Sandbox changes can be migrated to production with minimal effort

Description

Migrating sandbox changes to production refers to the process of transferring modifications and enhancements made in a controlled testing environment (the sandbox) to the live or production environment. In the context of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software, changes could involve data models, reporting hierarchies, dimensions, calculations or visuals. The procedure should require minimal effort and ensure the integrity of data and system functionality.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A global retail organization uses CPM software for revenue forecasting and inventory management. The business intelligence team coded a new algorithm for more accurate demand forecasting in the sandbox environment and tested it successfully.

Solution: With the sandbox migration tool provided by the CPM software, these changes are translated and moved seamlessly to the production environment, enhancing the accuracy of demand forecasting in real-time operations.

Considerations

This is also helpful in implementation, as changes can be migrated slowly into the production environment as they are approved by the users. This can help release continual upgrades to the system vs waiting for all of them at once.

Some tools require a complete copy of the approved sandbox environment to be migrated to production. Others will allow taking just a subset of what was changed in the sandbox environment and migrating just that. Make sure you are comfortable with the capabilities, especially with very large and complex implementations.

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Migration Process: How straightforward is the sandbox-to-production migration process in your CPM software? How do we migrate portions instead of the entire thing?
• Audit Trail: Does your system provide a migration complete change history for audit trail purposes?
• Undo: Can we reverse changes migrated to production by mistake?