Designing a Safe & Seamless Sandbox → Production Promotion System
Customers had no true Sandbox, meaning they had to test directly in production or rebuild changes manually across UAT and prod. Bulk imports frequently broke systems, slowed delivery, and made teams afraid to experiment. My role was to design a safe place to test changes and a seamless, governed workflow to promote those tested updates into production without starting over.
Principal Product Designer
July 2024- Dec 2024
PM, Engineering, Content
Web
Why This Problem Was Critical
The consequences of not having a Sandbox were severe:
hours of rework recreating configs
inconsistent production environments
dependency failures
no way to preview impact or validate issues ahead of time
governance teams blind to unauthorized changes
customers relying heavily on error-prone bulk import/export
Customers wanted to move faster — but the system didn’t let them move safely.
Across interviews, the message was universal:
“Let me test without breaking things.”
“Tell me what will break before I break it.”
“Give me a clean path from test → prod without rebuilding everything.”
The Insight That Pivoted Our Direction
As we spoke to admins across Gore-Tex, ConocoPhillips, IKEA, John Deere, and Nvidia, one insight consistently emerged:
They didn’t just need a Sandbox — they needed a governed lifecycle.
Teams needed:
a place to stage changes
early validation
visibility into dependencies
approvals
version history
and a safe, guided way to push updates to production
The breakthrough was realizing:
the unit of promotion wasn’t a file — it was a Change Request.
This turned configuration changes into structured, reviewable, promotable units of work that could safely move across environments.
My Design Approach
As Principal Designer, my goal was to redesign the entire lifecycle from test → promotion → production so it felt:
predictable
transparent
safe
explainable
governed
The lifecycle became:
Sandbox → Change Request → Validation → Approval → Deployment → Audit
1. Making Sandbox meaningful
We designed the Sandbox to be a real staging environment—one where customers could:
safely test
make iterative changes
validate dependencies
preview configuration behavior
All without affecting production.
2. Making Change Requests the backbone of the system
Change Requests created the structure customers were missing:
versioning
approvals
diffs
audit trails
dependency visibility
This also solved the problem of UAT → Prod recreation.
Now users could make changes once, then promote them confidently.
3. Early, protective validation
Before this project, validation often happened after a user had already broken something.
Customers told us:
“Don’t wait until deployment to tell me something is wrong.”
So we designed validation that surfaced:
missing dependencies
incompatible versions
rules not included
circular references
orphaned changes
before approval, before promotion, and before anything touched production.
4. Designing approvals that matched real governance
Every customer requested approvals — not as a checkbox, but as a trust gate.
We added:
module-based reviewers
explicit signoff
rejection reasons
timestamps
role-based permissions
5. Making production promotion feel safe
Promotion had to feel controlled, not risky.
We added:
before/after diffs
confirmation patterns
environment comparisons
guided deployment steps
future-state rollback pathways
The Experience We Delivered
The new experience allows users to:
Build and test changes safely in Sandbox
Package them into a Change Request
Validate dependencies early
Request approvals
Deploy directly into Production
Track everything through audit logs and versioning
Customers no longer rebuild changes twice.
No more risky bulk imports.
No more production surprises.
What Changed for Customers
Before
No real Sandbox
Risky testing directly in Prod or UAT
Manual recreation of changes
Hidden dependency failures
No approvals, no history
High stress, high risk
After
Safe Sandbox for testing
One-click promotion to production
Automatic dependency checks
Clear approvals
Consistent versions
Trusted audit trails
Reduced rework
Faster, safer delivery
One admin said:
“For the first time, I can test confidently and promote without fear.”
Business Value
Accelerated implementation cycles
Reduced support tickets and breakage
Increased customer confidence and adoption
Clear governance and traceability
More experimentation, less fear
A shift toward true sandbox-first development
A dramatically safer way for customers to deliver change
This wasn’t just a UX improvement —
it redefined how customers build and ship configuration across their entire ecosystem.