Enabling Salesforce Communities (now often referred to as Experience Cloud) in a sandbox environment allows you to design, test, and manage your external-facing digital experiences before deploying them to production. The process is straightforward and mirrors the steps taken in a production org.
To enable Communities in your Salesforce sandbox:
Step-by-Step Guide to Enabling Communities
Follow these steps within your Salesforce sandbox instance. These steps are derived directly from the provided reference information:
- Navigate to Setup: Log in to your sandbox and go to the Setup menu.
- Expand Customize: In the Setup menu, locate and expand the Customize section.
- Expand Communities: Under Customize, expand Communities.
- Click Communities Settings: Click on Communities Settings.
- Enable Communities: Click to select Enable Communities. This is the key step to activate the feature.
- Enter Domain Name: In the Domain Name box, enter a unique domain name that will be used for all your communities within this sandbox. This name forms the URL for your communities (e.g.,
yourcompanyname-developer-edition.lightning.force.com/yourcommunityname). - Check Availability: Click Check Availability to ensure the domain name is not already in use.
- Save Settings: Click Save to finalize the configuration.
Once saved, the Communities feature is enabled in your sandbox, and you can begin creating and configuring your community experiences.
What Happens After Enabling?
- You gain access to the Communities (Experience Cloud) builder and settings within your sandbox.
- You can start creating new communities based on various templates.
- You can assign users, roles, and profiles to your communities for testing access and permissions.
- All configuration, branding, and testing can be done in isolation from your live production environment.
Enabling Communities in a sandbox is a critical first step in building a successful external presence, whether it's a customer portal, partner portal, or a public knowledge base.
