Breaking down Clover’s different production and development environments
As part of our effort to empower merchants and developers across the globe, Clover runs separate production environments for the different regions in which we operate. Additionally, there’s a dedicated sandbox environment for testing and development. This article will help you navigate between our different environments.
Our current environments and supported countries:
- US Production (US)
- EU Production (UK, Ireland)
- Sandbox
Based on their region, merchants use one of our production environments to power their Clover device and services. Developers use our Sandbox environment for building and testing integrations before rolling it out to production.
Each environment consists of a unique collection of merchants, developers, devices, and apps. Each environment also has its own App Market.
Identifying your account, app, or device’s environment
If you’re unsure which environment you’re in, follow these steps to figure out.
For accounts and apps–the easiest way to identify your environment is to look at the URL when you are logged into your Clover Merchant Dashboard or Developer Dashboard. Here are the URLs for the different environments:
- US Production — https://clover.com
- EU Production — https://eu.clover.com
- Sandbox — https://sandbox.dev.clover.com
Note: If you’re making Clover REST API requests, you’ll need to make sure to use the correct URLs for each environment.
For devices–you can find out the environment by going to the Help app. After opening the menu button on the top left, select Diagnostics > Additional Details > Server. This URL designates which environment your device is provisioned to.
If your device is not currently associated with a merchant account, you can select Get Help > Cloud URL. This URL designates which environment your device is provisioned to.
Each device is provisioned for a specific environment and can only be associated with merchant accounts in that environment. Devices cannot be reprovisioned to another environment. This means a sandbox device can only be associated with a sandbox account. You can associate Sandbox devices on your Clover Developer Dashboard; production devices must associated through your Clover reseller.
Note: If you need a Sandbox device for development, you can purchase a DevKit.
Accessing data across environments
Each environment is wholly separate. Data from one environment cannot be accessed from another environment. For example, you cannot install a Sandbox app on your production device or a production app on your Sandbox device.
You cannot install a Sandbox app on your production device or a production app on your Sandbox device.
If you have accounts and apps in both US Production and Sandbox, each is separate and unrelated. IDs, API tokens, app secrets, APKs, etc. will be different in each environment.
Additionally, account data cannot be migrated across environments. For example, the data from a US Production merchant cannot be migrated to a Sandbox merchant. However, you can utilize existing tools to export and import inventory from the web dashboard.
Developing and launching apps in our different environments
We designed our Sandbox environment for third-party developers to build apps and integrations on Clover. Unlike production devices, Sandbox devices (Dev Kits) allow debugging and adb. Therefore, it’s much easier for you to track down issues during development. Additionally, all Sandbox merchant accounts cannot process real payments, so you don’t need to worry about accidental charges.
Note: There’s only one Sandbox environment for all development, regardless of which production environment you are targeting. To test different configurations, you can specify the merchant’s associated country when creating a new merchant.
Along with your Sandbox account, you will need to create a developer account and app for every production environment you plan on supporting. Each production app and developer account must go through a similar approval process. However, submission and approval is separate for each environment.
For example, if you want your app published in both US and EU App Markets, you will need the following approved:
- US developer account
- US app submission
- EU developer account
- EU app submission
Note: For environments that support multiple countries, you can specify which countries your app supports in the app’s pricing settings.
When supporting new markets, make sure your app is localized with correct formatting, currency, and language support. You should consider local laws or regulations, especially around privacy and data storage.
Also when migrating your app to another production environment, update REST API requests with the appropriate URL for each environment.
I hope this post leaves you with a better understanding of Clover’s environments. If you have additional questions about our different environments, search our Developer Docs and Developer Community.
