How Do I Replicate or Seed Production Data into a Sandbox Environment?

Before ​executing either the replication or seeding of production data, do the following:

• Ensure that you have set up a ​Salesforce (backup) service for each of your data environments, these being your production data environment and your sandbox data environment. Verify that at least one backup for each service has successfully completed.
• Determine the necessary tool to use, according to the following criteria:
  • For full org replication and seeding from backup, choose the Replicate tool.
  • For more granular seeding from Production org or from another sandbox, use the Seeding tool

Use the Replicate Tool

In the Replicate tab, use any one of the following replication methods to replicate data into a sandbox:

• Full Org
• Full Org with Delete
• Multiple Parent Objects

To replicate data into a sandbox:

1. Select which service you want to search within and click Next.
2. Select one of the replication methods listed above. When selecting the Multiple Parent Objects method, remember to select the parent objects to be replicated and to select the hierarchy depth, in order to control the number of related records that are replicated with the parent objects.
3. Select a backup date to pull data from within the backups from.
4. Select a sandbox to be the destination org.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to preview the data. Upon your approval, that data is replicated to the destination environment.

Be aware that differing size limits between production and sandbox environments may impact the success of the cross-environment replication operation.

Use the Seeding Tool

To seed data into a sandbox:

1. In the Seeding > Templates tab, click + New Template.
2. In the Create New Template window, define the Name and select the Template Source, the Type and the Create From options that you want to use.
3. In the Template Builder, define the object hierarchy you want to seed, the anonymization template to use (optional), use filters, and limit/coverage to refine your seeding data.
4. Click Seed. The <template name> window opens.
5. In the <template name> window, do the following:
   • In the General tab, select the destination source and the seeding method to use.
   • In the Automations tab, select any Salesforce automations that you want to disable.
   • Click Seed. The seeding process begins, and you are transferred to the Recent Seeds tab. In the Recent Seeds tab, your seeding job is listed in the table and you can monitor its progress. When processing finishes, review the reports that are generated about your seeding job, these are the ​Seeding Report​​ and the ​Automations Report​​.