BulkSource provides three separate environments during your implementation: Production, Stage, and Sandbox. Each serves a different purpose and has different rules about what data belongs there. Understanding the difference helps ensure your team is always working in the right place.
Production
Production is your live business environment. This is where your operations will run after go-live, and all data imported here should be fully cleaned, verified, and approved before being brought in. Your team should never use Production for testing or exploration. Once you go live, Production is the only environment that matters for day-to-day operations.
Stage
Stage is a completely separate environment from Production. It is where BulkSource performs configuration work, data imports, and feature testing during your implementation — and where all of your training sessions will take place.
Stage data is stable and will not be overwritten unless BulkSource intentionally resets it. Your team can freely create orders, run through workflows, and explore the system without any risk. Whatever is entered in Stage stays in Stage and has no effect on Production.
Note: BulkSource is currently working on removing the extra product categories labeled "delete" and resolving the duplicate entity in Stage. Beyond those specific items, your team is free to use Stage freely — test data and mistakes are exactly what this environment is for.
Sandbox
Sandbox is a direct copy of your Production environment. When it is refreshed, all data from Production is used to completely overwrite Sandbox — meaning anything entered in Sandbox will be wiped on the next refresh. Sandbox cannot write data back to Production.
The refresh cadence is on an as-needed basis and is not a concern once you are live. Sandbox is primarily used as a safe place to test against real Production data. BulkSource will load Sandbox with your full Production dataset in the week leading up to go-live, giving your team the opportunity to do a final validation pass before launch.
Note: Treat Sandbox as temporary. Assume anything entered there can be wiped at any time.
Quick Reference
| Production | Stage | Sandbox | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Live business environment | Training and feature testing | Safe testing — mirrors Production |
| Data | Cleaned, verified, and approved data only | Separate from Production; safe to test freely | Direct copy of Production; wiped on each refresh |
| Can users test here? | No | Yes — primary training environment | Yes — data will be overwritten on next refresh |
| Can data affect Production? | N/A | No | No |
| When is it used? | Go-live and beyond | Now through go-live (configuration, training, UAT) | Primarily the week before go-live |
| Data refresh cadence | Ongoing — real business data | Stable; only reset if BulkSource initiates | As needed; fully rewritten from Production on refresh |
In Summary
- Right now, all configuration work and training will happen in Stage.
- Production will only be used for go-live-ready data — nothing moves there until it is clean and confirmed.
- Sandbox is available for testing, but assume anything entered there can be wiped at any time.
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