Try changes on a copy of your own data

Some changes are hard to judge until you see them against your own products, locations and orders. A demo with sample data does not answer "what will this do to our setup?", and trying it on the instance your team works in means living with the result. On the Dedicated plan, OpenBoxes Lift can build a staging copy: a throwaway copy of your own instance, made from your own data, at its own address. This article covers what a copy is good for, what it costs, and the one thing to be careful about. The step-by-step guide is in the docs: Staging Copies.

What a staging copy is#

A staging copy is a complete second instance built from your data. It runs at staging- followed by your subdomain, so if your instance is at yourname.openboxes.cloud, the copy is at staging-yourname.openboxes.cloud. Your real instance keeps its usual address and is never touched by anything you do in the copy.

The data is a point-in-time copy. It does not keep up with your real instance, and changes made in one never appear in the other. When you create it, you choose where the data comes from:

• Your most recent backup. We use your newest backup if it is less than about a day and a half old and we can verify it. Otherwise we take a fresh snapshot instead, so the copy is never older than that.
• A fresh copy of your data as it is right now. This takes its own snapshot and does not count against your manual-backup limit.

What it is good for#

The copy runs the same OpenBoxes version your instance was running when the copy was made, with your data in it, so it is a place to try things on real records without consequences:

• Rehearse a configuration change. Try a new location layout, a different way of setting up products, or a change to how you record stock, and see how it looks with your real data before you repeat it on the live instance.
• Train someone. A teammate who already has access to your live instance can practise receiving, picking and adjustments against your actual catalogue, and nothing they do reaches your stock figures.
• Reproduce a problem. If something behaves oddly, you can try it again on the copy without risking more changes to production.

A copy deliberately cannot act as your organization. It sends no email: the email addresses and phone numbers OpenBoxes would notify are cleared, and mail is switched off, so nothing in it can reach your staff, suppliers or customers. A password reset inside the copy sends nothing.

Three other limits are on purpose too. A copy is never backed up, because it is disposable. It has no third-party sign-in (Google, Microsoft, GitHub), so you sign in with a username and password. And API keys do not work against it: a key is bound to a single instance, so a staging copy is not a way to test an API integration.

A copy holds your real data#

This is the part to read twice. A staging copy is not anonymised. It contains a full copy of your instance: your products, stock, orders and documents, and every user's name and sign-in, password hashes included. The only things changed are that people's email addresses and phone numbers are cleared and the copy cannot send email.

That means anyone who can sign in to your live instance with an OpenBoxes password can sign in to the copy with the same password. Treat the copy's address and its sign-in details exactly as you treat production. Do not give a contractor, a trainee cohort or a vendor access to a copy you would not give them to your real instance.

Buying staging days#

A copy is leased by the day, and you buy the days in packs. The Dedicated plan does not include any staging days.

• A 5-day pack costs $100 ($20 a day), and you can buy up to 4 packs (20 days) in one purchase.
• It is a one-time charge, not a subscription line. It never renews, and the annual-billing and founding-member discounts do not apply to it.
• Days you buy never expire. Unused days stay on your balance until you use them.
• It must be charged to a card. If your default payment method is a US bank account, the purchase is refused and asks you to add a card on the Payment method card in Billing and make it the default.
• It is not refundable, and packs cannot be bought during the free trial.

To buy, go to Billing in the portal, find the Staging days section on the Add-ons card, and click Buy days. You can also use Buy staging days on the Staging copy card on the Instance page. Staging days are a pack rather than a monthly add-on, so you will not find them in the Browse add-ons dialog. Your remaining balance shows in both places.

On Enterprise, staging days come with the agreement and are credited to the account by our team rather than bought as packs.

How the days are spent#

Days are spent at two moments, and never returned:

• When the copy becomes ready, for the length of lease you chose (at least 1 day, at most your balance). A copy that fails to build costs nothing, and we email you to say so.
• When you click Extend on a live copy. Extending spends the days immediately.

Tear down removes the copy and everything in it, normally within a few minutes. Tearing down early forfeits the days left on the lease; the confirmation names exactly how many. Nothing returns a day to your balance, ever, so there is no saving in tearing down early: letting the lease run out costs the same. A copy also tears itself down when its lease ends, and we email you 24 hours before and again once it is gone.

Creating one#

From the Instance page, on the Staging copy card, choose Create staging copy, pick the number of days and where the data comes from. A small instance is usually ready in about 10 to 15 minutes; a large one takes longer. You do not have to wait on the page: we email you when it is ready.

When it is ready, Show sign-in details gives you a one-time password. It is shown once and stored nowhere, so save it before you close the dialog. If you lose it, tear the copy down and create a new one. Your own OpenBoxes users can also sign in as themselves, with the passwords they had when the data was copied.

Each instance can have one live staging copy at a time. Occasionally a create is refused because we are at capacity for staging copies; your own instance is never affected, and you can try again later or ask support when a slot is free.

Summary#

• A staging copy is a throwaway copy of your own instance at staging-yourname.openboxes.cloud, on Dedicated and Enterprise, never on Shared.
• Use it to rehearse a configuration change, train someone or reproduce a problem. It sends no email, is never backed up and does not accept API keys.
• It is not anonymised: your real data and every user's password hash are in it, so protect it like production.
• Days come in 5-day packs at $100, charged once to a card, not refundable, and they never expire.
• Days are spent when the copy is ready and at each extend, and are never returned, including when you tear down early.

See Dedicated pricing and the staging-day pack, and Billing & Plans for how add-ons are charged.