Overview
The University of Alaska's (UA) Enterprise Service Management (ESM) system has both a production and sandbox (test) environment. Periodically through the year the production environment is copied over to sandbox, this is commonly referred to as a 'refresh.'
Warning
The refresh will overwrite the Sandbox configuration with a snapshot of the Production environment. This means that any configuration, workflows, testing, etc. you have done in the sandbox will be lost when the environment is refreshed.
Important
Please note that a refresh fully clones the data, except attachments, from production. This means that items such as links in rich HTML content (e.g. KBs, Services, Desktops, Client Portal Headers/Footers), ticketing web service configurations, outbound mail settings and more will be the same content from production.
No post-processing of data is performed after refreshes, except as noted in the feature availability listed below, nor deletion of any unwanted production data from sandbox.
Before a Sandbox refresh ESM Application Administrators should make sure any information they want to keep has been recreated in Production, and after the Sandbox refresh, a few environmental settings should be updated in sandbox to differentiate the two environments so that accidental work does not happen in the wrong location.
The ideas listed here are not requirements, but suggestions that have been helpful for many organizations as they address Sandbox refreshes.
This article assumes general familiarity with the TDAdmin interface. Paths to where to take the action are included for reference, but for additional information on any of the topics referenced here, search the knowledge base.
Communication of Planned Refresh
Notification of upcoming scheduled refreshes, as well as any changes to refresh dates/times, will be communicated via the ESM Community Teams App Admins channel.
Refresh Data As-Of Date
Data for the refresh will be as of 11:30 PM ET the Thursday day prior to the refresh. For instance, if the refresh is on Monday, February 16th, 2026, the data, configurations, etc. in the sandbox after the refresh will match that of production as of 11:30 PM ET on Thursday, February 12th, 2026.
Pre-Refresh Tasks
The following tasks are generally recommended
- Review the Sandbox configuration for the applications your group is responsible for, and copy anything you want to keep into Production before the snapshot is taken.
- Attachments are not copied from production, and existing attachments in Sandbox will be removed.
- Save any attachments you want to keep in Sandbox to re-upload them after the refresh.
- This is typically only necessary if actively developing/building new workflows that are expecting specific attachments to exist as part of the testing/QA process.
Post-Refresh Tasks
These tasks are completed in Sandbox environment after the refresh is complete.
Sandbox Environment Features of Note
A number of features in the Sandbox environment is disabled or deactivated when the environment is copied from production in order to reduce the risk that an automated action in this environment conflicts with the production environment or confuses customers. The following features are disabled (cannot be used) or deactivated (turned off, but can manually be enabled):
Sandbox Environment Features
| Feature |
Status |
Details |
| Email Monitors and Email Reply Monitors |
Disabled |
Non-production environments cannot read inbound email in order to avoid conflict with production. |
| Attachments |
Not Copied |
Attachments are not copied from the production environment. New attachments can be uploaded and tested correctly. |
| Inline Embedded Images |
Partially Modified |
The URL sources of inline embedded images, uploaded/pasted through the Rich HTML Editors, in public-facing content (that could be crawled) are modified to point to the sandbox location of those images. Impacted spots include:
- Knowledge base article bodies
- Service and Service Offering long descriptions
- Question and Answer bodies
- HTML desktop module sources
- TDWorkManagement and Client Portal login prompt custom HTML
- Client Portal headers/footers (where image HTML might have been copied to manually)
This lets high-volume traffic use or crawl the sandbox instead of production, as well as preventing images from "disappearing" if their production versions are changed or removed.
The following inline embedded image files are not copied from production. New inline embedded images for these items can be uploaded/pasted and tested correctly:
- Ticket description images
- Any feed item body images
- Any feed comment body images
|
| Service Level Agreements (SLAs) |
Deactivated |
In-flight SLAs on tickets are removed and SLA definitions are deactivated. If you reactivate an SLA it will apply as normal to tickets created in the sandbox. |
| Scheduled Tickets |
Deactivated |
Ticket schedules are deactivated. If you reactivate a ticket schedule, it will create the ticket when its scheduled date is reached (if it is before the sandbox is next refreshed). |
| Project Update Schedule |
Deactivated |
The settings in the TDAdmin > Project Update Schedule page are modified as follows:
- Email reminders: Never
- Automatic Escalation Green to Yellow: Unchecked
- Automatic Escalation Green/Yellow to Red: Unchecked
|
| Project Hours Exceeded Notifications |
Deactivated |
The settings to notify a project manager when project hours exceed the scheduled or estimated hours are unchecked on individual projects and on project types. |
| User-defined Alerts |
Deactivated |
All existing user-defined item-level alerts are removed. New alerts can be created. |
| Time Report Alerts |
Deactivated |
The Time Report Alerts defined in TDAdmin are deactivated. |
| Ticket Surveys |
Deactivated |
Ticket surveys are deactivated. Note that project close surveys are not deactivated. |
| Ticket Workflows |
Deactivated & Removed |
Ticket workflows are deactivated. Inactive ticket workflows are not automatically assigned during automation rule processing or due to service association. Inactive ticket workflows are not displayed in the list of available workflows when using the Assign Workflow process for a ticket.
Furthermore, all in-flight ticket workflows are removed from tickets. This is to mitigate the risk that workflow web service steps saved into the live workflow's state might try to fire against production environments, or other non-TeamDynamix locations, when the environment comes back online post-refresh.
If you want to activate a workflow make sure to check if it has any web service steps and make sure the items below related to Workflow Web Services are reviewed and done.
|
| RSS Feed Updates |
Partially Modified |
RSS feed updates will occur every 30 minutes in Release Preview. |
| Report Delivery |
Deactivated |
All scheduled report deliveries are removed. |
| Ticket Goes Off Hold Date |
Deactivated |
All on hold tickets have their Goes Off Hold date removed. Existing tickets will not automatically go off hold. |
| Web Hooks |
Deactivated |
Ticket, Asset and CI webhooks are deactivated. |
|
Workflow Web Services
Auth Accounts
|
Deactivated |
This is the list of available auth accounts in TDX. Please note that a disabled account is still usable by the system. Disabling an account only removes it from the drop down to select from on a web service method. You should activate the one for Sandbox and deactivate the one for production. |
Workflow Web Services
Methods |
Deactivate |
If you are going to use a web service step to interact with TDX from the sandbox environment, you will need to update the URL on the method to use SBTDWebApi instead of TDWebApi. As well as channging the Auth Account to the one for sandbox. |
Workflow Web Services
Providers |
Deactivated |
This is the list of available API URLs to insert when creating a webservice method in your ticketing application. Please note disabling them only removes them from being selected when creating a web service method. Also, editing them only changes what will be inserted on a web service method created after the edit. All existing web service methods with this Provider you will have to manually edit to change the provider.
You should activate the one for Sandbox and deactivate the one for production. If you are going to use the web service step to interact with TeamDynamix from the sandbox environment, you should verify that the URLs for auth accounts, methods and providers all use SBTDWebApi instead of TDWebApi.
|
| Workflow Web Service Logs |
Not Copied |
All historical ticketing application workflow web service logs, as seen in TDAdmin > [Ticketing application] > Workflow Web Services > Workflow Web Service Logs, will be cleared as a part of the refresh. |
| Workflow Approval Step Reminder Notifications |
Deactivated |
All workflow approval step reminder notifications are deactivated. |
| Knowledge Base Article Review Reminder Notifications |
Deactivated |
All knowledge base article review reminder notifications are deactivated. |
Is there any additional information I should know about?
The ESM Enterprise Administrators are responsible for updating the various Client/Service Portals, Outbound Email Settings, Email replies, and other global environmental settings.
Need additional help or have issues
For support, requests may be submitted anytime using the appropriate Enterprise Service Management form. Requests generate a Ticket which will be worked in order received and urgency by IT Employees with the knowledge and permissions to assist with the request.
For immediate assistance please review the Contact Us page for the appropriate support group.