Sandbox access, finally documented

Hands-on testing is the most convincing part of an evaluation and the least well tracked. Who set up the trial environment? Who has a login? Did the vendor seed it, or are we running it ourselves? That knowledge usually lives in someone’s inbox.

Ownership and access, in one place

Each finalist now has a sandbox panel on its vendor record. Record the ownership model — vendor-managed, shared, or vendor-seeded then handed to your team — along with the access URL, status and any notes on credentials or data resets. Then keep an explicit access list, with each person tagged by where their access came from: added by your team, added by the vendor, or seeded by the vendor.