Sandbox vs. Staging

[automatetoday]

My question is tied to the Staging Area in HubSpot.

How adaptable is it? For instance, if I am running my production site on HubSpot and I want to build an entirely new design for my site with totally new templates and css, how far can I take my development and testing prior to pushing dev to production?

The intent is to develop themes and API integration… and I am concerned about doing that on a website that is connect with the same data set as the production site.

One of my reps tells me that it won’t be a problem. I need a bit more encouragement to make me a believer. … I think I need a sandbox account.

Any insight is appreciated.

[automatetoday]

@dadams,

Thanks for that clarification.

It sounds like what I am looking for is the developers account… that would be my sandbox

That will do it for me.

[automatetoday]

@dadams, At this point in time I am trying to gather information.

I understand that the content staging tool is available to make content changes template in style changes to a specific site and then when ready we can push those to a live site.

The challenge that I’m having with all this is from a conceptual perspective. I and getting ready to bring my entire website for my agency over to HubSpot. Any new work that I do in my content staging area I would want to be for my own company’s website.

I also want the ability to do work in a sandbox area without having any effect my live site. Even from a content perspective, one could see how if there’s a lot of work being done in the staging area, there could be confusion between what work was being done for that main proprietor site, and in what work was being done as R&D, and API for other client sites.

Using WordPress as an example, as a developer I can spin up any number of instances of WordPress thing on my own development platform. I would not be looking to take any of these instances “Live”, but rather I would be creating different iterations of ideas under development.

I’m looking for the same functionality, having a true sandbox in HubSpot that I can test, push to live those tests, without affecting a live site.

[Dadams]

Test portals created from the developer account would also have access to the content tools, so if you’re looking for a completely separate environment, you could use a test portal to create the content as well. However, aside from templates, there is no way to directly copy items from a test portal to your live portal, though it would be possible to automate some of that through the APIs.

knowledge.hubspot.com

Can I copy templates from one portal to another?

Yes, you can copy templates from one account to another. Learn more about this feature in this article.

[Dadams]

@AutomateToday are you working with the Content Staging tool? There are more details in the user guide, but the staging tools let you create a staged version of the website, including new styles and tempaltes, without affecting the live site.

If you’re working on an integration with the API, you could create a test portal to work with. You’ll need a developer account if you don’t already have one, which you can sign up for here:
https://app.hubspot.com/developers/signup

Once you have a developer account and you log in, you’ll be able to create a test portal using the Test Portals link in the top nav menu.