Create a Practice Environment

Sign Up for Developer Edition

You will need a Salesforce.com environment to practice exercises throughout this guide.  I recommend signing up for Salesforce.com Developer Edition, which is free and non-expiring.  You can sign up for multiple developer edition accounts associated to one email address by simply specifying a username that is different from your email address.  I would highly recommend creating a new org for this guide if you already have an existing one.

Using a sandbox for this guide is not recommended, for two reasons:

  1. Existing configuration within the sandbox could interfere when working through scenarios and exercises in this guide (as they were developed using a “clean slate” Developer Edition account).
  2. Sandboxes expire (your Developer Edition account will still be around a year from now if you want to re-evaluate the work you’ve completed).

Do Not Practice in Production

This should go without saying, but do not practice this guide in your organization’s production Salesforce environment.  Changing configuration and manipulating data is a great way to get experience.  It is also a great way to break things and can result in data loss, inaccurate reports, disruption of service to users, and a host of other negative consequences that can get you fired.

Practice this guide in your Developer Edition account.  Make sure to thoroughly test and understand the consequences of any configuration changes you make prior to implementing them in your organization’s production environment.

66 Responses to “Create a Practice Environment”

  1. DonnaR September 9, 2017 at 4:34 pm #

    Help. I created a Salesforce.com Developer Edition. I have made sure that Enhanced User Setup … is unchecked. However, I don’t have “SetUp” available at the top of my screen. Also I am unable to log in as another user. Login is not an option, only Edit. I am unable to finish the Scenario that required login as James Smith.

    • JohnCoppedge September 9, 2017 at 9:19 pm #

      Have you enabled “login as any user” or logged in as james and provided login access?

  2. NaKuSwat August 28, 2017 at 7:38 am #

    How to change the language in the Salesforce practice space? Everything is in Finnish please help

    • JohnCoppedge August 28, 2017 at 3:22 pm #

      What country did you select on the sign up form? You should get the corresponding language. I would also try clearing your cache and cookies from your browser. If you can navigate to your user record, you can change your language to English (you may also have to enable the language), or try signing up for a new DE account with United States as the country.

      • NaKuSwat September 6, 2017 at 2:31 am #

        Thanks got it changed.

  3. NaKuSwat August 21, 2017 at 7:19 am #

    Hi, i created the practice space and signed up for the salesforce developer editions as instructed above, but after i logout i am unable to loggin again. It keep saying wrong password and it ask for the security question. Eventhough i give the right answer it says wrong. I need help. I created profile twice both the time same problem. Not able to proceed further.

    • JohnCoppedge August 25, 2017 at 3:06 pm #

      I would wait for 30 minutes and try to log in again. It take a few minutes for your username/password to get registered at the global login page (https://login.salesforce.com) after you reset it. If you really get stuck you can create a second developer org

  4. hadjialigholi June 21, 2017 at 5:36 pm #

    Hi!

    I just signed up for a dev. account and its in Lightning Experience. Are we going to be learning in Lightning or Classic?

    • JohnCoppedge June 22, 2017 at 12:43 pm #

      The guide is written for classic – although Lightning Experience is discussed as well. New materials are in the works and actively being developed to expand content around Lightning.

  5. fpalala June 21, 2017 at 12:57 am #

    Hi John,
    Are all of these instructions geared toward passing the Salesforce administrator certification? I created my practice environment as a “developer”… is this correct?

  6. SharifAly April 13, 2017 at 1:48 pm #

    Hello, what role should i select when creating Developer Edition? Thanks

  7. rositsauddin999 February 17, 2017 at 11:25 pm #

    Hi John,
    I tried to create a developer account, but I got this error: Signup failed due to internal error, please contact your system administrator. Any idea whats the reason?
    Thanks

    • JohnCoppedge February 18, 2017 at 3:19 pm #

      My guess is that it was a temporary issue and should work later on… if you are using any special characters in email or username, try to eliminate those just in case.

  8. hramond February 8, 2017 at 4:32 pm #

    FYI – signing up for a Developer’s Edition has temporarily been disabled as they work to update their sign-up template. Ugh really frustrating……I hope it’s back up quickly. I have an account already which I use for the Trailhead modules. Would you recommend I use that account, or would it mess up my Trailhead progress? Thanks.

  9. skirincic December 21, 2016 at 9:56 pm #

    Can I use a dev sandbox in my org for practice?

    • JohnCoppedge December 22, 2016 at 7:26 pm #

      You’re better off creating a developer org… dev sandbox could have a lot of other config that the exercises in this guide won’t be expecting

  10. danielflippance November 28, 2016 at 8:28 pm #

    How do I go about “creating a new org” – It’s is this: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.packagingGuide.meta/packagingGuide/isv1_2_quickstart.htm

  11. khan.mustafa.s@gmail.com October 30, 2016 at 9:30 pm #

    Hi John,

    Is this website only for Salesforce Certified Administrator (WI17) preparation???

  12. vemail October 5, 2016 at 6:08 am #

    HI, I try to log in to DE after few non-active weeks and it keeps saying that “trial has expired” and that I need to purchase the lisence. Wasn’t the DE supposed to be free and non-expiring? Has that changed recently?

    • JohnCoppedge October 5, 2016 at 12:29 pm #

      Are you sure you signed up for developer edition? You should only get that message if you signed up for a trial.

  13. Indya26 September 13, 2016 at 8:06 pm #

    I signed up for a developer account but there is no where for you to choose a password. When i verified and tried logging in I can’t. Even tried to do a password reset and the link says it’s been used already. Help! What am I going wrong?

    • JohnCoppedge September 14, 2016 at 12:28 am #

      You should get an email link when you first sign up- click that link and set the password.

      If you clicked the link and did not set the password it may not allow you to recover the password.

      I would try creating another account if nothing else works.

  14. vasudha.nanduri June 27, 2016 at 9:27 pm #

    Hey John,
    ” You can sign up for multiple developer edition accounts associated to one email address by simply specifying a username that is different from your email address.” Can you help me with this? do you mean by creating a user in my existing Developer Edition ?

    • JohnCoppedge August 19, 2016 at 8:09 pm #

      No – just sign up for a second developer account, using a different username on the second sign up

    • LELaine September 12, 2016 at 9:38 am #

      Yes but the new username must be different than your e-mail address.

  15. MoisanderMarian April 6, 2016 at 11:27 am #

    Hi, I’ve been studying for awhile now yet every time I log in to my developer account I receive an oauth error (saying “You didn’t complete the approval process before it expired.” …though I did in the beginning.). I do get to log in after few tries, but I don’t understand why this happens over and over. I didn’t find a solution to this on my own. Thanks in advance!

    • JohnCoppedge April 10, 2016 at 10:21 pm #

      Can you post a screenshot? Not sure if I’ve seen that one before…

      • MoisanderMarian April 11, 2016 at 9:51 am #

        Sorry, unable to attach a screenshot here… I’m guessing if it could have anything to do with that I saved the login address to my bookmarks. If I try that way it’s a quaranteed oauth but if I come to this page, to the link in the beginning, where to create the account and from there choose ‘already have … environment’ –> log in, I usually get in after 1 to 3 or 4 tries. I manage with this :), just wondering, why the bookmark saved direct login address does that.

        • JohnCoppedge April 13, 2016 at 9:04 pm #

          I guess it could be bookmark related – when you use login.salesforce.com does it happen?

          • MoisanderMarian April 21, 2016 at 9:54 am #

            Oh that was probably it, though I did fix the bookmark twice. Thanks!!

  16. Shailenp March 14, 2016 at 1:29 pm #

    Hi, After clicking sign up, its takes me to another page and says to check my email to confirm my account. But I am not receiving any emails to confirm. I have tried this a few times. What else can I do?

    • JohnCoppedge April 10, 2016 at 10:20 pm #

      Have you checked your spam folder? There may be a slight delay (e.g. 30 min) at times as well.

  17. Lavonnehelen February 2, 2016 at 3:41 pm #

    So, as we go through each section are we supposed to be using the developer edition of SF to practice?

  18. Andiamo1 December 9, 2015 at 2:29 am #

    Folks,

    How do we go about setting up multiple users on the practise Dev org considering we are limited to only 2 licenses out of the box.

    Lots of activities around the practise scenarios and quizzes are centered around this.

    Appreciate your help !

    • JohnCoppedge January 9, 2016 at 3:14 am #

      You only get 2 full licenses unfortunately 🙁

      You may get some limited licenses of other types (e.g. platform) but they won’t have full functionality or ability to edit all objects.

  19. Farzana Hafiz March 29, 2015 at 7:46 am #

    Hi ALL

    I am joining with you to study this guide.
    Cheers!

  20. Tres Lewis March 4, 2015 at 3:47 am #

    I created the account, including a username but there was no option to set a password. I received the email with my username and instructions that once I log in the first time, I will have to set a password and security question. But when I click the link to log in, the page wants both username and password, so I can’t log in since I have no password (and leaving the PW field blank does not work)! Am I missing something? Thanks!

    • Tres Lewis March 4, 2015 at 3:49 am #

      Hmmm…so I created a different account and this time the login link takes me to a page where I can create a password and security question…very peculiar, but please disregard/delete my above comment. Thanks!

    • CraigGoodermote June 9, 2015 at 6:21 pm #

      This happened to me as well. I used a couple of different emails but still no luck. Any thoughtss?

      • JohnCoppedge June 10, 2015 at 11:29 pm #

        If you don’t activate the account the first time you click the email it can be a real pain to try to re-activate the org (assuming the link does not work and you did not set a password). I would just request a new org if that happened.

  21. Arthur Mac February 17, 2015 at 6:32 am #

    Hi, thank you so much for the valuable tips on salesforce training. I like the tip you have mentioned not to use it in the production 😉

  22. Arni Adams February 17, 2015 at 3:05 am #

    I’ve signed up for Salesforce Develope and it’s not clear t me where the practice org is located. Please advise.

    • Arni Adams February 17, 2015 at 3:07 am #

      Nevermind. I found it. 🙂

      • iambest83 September 2, 2015 at 3:01 am #

        Hi Arni,

        Can you please share, where did you find the same. I seem to miss the same 🙂

        Thanks

  23. Lisa Hart February 14, 2015 at 10:17 pm #

    Signed up for the free developer practice org. Where do I find it?

    • JohnCoppedge February 17, 2015 at 1:59 pm #

      Once you sign up for developer edition, you will get an email with the login credentials – use that org for this guide.

  24. Ashish Singhal December 7, 2014 at 3:32 pm #

    Hi John.

    while signing up at https://developer.salesforce.com/signup

    I am getting this error: Please enter a valid email address

    Any clue why is it so. I am using same email address which is used to create account on this site (COD) too.

    • JohnCoppedge December 8, 2014 at 4:06 pm #

      Do you have another email address you can try? I would also make sure you are not using any special characters, and manually type in the address (instead of copy/paste or using a form filler).

  25. Henry Ho November 26, 2014 at 5:43 am #

    Hi John,

    Salesforce Developer Sign-up page is down.

    • JohnCoppedge November 28, 2014 at 3:03 am #

      The page appears to be loading for me – is it not loading entirely? Or when you fill out the form it doesn’t provide an org?

  26. Bryndis Swan November 25, 2014 at 7:47 pm #

    Hi – just clicked the link to create an acct on dev SF and the link is broken. In fact it appears to be broken on the developerforce page too. Same dead link page when clicking on the Sign Up link in the top right hand corner. Any help much appreciated.

  27. Melonie Scott July 14, 2014 at 5:43 pm #

    I’ve had a dev account for several years. Just created a new one for this and none of the practice data is there. Did I miss something, are we supposed to create our own practice database?

    • JohnCoppedge November 25, 2014 at 8:43 pm #

      It is generally a good idea to sign up for a new dev account when starting this guide so that you are beginning from a clean slate.

  28. Amanda Spilos May 23, 2014 at 6:56 pm #

    Once I’m signed up on the Developer Edition, what’s my next move? The website is a bit daunting. Thanks!

  29. Merrily Neill January 25, 2014 at 9:12 pm #

    Data Model got to 29 minutes and stopped.

    • JohnCoppedge January 26, 2014 at 5:00 pm #

      What is the comment in reference to? Can you post on the page where this content is listed?

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