In addition to our production environment, we have a sandbox environment which we will use for targeted development and experimentation. The sandbox is a copy of our production environment, refreshed biannually (in Feb and Aug).
Logging In
- Regular staff login (CAS): https://princeton-psb.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/SAML
- For generic users (e.g. catbasic1): https://princeton-psb.alma.exlibrisgroup.com
Sandbox development workflow
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Note: Sandbox permissions requests are not processed through SN@P, as production permissions requests are.
- Proposal: Set up a brief consultation (Zoom) with the Library Discovery and Integrated System Analyst/Coordinator to create an alma-config ticket (as needed)
Access: the Alma Tech Team will assign additional permissions as needed
- Development: Experiment and test in the sandbox
- Review: After the proposed changes have been made in the sandbox, they are reviewed with the system admin groupAlma Tech Team
- Communication: Upcoming changes to production are communicated to affected stakeholders (e.g., during departmental check-ins and in issues on the alma-config repo)
- Implementation: System admins implement the approved changes in production
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Biannual Sandbox Refresh: System Administrator Tasks
Twice yearly (in Aug and Feb) the sandbox is refreshed, making it a copy of our production data and configuration settings. The following tasks need to be done by the system administrators:
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- Export lists of roles for users with roles differing from their prod roles (save to MEO Team Drive)production
- Export allowed S/FTP connections
- Export allowed emailsNote webhook integration profile settings
- Export staff login report
- Verify that the 'Webhook Monitoring Staging' integration profile setting is identical to prod.
After refresh
- Alma Change the sandbox color scheme needs to be changed to orange (prod is black) (config > Alma Logo and Color Scheme)
- Sandbox banner needs to be recreated (config > institution notifications)
- Elevated Permissions need to be updated (from list exported above in 'Before refresh' steps and saved to MEO Team Drive)
- Allowed S/FTP connections needs to be updated (config > Allowed S/FTP connections > import)
- Allowed Emails need to be restored (config > Allowed Emails > import)
- Ensure that New `Princeton SFTP Staging`Recreate the informational banner
- Restore elevated permissions to select users
- Restore (via import) allowed emails
- Restore (via import) allowed S/FTP connections
- Ensure that 'New Princeton SFTP Staging' connection has been copied over from production (or recreate it using credentials in LastPass) (config > General > S/FTP Definitions)
- Publishing profiles need to be pointed to lib-sftp-staging for the "Incremental Publishing" and "General Publishing" profiles (Resources > Publishing Profiles)
- Webhook integration profile needs to be activated and saved. (config > Integration Profiles)
- Use 'New Princeton SFTP Staging' for all relevant publishing profiles ('Incremental Publishing', 'General Publishing', etc.)
- Copy the URL and secret key from 'Webhook Monitoring Staging' in prod and reactivate it
Detailed checklists are in alma-config issue templates