questions regarding the solution.

Does it provide data protection?

Your sandbox seeding automation should protect sensitive data and safeguard against data loss. Prodly offers robust protection by eliminating the need for your team to download any data—including PII data—from CSVs to their desktop.

Instead, they can instantly replicate data straight from your production environment into their destination orgs. Because it never leaves your Salesforce instance, you don’t have to be concerned about the security risks of your employees storing it on their computers.

Does it ensure compliance with privacy regulations?

Noncompliance with privacy regulations can have serious consequences for your organization, both in financial and reputational terms.

Prodly’s data control capabilities are unrivaled in the industry, offering the optimal combination of cutting-edge security and exceptional flexibility. Its powerful data masking capabilities make it quick and easy to obfuscate PII data, as well as other sensitive data, from certain users or groups. This ensures the enforcement of data access rules throughout the development process.

Prodly sandbox seeding also provides granular data redaction capabilities for selectively removing or changing specific data elements, for example to protect customers from receiving unwanted test emails.

Final thoughts on sandbox seeding automation

Keep these factors in mind to identify the ideal sandbox seeding solution to boost the effectiveness of your Salesforce instance and optimize your ROI. With a streamlined Salesforce release management process, your organization will be more agile—and better positioned to seize opportunities that drive revenue.

Check out our interactive sandbox seeding tour!

FAQs

What specific metrics or KPIs should I track to effectively measure the impact of sandbox seeding automation on our Salesforce ROI?

Focus on metrics such as sprint cycle time, bug rates before production, and the amount of time spent on environment setup. The reduction in time and resources you spend on these areas can provide a clear measure of the ROI of sandbox seeding automation.

Are there any common pitfalls or challenges I need to be aware of when implementing a sandbox seeding tool for the first time?

One of the biggest challenges includes having a tool that might not be able to handle the complexity of data dependencies in Salesforce, which can lead to incomplete or inaccurate data seeding. In addition, it can be problematic to convince teams that have their own manual processes to adopt automation. To get buy-in, it’s critical to demonstrate quick wins and provide effective training.

In addition to enhanced release velocity and quality, what are the long-term benefits of the consistent use of sandbox seeding automation?

Over time, consistent use of sandbox seeding automation can result in significantly reduced costs associated with setting up and maintaining test and development environments. It also enhances the overall quality of applications by facilitating more thorough and frequent testing cycles, which supports more robust and secure deployments. Last, but certainly not least, it promotes innovation by freeing up developer time from routine tasks, which enables them to focus on creating new features and improvements.

As an IT leader, you’re aware of the benefits of sandbox seeding automation and how it can enhance the efficiency and velocity of your Salesforce release management process. Before you decide which sandbox seeding solution to invest in, it’s critical to determine which one can optimize your Salesforce ROI, offer an accelerated time to value, increase velocity, and ensure security and compliance. To select the right solution for your business, keep these four considerations in mind.

1. Does it help optimize your Salesforce ROI?

To optimize your Salesforce ROI, your development and testing processes need to be as efficient as possible. Sandbox seeding software plays an important role in this endeavor. 

However, because sandbox seeding solutions vary in quality, it’s crucial to assess their value. The software must be both cost-effective and efficient—free of bugs or other issues that could compromise your business operations. Ask yourself the following questions about the solutions you’re comparing:

Does it reduce spend? 

To take full advantage of your Salesforce subscription, your team needs to actually use the features it includes. Unfortunately, the platform’s lack of automation and the need to use code for certain critical tasks—like scratch org creation—detract from its usability. 

Declarative users find it challenging to overcome these obstacles, and programmatic developers all too often don’t have the time to set up high-quality production environments. Subsequently, everyone ends up working in the same Full or Partial sandbox, which is far from ideal. 

And to remedy this situation, you might be allocating resources to expensive Full and Partial Copies that only marginally benefit the release process—while there’s a much more cost-efficient alternative.

You might also like: 5 tips for saving money on Salesforce sandboxes

Prodly’s sandbox seeding automation is specifically designed with your bottom line in mind. With Prodly, your development team can effortlessly transform the dev environments that come with your subscription into production-grade environments with just a few clicks. 

With Prodly, you can reserve your Full and Partial sandboxes for UAT and staging purposes—not development and testing—and give each developer their own high-quality dev environment. Then you can redirect the funds you save towards other investments.

Does it increase efficiency and agility?

Salesforce is a powerful CRM platform. However, its out-of-the-box-release management offering involves many manual processes. And without third-party solutions, it’s prone to error and often requires debugging or rework. Consequently, the Salesforce release process typically requires a relatively high headcount while remaining sluggish and unresponsive.

Prodly sandbox seeding helps you minimize non-development time by optimizing developer productivity and streamlining operations. Because you need fewer resources to do the work, you can maintain a lean team and reassign other team members to other projects where they can contribute more effectively. This increases your company’s efficiency and productivity.

In addition, by helping streamline the release process, our solution improves the responsiveness of your development team. As a result, your business becomes more agile.

2. Does it offer an accelerated time to value?

Another critical factor to consider is how quickly the data seeding solution will deliver value. The velocity of your release process depends on how quickly the software is functional and the speed at which your development team learns how to use it. That’s why it’s crucial to think about these points:

Does it have a short implementation time?

Many third-party Salesforce apps have a lengthy go-live time due to the complexity of the integration with your systems. During this implementation period, projects often get off track and new initiatives can be delayed because developers don’t have all the tools they need.

Prodly: G2 Spring 2023 Fastest Implementation Product - Enterprise

G2, the world’s largest consumer-rated review site for technology, named Prodly the Fastest Implementation Product in its Spring 2023 Reports. In fact, our go-live time is unparalleled—you can be operational in minutes. And with a short go-live time, your team can concentrate on other priorities. 

G2 spring 2023 badge for fastest implementation - enterprise

Instead of complicating matters with an extended implementation period, Prodly helps keep current and planned projects on track. This in turn accelerates time to value significantly.

Does it offer ease of adoption?

Even the best software is inefficient if users need to study a 1,000 page manual and complete 20 hours of training before they can use it. That’s why at Prodly, we’ve made it our mission to take the complexity out of Salesforce sandbox seeding.

Our cutting-edge sandbox seeding automation features a user-friendly interface that’s easy to learn for both admins and developers. Its intuitive, uncluttered UI is easy to navigate with just a few clicks and offers templates for common data seeding use cases. Your Salesforce team can use it right out of the box—without having to earn a degree in engineering.

And in the unlikely event of an issue, our world-class customer support team is always ready to provide assistance.

3. Does it increase velocity?

It’s critical to your business growth to leverage tools that accelerate the Salesforce release process and facilitate your business operations. But increasing the release process isn’t just about the speed of deployments. It’s also about minimizing bugs and reducing bottlenecks so your developers can be more productive. Here are the most important factors to keep in mind.

Does it provide production-grade environments?

The success of any project depends on the use of production-grade environments for development and testing. This minimizes the risk of inconsistencies that could cause issues and delays later in the release process—when they’re incredibly expensive to fix.

Without automation, setting up environments with high-quality test data is time consuming and labor intensive. Moreover, this drawn-out preparation work detracts from the time your team has to perform development work.

Prodly sandbox seeding eliminates the requirement for hours of manual, non-development work. It provides instant data replication into any scratch org or type of sandbox—and in up to five sandboxes simultaneously. It also offers scheduling capabilities that ensure your environments are always in sync, so you can circumvent constraining sandbox refresh limits that delay the release process.

Does it improve the quality of the code or configurations?

The functionality, reliability, and security of your changes and new features are directly correlated to the quality of your code. The data you get with Prodly sandbox seeding is identical to the data in your production environment, which facilitates more accurate development and testing—and contributes directly to higher-quality code. Now your team can confidently implement enhancements while at the same time minimizing the risk of bugs and issues.

Does it enhance productivity?

As we’ve discussed, Salesforce releases without automation involve hours of tedious manual labor to complete repetitive tasks. Prodly sandbox seeding enables your team to set up high-quality development environments in an instant. And with minimal preparation and troubleshooting required, they can accomplish more per sprint.

With Prodly, your development team can be much more efficient and productive. They can focus on higher-value work and more interesting projects. This contributes to the business’s growth and success—plus, it enhances employee satisfaction and engagement.

4. Does it ensure data security and compliance?

To set up high quality environments, your development team needs test data that’s replicated from your production org. When they replicate this data, it’s essential to ensure data security, as well as to comply with privacy regulations like GDPR. Research the following questions regarding the solution.

Does it provide data protection?

Your sandbox seeding automation should protect sensitive data and safeguard against data loss. Prodly offers robust protection by eliminating the need for your team to download any data—including PII data—from CSVs to their desktop.

Instead, they can instantly replicate data straight from your production environment into their destination orgs. Because it never leaves your Salesforce instance, you don’t have to be concerned about the security risks of your employees storing it on their computers.

Does it ensure compliance with privacy regulations?

Noncompliance with privacy regulations can have serious consequences for your organization, both in financial and reputational terms.

Prodly’s data control capabilities are unrivaled in the industry, offering the optimal combination of cutting-edge security and exceptional flexibility. Its powerful data masking capabilities make it quick and easy to obfuscate PII data, as well as other sensitive data, from certain users or groups. This ensures the enforcement of data access rules throughout the development process.

Prodly sandbox seeding also provides granular data redaction capabilities for selectively removing or changing specific data elements, for example to protect customers from receiving unwanted test emails.

Final thoughts on sandbox seeding automation

Keep these factors in mind to identify the ideal sandbox seeding solution to boost the effectiveness of your Salesforce instance and optimize your ROI. With a streamlined Salesforce release management process, your organization will be more agile—and better positioned to seize opportunities that drive revenue.

Check out our interactive sandbox seeding tour!

FAQs

What specific metrics or KPIs should I track to effectively measure the impact of sandbox seeding automation on our Salesforce ROI?

Focus on metrics such as sprint cycle time, bug rates before production, and the amount of time spent on environment setup. The reduction in time and resources you spend on these areas can provide a clear measure of the ROI of sandbox seeding automation.

Are there any common pitfalls or challenges I need to be aware of when implementing a sandbox seeding tool for the first time?

One of the biggest challenges includes having a tool that might not be able to handle the complexity of data dependencies in Salesforce, which can lead to incomplete or inaccurate data seeding. In addition, it can be problematic to convince teams that have their own manual processes to adopt automation. To get buy-in, it’s critical to demonstrate quick wins and provide effective training.

In addition to enhanced release velocity and quality, what are the long-term benefits of the consistent use of sandbox seeding automation?

Over time, consistent use of sandbox seeding automation can result in significantly reduced costs associated with setting up and maintaining test and development environments. It also enhances the overall quality of applications by facilitating more thorough and frequent testing cycles, which supports more robust and secure deployments. Last, but certainly not least, it promotes innovation by freeing up developer time from routine tasks, which enables them to focus on creating new features and improvements.