Cannot send email from Salesforce Sandbox

Cannot send email from Salesforce Sandbox

If you just create new sandbox or refresh a sandbox Sandbox, you will not able to send email: manually, from workflow or from apex code. This is because since Spring '13 release, Salesforce has change email deliverability to System email only.

You can change the email deliverability to All email from Setup > Email Administration > Deliverability.

If system administrator have not change email deliverability, user will not see Send an Email button in Contact, Lead or Case related list, although it is has added to the object related list page layout.

From Workflow or Auto-Response Rules, email will not send out and there is no notification.
From apex code, you will found this error "Email Privileges Revoked", see this blog.

You can check Email Logs to audit all email send from and to Salesforce, email logs accessible from Setup > Logs > Email Log Files.

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Salesforce Sandbox Refresh

Salesforce Sandbox Refresh  & How to refresh salesforce sandbox

Available in: Enterprise, Unlimited, and Database.com Editions only

Permission to view sandbox: “View Setup and Configuration”
Permission to create, refresh, activate, and delete sandbox: “Modify All Data”

From Spring '13 release, newly created sandboxes have the default email deliverability setting System email only. The System email only setting is especially useful for controlling email sent from sandboxes so that testing and development work doesn't send test emails to your users.

From Summer '13 release, you can create sandbox Template to choose data included only for Full sandbox.

You can refresh Full Sandbox every 29 days.
You can refresh Developer & Configuration Only Sandbox once a day.

Sandbox Status:

• Copying, the initial creation stage. When you create (or refresh) a sandbox, Salesforce copies the configuration and data you specify to the sandbox. A sandbox in the “Copying” stage is not yet ready for use. Copy time depends on the size of the data, and can take several hours.
• Ready for use, Salesforce finished copying data to the sandbox, and you can log into the sandbox or run application tests on the sandbox.
• Replacement Ready, this status indicates Salesforce has a copy of your object data and is ready for you to activate the sandbox so you can use it.
• In use, sandbox already activated and in use.

Login to Salesforce sandbox, from https://test.salesforce.com by appending .sandbox_name to their Salesforce usernames. For example, if a username for a production organization is user1@acme.com, and the sandbox is named “test”, then the modified username to log into the sandbox is user1@acme.com.test.

Once refresh, sandbox organization ID will be changed and may appear in different instance, e.g. cs6, cs3, cs12, etc.

Refresh link will be visible in a sandbox when it is eligible for refreshing.

Activate link to activate a refreshed sandbox. Activating a refreshed sandbox replaces the existing sandbox with the refreshed version. This permanently deletes the existing version and all data in it.

Few important date and time related to sandbox refresh
- Requested: date and time when admin click Refresh link
- Finished : date and time when Salesforce finish copying data to new sandbox
- Activated: date and time when admin click Activate link, old sandbox will be delete
- Copied On: date and time when Salesforce provision newly refresh sandbox and ready to use

For more information on sandbox, see this documentation.

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What are Sandbox templates?

What are Sandbox templates?

The Summer ’13 release includes a couple major changes for sandbox users: templates and a new look that makes it even easier to create and manage your sandboxes.

Sandboxes contain copies of your organization’s configuration and (optionally) data. Use sandboxes for training or to test, configure, and deploy changes to a production organization. Full sandboxes are particularly useful for development teams to coordinate testing and deployment to production organizations.

Previously, when you created a Full sandbox, all of your organization’s data was copied to the sandbox. Now, Sandbox templates let you pick-and-choose specific objects and data to copy to a Full sandbox, save your preferences, and then reuse the template for new Full sandboxes.

Why Use Templates?

Sandbox templates:

• Give you the ability to keep sensitive data from a Full sandbox.
• Control the size of a Full sandbox. Smaller sandboxes are created and refreshed more quickly than large ones.
• Maintain multiple, reusable templates for different use-cases and development teams.

Sandboxes are now easier to use, too…

The Summer ’13 release also includes an enhanced Sandbox user interface.

The new pages:

• Tell you how many of each sandbox license you have (and how many are in use).
• Provide more information about each type of sandbox to help you decide which one to use.
• Walk you through the steps to create a new sandbox.
• Include Sandbox Templates and Sandbox History tabs with detailed information to help you manage your templates and sandboxes

for more help click here .

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Salesforce Data Loader: sandbox and null values

If you are using Salesforce Enterprise Edition or Unlimited Edition, you can use Data Loader to import, update, delete or export data to/from any object in Salesforce.com

In this blog, I'll give tips on:

Login to sandbox instance
By default, after Data Loader installed, it is configure to login to Production instance. You need to change in Data Loader setting to point it to sandbox instance.
Goto Settings and find "Server host (clear to turn off)", type: https://test.salesforce.com

Update fields to null
If you update a field to null / blank, and you notice the data is stay the same (not updated to blank), you need to change in Data Loader setting.
Goto Settings and find "Insert null values" and tick this checkbox.

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Salesforce.com hidden features

Salesforce.com come with tons of features for administrator to make everything their live easy. But, do you know if there is more features which is not enable by default. You need to contact Salesforce.com support to enable it.

Here are few features a consultant usually love:

1. Ability to update created date and last modify date
This sound crazy? But yes, sometimes you need this when do initial data migration to Salesforce.com

2. Extended Mail Merge
With Extended Mail Merge, you can easily generate mail merge Word documents

3. Person Account
For some companies, not all of your customer is company, instead just linked all contacts to the same Account, you can request to enable Person Account.

4. Remove Price and Quantity fields from Opportunity Product
Rather than always put 1 to quantity, you can request Salesforce.com support to remove price and quantity from opportunity product page layout

5. Upgrade file attachment size to 10 MB
By default, user allowed to upload file to attachment maximum 5 MB per file, but we can request to make it to 10 MB.

6. Email Relay
We can request all email send out from Salesforce.com via our email server for audit or security purpose or etc, we can enable this feature.

7. Encrypted Field
Some confidential data, like credit card number; need to be protect. User should not able to see the information unless he is the person needed. With enabling encrypted field, admin can manage only some users able to view sensitive data, but be aware that encrypted field is not searchable and the data length is shorter.

8. Multi Currencies
Multi national companies will get most advantages once multi currency enabled. We can use it in opportunity, forecast in reports.

9. Sandboxes
Number and type of sandbox is depend on your Salesforce.com edition, but you can purchase sandboxes as needed.

For complete information, please check this wiki.

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