Overview
This article is intended to demonstrate how TDX Administrators can add visual cues to distinguish between your Production and Sandbox environments within TeamDynamix.
This article is intended for the following:
- TDX Administrators
- Implementation Team Members
- Any Team Member working in both the Production and Sandbox environments
TeamDynamix Components
There are three things that can be done to prevent environment confusion between your production and sandbox environments:
- Change the Environment Name in the Sandbox (TDAdmin and TDNext)
- Change the Color of the TDNext Application Menu Icon (TDAdmin and TDNext)
- Add an HTML Header within the Client Portal (TDClient only)
All of the features outlined below can be done in your environment's TDAdmin Sandbox environment.
The following instructions should be performed in the Sandbox environment.
Change the Environment Name in the Sandbox
Renaming the Sandbox is an easy way to delineate between your TDX environments.
- On the TDAdmin Home page, click the Edit button.
- Within the Name field, modify the name to indicate that this is your Sandbox environment.
We recommend something simple, like adding SANDBOX (all caps) to the end of your existing Business Entity (BE) name.
The modified name will now appear within both the TDAdmin and TDNext environments.
Change the Color of the TDNext Application Menu Icon
The Application Menu icon appears within TDNext and is often described as either a "waffle" icon or a miniature "tic-tac-toe" grid. By default, the Application Menu icon looks like this:
Modifying the default color of the TDNext application icon can help easily identify your sandbox environment visually.
To do this:
- Within TDAdmin, click on Organizational Settings > Site Settings
- Scroll down to the heading TDNext Apps Button
- Select the colors you wish to use to denote your Sandbox environment within TDNext. This includes colors for:
- Background, and
- Hover Color
- Click the Enable button next to the TDNext Apps Button heading to apply your settings.
Note: After changing the color of the icon it may take up to 5 minutes before the changes take effect.
Add an HTML Header within the Client Portal
Adding a header to your client portal can help call out whether or not an individual is working within your Sandbox or Production environments. While this can be placed in the Client Portal footer as well, we find that the header has greater visibility to aid your team in making environment distinctions.
To set this up:
- Within TDAdmin, click on Applications > [Client Portal Application] > Settings
- Scroll to the Client HTML Header section of the page.
- Add your custom text or HTML and then click Save.
We have provided a snippet of sample HTML for you to copy and paste in order to get you started:
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<div class="md-12">
<div class="alert alert-warning text-center">
<p><strong>Welcome to your TeamDynamix sandbox environment.</strong> Changes made here will not impact your production environment.</p><br/>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Issues
- The SaaS Sandbox is on a regular quarterly refresh schedule, meaning that the above suggestions would need to be performed at least four times a year in order to display these changes continuously.