Developer Sandboxes: FAQ and Getting Started Guide

[KiernanM]

Developer Sandboxes: FAQ and Getting Started Guide

Developer Sandboxes give teams a fast, isolated way to build and test changes without impacting others on a shared sub-production environment. This FAQ is designed to help new users get comfortable with allocation, templates, data generation, and troubleshooting common issues.

Allocating your first sandbox

Before creating a sandbox, your sub-production instance needs to be enabled for Developer Sandboxes. Once it is, you can navigate to:

<yourInstanceURL>/now/developer-sandbox

…or simply search for Developer Sandbox in the navigator.

Click Allocate Sandbox to create a new environment. You’ll choose an alias (the name of your sandbox) and can optionally pick a sandbox template or seed synthetic data using data generation.

Retiring a sandbox

When you’re finished with a sandbox, select it from the list and choose Retire. Retirement takes roughly the same amount of time as allocation and includes its own progress tracker.

Only retire a sandbox after its initialization or data generation has fully completed. Retiring in the middle of an in-progress setup can delay cleanup or require additional administrative steps.

Using sandbox templates

Sandbox templates let you predefine what a new sandbox should contain — apps to import, initial configurations, and optional data generation profiles. This helps teams keep their sandboxes consistent and reduces setup time.

You can manage templates under:

All → Sandbox Management → Sandbox Templates

Changes to a template affect only future sandboxes. Existing sandboxes will keep the configuration they were created with.

Data Generation

Data generation lets you populate a sandbox with synthetic, anonymous data modeled from patterns in your base instance. This helps you test against realistic datasets without needing to clone customer or production data.

A Data Generation Profile defines:

• Tables to generate data for

• Record counts and optional date ranges

• Field-level rules (fixed values, patterns, generators)

• Reference relationships to other generated data

Data generation supports model-based values, scripted generators (for names, phone numbers, emails), and fixed-value overrides. You can re-run data generation in a sandbox if the model used during creation is available.

Common issues and troubleshooting

Sandbox appears stuck in “initializing”

Initialization includes copying configured tables and (optionally) generating synthetic data.

This can take several minutes depending on your node size and configuration.

Trying to allocate or retire a sandbox from within a sandbox

Developer Sandbox management should always be done from the controller environment. Avoid using sandbox allocation or retirement UI while connected to a sandbox node.

Recommended prerequisites

Before creating new sandboxes, ensure your controller environment is configured with any common prerequisites you don’t want to repeat in every sandbox, such as:

• Baseline credentials or integration users

• Connectivity to the ServiceNow Store (if needed)

• Reusable configuration or shared system settings

Frequently Asked Questions

What features are supported in Developer Sandboxes?

Developer Sandboxes support common development and testing workflows on sub-production instances.

For the most up-to-date supported capabilities, refer to the official documentation on docs.servicenow.com.

How do I know if I'm in a sandbox?

You can verify by:

• Checking the URL for the sandbox alias

• Looking for a controller banner prompting development in sandboxes

• Viewing /load_stats.do to see the sandbox property

• Running new sn_dsb.API().getDsb() in Scripts – Background

Which environments support sandboxes?

Developer Sandboxes run on sub-production environments.

What do the counts on the Sandbox Administration page mean?

• Total: number of nodes capable of hosting sandboxes

• Available: nodes not currently assigned to a sandbox

• Allocated: sandboxes that have been created

Which roles are required?

Admins or maintainers can create and retire sandboxes.

Delegated developers can view sandboxes but may have restricted management capabilities.

Do configuration changes apply immediately to existing sandboxes?

No. If you change which tables are copied or isolated, you’ll need to recreate the sandbox.

What happens if a table isn't listed in the sandbox configuration?

Any table not explicitly configured defaults to a zero-copy table, meaning it is isolated to the sandbox and starts empty unless populated by generated data.

How do I access a sandbox directly?

You can access a sandbox by its URL when networking and authentication are configured appropriately.

Admins can determine which node hosts a sandbox and log in directly when needed.

Developer Sandboxes give teams a safe, scalable way to build without stepping on each other’s work.

Templates and data generation help standardize development environments, while isolation ensures that experimentation stays contained.