CHANGE SETS

Change Sets:

A change set is a means by which one organization can send customizations to another organization. For example, you could create a new object in a sandbox organization and send it to your production organization using a change set. Change sets can only contain modifications you can make through the Setup menu; therefore, you can't use a change set to upload a list of contact records. In other words, change sets contain metadata, not data.

When you want to send customizations from your current organization to another organization, you create an outbound change set. Once you send the change set, the receiving organization sees it as an inbound change set.

Sending a change set between two organizations requires a deployment connection. Change sets can only be sent between organizations that are affiliated with a production organization—for example, a production organization and a sandbox, or twosandboxes created from the same organization.

Inbound Change Set:

An inbound change set is a change set that has been sent from another organization to the organization you are logged into. A change sent must be deployed for the changes to take effect. You can deploy the contents of an inbound change set as a whole, but not on a component-by-component basis.

Outbound Change Set:

An outbound change set is a change set created in the organization you are logged into and that you want to send to another organization. Typically, an outbound change set is used for customizations created and tested in a sandbox and then sent to a production organization.

Sending an outbound change set to another organization doesn't guarantee that the changes will be implemented in that organization. The change set must be deployed (accepted) by the target organization before the changes take effect.