You may hear GrowthZone Support (and other GrowthZone staff) talk about using Clone to test things like merging contacts, membership modifications (upgrades/downgrades/adjustments), and billing.
Clone is a special server environment available to all GrowthZone customers. As part of our weekly processes, GrowthZone makes a copy of your database and everything in it. This database is functional in every aspect except email, any "overnight" process (such as smart lists or email validation), conducting a full billing run, and running marketing automation workflows (see below).
Note: All email addresses are heavily modified so that no communications are accidentally sent to any contacts, and while it may appear the system is sending messages to these modified emails, it is not actually sending any messaging out into the internet at all.
It is not connected to your live database, but contains all the information in it, and is generally intended to be used for testing and "sandbox" purposes.
This means that changes or updates made in your live database during the week are NOT synced to the Clone environment, and changes or updates to your Clone database are NOT synced to your live database. It is a standalone system and is refreshed every week with a new snapshot of your live database. If you add or change something in your Clone database on a Friday and log in to it again on Monday, those changes will have been overwritten by the data refresh.
If you are an active GrowthZone subscriber, you can log into Clone with your regular GrowthZone username and password.
To Log In: https://gzclone.work/auth?ReturnUrl=%2fa
Once you are logged in to your Clone database, you should see a "ProductionClone" tag in the system header in a bright blue color:
Most other functionality in your Clone database behaves the same as your live (Production) database. You will have access to all your modules and can modify things with no fear of affecting your actual live data or sending accidental emails. Note the full billing run and Marketing Automation exceptions below.
Clone Exceptions and Best Practices
Do not test a full billing run in Clone
Practicing billing in Clone is recommended — but run a small batch, not your whole billing cycle. Clone runs on reduced resources, so a large billing run there takes far longer than it would in your live database and can tie up the processing queue for an extended period.
As a guideline, keep a Clone billing run to 20 invoices or fewer. A couple of members is usually enough to confirm that pricing, fee items, invoice dates, and templates all come out as expected.
To test a billing run in Clone
- Go to Finance > Billing > Upcoming Billing.
- Select a month from the Quick Filter list.
- Click the filter or advanced filter icon and narrow the list until only a small number of members remain — for example by membership type, frequency, or next bill date range.
- Confirm the Invoice to Create count on the Run Upcoming Billing screen is small before you click Run.
- Review the resulting invoices under All Sales/Invoices and/or Unsent Invoices.
You can watch a run's progress under Run Upcoming Billing > Billing Runs, which shows Invoice to Create and % Complete. If a Clone run is sitting at a low percentage for a long time, it is most likely the batch size rather than a problem with your billing setup.
Once your setup checks out on a small batch in Clone, run the full cycle in your live database. See Run upcoming billing and Best Practices for Running Upcoming Billing.
Marketing Automation does not run in the Clone database
Marketing Automation workflows are not processed in Clone. Contacts will not move through a workflow's steps, so a workflow's setup, timing, and branching cannot be tested in Clone — even though the workflow itself can be created there and will appear to save normally.
You can use Clone to build and verify the pieces that feed a workflow: the saved report that defines who should receive it, and the list that report populates. Those function normally in Clone.
To test a workflow end to end, build it in your live database using test contacts
- Create one or two contacts of your own, using email addresses you can check. Do not use a real member's record.
- Add only those test contacts to the list the workflow is sourced from.
- Activate the workflow and confirm the steps run and the emails arrive as expected.
- When the test is finished, add your real list to the workflow or copy your test and add your real list there.
Use dedicated test contacts rather than real member records. Emails sent from your live database are delivered for real, and a contact can only pass through a given workflow once — so testing with a real member's record will prevent that member from receiving the live send.
For more on building workflows, see Creating a New Workflow and Workflow Example: Automated Membership Renewal Reminders.
Please note: Clone databases do not have all the resources of a full, live Production database. Processing-heavy tasks- like billing, or exporting of large report result sets- WILL take more time than in your live database due to these reduced resources.