Overview

A Moveworks sandbox is a separate tenant used for safe development and testing before deploying to production.

Key characteristics:

• Fully isolated from production
• Separate configuration, connectors, ingestion, and indexing
• Not a 1:1 clone of production
• No automatic sync with production
• Intended for controlled development and validation

Because sandbox and production are separate tenants, search behavior, ingestion timing, and configuration may differ.

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What to Use a Sandbox For

Sandbox is designed for safe iteration and controlled validation.

Use it to:

• Build and test Agent Studio plugins
• Validate API integrations and workflow logic
• Test launch permissions with a small allowlisted group
• Connect to non-production systems (e.g., ServiceNow Dev/Test)
• Confirm content ingestion and access controls

Sandbox is best for deterministic workflows (API calls, tickets, approvals, forms).

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What Will Differ from Production

Sandbox is not production-like in scale or analytics.

Search & Retrieval

Search results and ranking may differ due to:

• Separate indexing
• Different data volumes
• Ingestion timing differences
• Permission differences

Search quality should ultimately be validated in production.

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Analytics

Analytics are disabled/limited in sandbox:

• Plugin analytics are turned off during testing
• Test users may not appear in dashboards
• Go-Live date settings affect analytics generation
• Usage volume is usually too small to produce meaningful trends

Production is the source of truth for adoption and performance metrics.

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Configuration & Promotion Differences

Sandbox and production do not sync automatically.

• Plugins must be manually promoted
• Connectors must be reconfigured
• Secrets must be re-entered
• Environment-specific configuration must be maintained separately

Plugin Promotion Notes

See here for more details: Plugin Promotion

• Plugins must be published before export
• Connectors are intentionally dropped during export/import
• Installation links expire (typically 24 hours)
• Cross–data center promotion is not supported
• Importing into the same environment creates a duplicate
• Webhook-triggered plugins must be recreated manually

Plan for environment-specific setup during promotion.

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Recommended Development Workflow

1. Build in Sandbox Develop and validate plugin logic and integrations.

2. Restrict Access Use Launch Permissions to test with a small group.

3. Publish Plugin Only published plugins can be exported.

4. Promote to Production Export from sandbox → Import into production → Reconfigure connectors and secrets.

5. Controlled Production Launch Start with a small allowlist, monitor behavior, then expand access and enable analytics.

Important: Editing a production-launched plugin immediately impacts live users. There is no draft mode in production.

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When to Test in Sandbox vs Production

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Key Principles

• Sandbox is for building and validating safely
• Production is for measuring and optimizing at scale
• Connectors are environment-specific
• Promotion requires manual configuration
• Search and analytics behavior will not fully mirror production
• Always test narrowly before broad rollout

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Summary

Use sandbox for:

• Agent Studio development
• Integration testing
• Controlled pilot releases
• Pre-production workflow validation

Use production for:

• Search quality validation
• Analytics and adoption measurement
• Full-scale user experience evaluation

Sandbox reduces risk. Production validates impact.