2018 has been a very interesting year in the Salesforce ecosystem. And we will no doubt continue to feel the influence for a few more years, from some of the acquisitions made this year, the biggest of which was Mulesoft. So to close out 2018, let’s take a look at the year that was, and the best of 2018 here at cirrus.red.
A quick thank you
This year, cirrus.red has had over 22,000 views. So firstly, thanks to everyone who has visited. Some of you may have noticed the last couple of months has been a little quiet at cirrus.red, as I have been extremely busy with a huge project (moving an organisation to a new Lightning Salesforce org) and at the same time planning for move back to Australia. But 2019 will be bigger and better!
So as 2018 draws to a close, I thought it was interesting to look back and review 2018 and list out the top 4 posts from 2018 (based on # of views).
Spring ’18 was also a big release if you were concerned about GDPR. And given the fever-pitched media frenzy that was happening in Feb/March, there was a lot of questions being asked.
Ultimately GDPR was an alignment of privacy standards across the EU-zone. And Salesforce, like many platform providers, included tools to help companies prepare for the changes which came into effect in May ’18.
Next up, was my guide to passing the Platform App Builder and the Platform Developer I exams. I had decided to study and sit both exams on the same day (not recommended), and shared some of the materials and learning from the two courses to help others who decided they may want to try and pass the exams.
Time marches on and 2018 continues hurtling towards summer (or winter for the southern half of the planet). But it is that time of year again where we get to investigate and plan for the Summer ’18 release from Salesforce, which is due to be released to most orgs within the next month.
Additionally, we see Lightning continue to be the primary focus for Salesforce with a number of key new features, as predicted, being included as part of this release.
Release Notes – New breakdown
Firstly, you may notice a subtle but helpful new format of the Release Notes.
New sub-headings in the Summer ’18 Release Notes
Most features and changes included in the release notes, now appear to be broken down into easier to digest sub-headings covering the all important: Where/Why/How/When/etc.
It is a subtle but useful change, given the volume of information in the 478 page document!
Summer ’18 Release: Features Breakdown
As with any Salesforce release nowadays, there are thousands of new features, and narrowing them down to a is getting harder and harder! But let’s dive on in, and take a look at the Top Sales & Service Cloud Features.
1) Lightning Console – To feature parity and beyond…
With Summer ’18 Release, we see Lightning Console pretty close to matching Classic Console, with some additional new features added in for good measure.
Now I know I am cheating in the top 10, as I am going to group a couple of features together in this one… But it will be worth it 🙂
Extended support for Javascript API via Lightning Console.
Guided Engagement with Flow
But the pièce de résistance though is the new Guided Engagement Console feature. Allowing you to combine the power of Console and Flows, to give your users guided forms/scripts to work from:
Lightning Guided Engagement
2) Reports & Dashboards
Summer ’18 Release from Salesforce includes a bonanza of features and updates for all things Reports & Dashboards… So again, I am grouping a few distinct features under one topic here – otherwise my top 10 would just be reports and dashboards!!
First up, Summer ’18 Release sees Lightning Report Builder come out of beta, and become Generally Available. With a few extra tweaks since Spring ’18 also added in!
One thing to note: the user permissions have changed due to the feature becoming ‘generally available’, and this now allows you to hide Classic Report Builder from users, if you wish to…
Lightning Joined Reports (Beta)
Additionally, we see Joined Reports enter public beta within Lightning! There are a few limitations listed in the release notes, but the biggest appears to be having to use the Salesforce Classic Report Builder
Joined Reports (beta)
Get organised: Folders and sub-folders
I have to admit, this one makes my inner Salesforce geek very happy! And I wrote about it in the predictions post back in January… As soon as I heard it was on the roadmap for this year, I have been eagerly awaiting this feature!!!
Sub-Folders, within Folders! OMG! 😀 😀 It is Lightning Experience only – but this has been a pain in the backside of many Admins, since even before I started working with Salesforce!
Report Sub-Folders
Export reports & keep your formatting
Lightning Experience now allows you to export your report and keep the formatting of the report. Simple…
Filter History Reports by Old and New Values
In Classic, another bug-bear of mine (and many others) was the fact you could not filter a History Report by the old or new field values… It would only display them in the report or the history related list if the field was tracked.
This ended up with a lot of reports being exported and then working with the data in Excel… GRRR
Summer ’18 Release will allow your users to search by specific objects, from the global search bar…
Boom!
Dependant picklists and Path
Path is an amazing feature, allowing you to guide users through almost any process just based on a single picklist. But with Summer ’18 release, any dependant picklists will now also prompt users when they move steps.
Group by Topics
Topics are now available in Lightning Experience!
Many users used Topics in Classic, and it is great to seem them ported over to Lightning Experience now.
If you haven’t used them before, it allows your end-users to group and organise records, by a topic. Imagine it like a #tag on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/etc, allowing you to then search for the topic and get all related records.
4) Privacy (Support for GDPR)
With the upcoming GDPR changes, Salesforce has continued to add in features to assist businesses (and us Admins) to get ready.
Changes to Individual object
The Individual object was a little limited when it was first released in Spring ’18. The object wasn’t like a standard object, meaning access was very limited. And creation of records/etc Apex coding was required…
But no more! In Summer ’18 the object is now a standard object with all the bells and whistles that comes with that – including the ability to now use workflows/process builder!
You will be able to now:
Create custom actions, buttons, and links for Individuals
Create different Individual record types
Undelete an Individual that you had deleted
Use Individuals with workflows or with Process Builder
Make a Users’ personal data unusable
As part of the new privacy regulations, and the ability to request your personal information is removed from a system, presents a bit of a challenge for anyone who has a user record within Salesforce. These could be community users or internal users…. And is due to the fact you cannot delete a Salesforce user record, ever.
So to get around this, Salesforce is now including a new system method ‘obfuscateUser()’ , which will scramble user information.
This one definitely falls into the ‘advanced’ category, as it requires Apex knowledge (or how to invoke Apex via Process Builder/Flow).
And would require planning and testing, as Salesforce is warning: that it cannot be reversed!
Summer ’18 Release: Key Dates
There are a number of key dates you need to know for Summer ’18 Release. So to help highlight what they are, here is a handy infographic from Salesforce. Remember the dates shown below are in US date format though…
What is the release date for Summer ’18 Release?
The release weekend for your org will depend on the instance it is on, but the release will occur on the weekend between the 18th May – 8th June 2018.
Maintaining a clean Salesforce org, doesn’t need to be a battle. Recently, I was watching a great webinar by Kelly & Leanne entitled ‘Cut that Clutter‘. And it got me thinking about how the problems faced by a cluttered Salesforce, and how it can easily consume an Admin’s time and effort. And it not only affects us as Admins, but also our end users! So in this post I am going to recap some of the awesome tips shared in this webinar, and also see offer some additional FREE tools to tackle the problem that so many of us face!
The War Against Clutter
Ok, ok. I admit that this header is full of hyperbole.
Don’t raise the white flag, in the war against clutter!
But a cluttered Salesforce creates a lot of frustration and anxiety for me. And I assume most it does for most of you reading this too! My personal vendetta against clutter drives me to ensure I am always improving the org for my end-users…
I have previously written about how we started to tame the Technical Debt beast haunting our primary orgs and removed over 2 million records from an org (hint: very manually).
But there is still so much to do…
It is a seemingly never-ending fight. But as Admin’s we are always looking for tools and resources to help us in our day to day Admin Superhero duties. And to help us in maintaining a clean Salesforce org…
Cut that Clutter! – The Recap
Now before we get much further. If you have a spare 30mins I strongly recommend that you watch the webinar as I am only going to briefly summarise it here…
The session covers the Three-S’s. These are the primary areas to focus on, to ensure your CRM is kept in tip-top shape.
Security – making sure you know who can see what in your CRM
Structure – does the setup of Salesforce ensure data security and meet any data governance requirements
Strategy – how to plan and scale while ensuring you don’t have to keep doing ‘big clean-ups’ each year
If you want to hear more, then please check out the video.
Cut that Clutter: Resources mentioned
Next up, the ladies mentioned some great tools to help you in maintaining your Salesforce org.
From Salesforce:
Salesforce Optimizer (aka Optimiser in non-US/Canada countries 🙂 ) – I am in LOVE with Optimizer reports. It is such an amazing tool to help you analyse and understand where the Technical Debt is likely to be hiding within your org. This should be your first port of call, in maintaining a clean Salesforce. That is how much I love it!
Security Health Check – helps you understand any vulnerabilities you may have within your Salesforce. This covers areas like Password Policies, Critical Updates, etc.
From AppExchange:
Field Trip – this tool is one I install in every org I have managed now for a number of years!! It is a great tool to help analyse and understand just which fields are being populated and used by your end users. It is worth noting, that if you have a field that is always updated automatically by a trigger/workflow… Then it will obviously show as being used, even if that trigger/workflow update isn’t actually required. But overall it will help you understand your org in very tangible way.
The Permissioner – can help you when mass assigning/removing Permission Sets from your users.
This covers a number of modules covering: Salesforce Profiles/Permission Sets, User Authentication, Data Quality, Data Management and finally Reporting & Dashboards.
Extra, extra! Two more tools to add to your Salesforce Cleaning toolkit…
Now for the bonus round.
There are always so many tools and ideas out there helping admins when maintaining a clean Salesforce org. And I am only skimming the surface with these next two tools…
Compare Permission Sets & Profiles
When watching the webinar, albeit not live, I started shouting at my screen.
During the Security section, there was a point around Profiles/Permission Sets. As an admin it is a mammoth task to compare all profiles/permission sets and what they might grant access to within your org. This can be kryptonite to Salesforce Superadmins…
There was a recommendation to switch off Enhanced Profile View, and then compare the permissions… But why do that? Especially, when there is a secret weapon at your disposal?
Salesforce hasn’t always been an admin’s best friend when it came to cleaning an org…And without getting all ‘back in my day’-ish…
But there was a time Optimizer, Security Health Check and those tools simply didn’t exist.
There was also a time Salesforce didn’t have an easy way to prevent duplicates… Admins had to either buy other tools to identify and manage duplicates, or create complex formulas and validation rules to try and prevent exact match duplicates.
But when planning your strategy for maintaining a clean Salesforce, you should investigate the in-built duplicate management tools from Salesforce.
After all, what good is cleaning up your security (profiles, access policies, passwords) and clearing out fields you don’t use any more – if your end users are still swimming in duplicate records?!
The in-built feature will take care of the basics, but depending on your use case, there may still be a reason to buy a tool like Cloudingo or DemandTools (just to name a few).
What is in your toolkit?
De-cluttering can be so rewarding!
As I mentioned I only skimmed the surface here… And this is a topic I can (and will likely) write more about in the future. I have rambled more than enough for now…
So to wrap up the post, feel free to add any other suggestions or recommendations for your ‘Cleaning Salesforce Toolkit’ into the comments section below.
Simple put, GDPR is inescapable for those dealing with individuals within the EU. In the last post we took a look at what GDPR is and how to start preparing for it. Additionally, within the next month we also have Spring ’18 release going live. So the good news is there is a number of GDPR features included to assist Admins prepare…
Recap: What is GDPR?
General Data Protection Regulation, otherwise known as GDPR, is the new privacy regulation coming into force in 2018. It will replace the EU’s previous Data Protection Directive, and align privacy laws and regulations across all EU member states.
Part of the GDPR is the retention and removal processes re: personal data after a period of time. Companies should only retain personal data for as long as needed. So for example, if you have contact details of a person which is linked to contract data you may need to retain it for 7 years. Versus simply having a contact on a mailing list, retaining the data for this long may not be justifiable.
For more details, take a look at my last post for the what/when/how of GDPR.
GDPR: Be Prepared
GDPR is ultimately an update to a number of data/privacy regulations across the EU. But the easiest place to start for most companies is to map out and understand the following:
where your data comes from. (eg web-to-lead, email-to-case, data.com, users entering in the data),
how it gets used/stored. (eg are there integrations which also use the data, is it stored outside of Salesforce, are records stored in standard and custom objects within Salesforce),
what business processes which clean up or remove data. (ie how long does your company need hold onto personal data for (and for what purpose)? Is there already a process to remove personal data?)
Once you understand there where, how and what of your data, you will then understand where the following features and changes may help and support you.
Spring ’18 & GDPR Features
A sample Salesforce Data Privacy Record – aka Individual Record in Spring ’18 Preview Sandbox (click to view full image)
Data Privacy Records (aka Individuals)
Spring ’18 release brings with it a new setting under Company Profile within Setup. The setting to enable Data Protection and Privacy, will expose the new object ‘Individuals’ within your org.
This new object connects to either a contact or lead record within Salesforce to store data privacy settings for that person. So for example you can store the customer’s preference re: soliciting products and services.
A key note here is that in the preview instances of Spring ’18, Individuals it isn’t treated like other objects and doesn’t have a standard tab available to access the object.
But a gentle word to note before we go through how to set this up. As with any changes to a production system, it will require planning before setting this up to ensure it works for your processes. A number of these changes below may also require assistance from a developer or changes to your marketing platform via API. This is not entirely a point and click setup…
1. Activate the feature within Setup
Lightning: Setup -> Company Settings -> Data Protection and Privacy Classic: Setup -> Company Profile -> Data Protection and Privacy
This will expose the new Individual object, with the standard fields within your org. Most of these fields are created for the purpose of tracking opt-out requests and personal preferences.
Some examples include:
If a contact opts-out of geo-location tracking, you can store that preference here.
You can even store the D.O.B of the person and indicate if they are considered a minor or not. (You might need to do this as minors carry different standards for elements like data retention under GDPR.)
And good news is you can also add custom fields to this object if you wish to.
2. Update Page Layouts
Add field to relevant page layouts on contact & lead objects. Salesforce also suggests to rename the field label from ‘Individual’ to something more meaningful to your users.
3. Existing Contacts/Lead Records
There is a code-based solution to create data privacy records for existing contacts & leads within your Salesforce, which also includes code for handling person accounts.
I won’t go through the code here. But if you are interested, you can take a sample of the code here. Remember you will need to execute this somehow (ie start the code running), so you may need help from a developer friend(s).
4. New / Changes to Preferences
Finally, you will also need to plan how new records get managed within Salesforce.
Will an Individual record be created when a contact or lead is created? What about field updates / etc? Do you do this via a trigger in Salesforce or via API from your email platform?
And what do you get at the end of this? A new record of course … 🙂
Data Quality & Duplicate Jobs
GDPR features in Spring also come in the form of expanded functionality. Spring ’18 release provides an update for its out-of-the-box duplicate management to allow Admins to run a duplicate job.
Previously matching rules would run when a record was being added or updated by a user. This would then either alert the user or block the user, depending on how the Admin had set it up.
But in Spring ’18 release, us Admins can now run a “Duplicate Job“. This allows you to use (or create) a matching rule and then run a search within Salesforce to find duplicates. Once a Duplicate Job completes, you will be able to take action by comparing and merging records, right from the summary page.
Duplicate Job within Spring 18 release.
Changes to Web to Case and Web to Lead
Spring ’18 release also brings another GDPR feature. This time there is a slight update to how failed Web-to-Case and Web-to-Lead emails are handled.
When a Web-to-Case and Web-to-Lead fails an email is generated automatically to advise. This email will no longer include any personal data inserted by a third-party application.
Data.com for UK/Ireland Contacts
This only impacts users who are using Data.com Prospector or Clean.
Data relating to contacts stored within Data.com Connect (only UK & Ireland) will now be removed from the Connect database.
Also the Clean Status field on a Contact/Lead records will be changed to ‘Not Found’.
Wrap Up
As you can see there is a lot to cover, and Salesforce is enabling businesses to become GDPR compliant with all the GDPR features in Spring ’18. There is still more to read in the Release Notes for Spring ’18 if you are using other tools like Pardot, Inbox or a developer (specifically around Event Logs).
There is support at hand, and if you haven’t already I would strongly recommend completing the Trailhead modules setup for GDPR Basics (and there is also a trail for US Privacy Basics too).
And finally there is a basic scenario guide, which looks at a number of common requests and suggested actions/things to consider to be compliant under the various privacy laws (including GPDR).
There has been a lot of attention surrounding GDPR. But what is it? Why does it matter? How will GDPR affect your Salesforce? What responsibilities do you have as a Salesforce Administrator? And what can you do to prepare? So many questions! In this article we take a quick look at these questions and some additional resources available to you, when preparing for this change.
What is GDPR?
First up, let’s take a look into what exactly GDPR is.
General Data Protection Regulation, otherwise known as GDPR, is the new privacy regulation coming into force in 2018. It will replace the EU’s previous Data Protection Directive, and align privacy laws and regulations across all EU member states.
It is primarily aimed at giving individuals more control over how their data can be collected, used, and stored. While also extending the rights of individuals to have their data removed/deleted.
One key point to note. Even though this is obviously applicable for all EU countries, it may also apply to any business which deals with personal data of an individual within these countries. So if you are in USA, India or even Fiji – but dealing with personal data from an individual living within the EU – GDPR will still apply.
When will GDPR take affect?
The legislation will take affect from the 25th May 2018.
What is ‘personal data’?
Another thing to consider is how GDPR will redefine what is considered to be ‘personal data’. Overall the definition has been clarified and it will include ways modern technology allow an individual to be identified.
Personal data, relates to any information which can identify an individual. This could be either directly (for example a person’s name) or indirectly (a unique online identifier/ID or geolocation data). The purpose of GDPR here is to clarify and provide stronger governance towards what is personal data. Especially when compared to the preceding legislation.
What can you do to prepare?
At this stage it is worth pointing out this is something that potentially needs company-wide buy-in and support especially from your organisation’s leadership team.
Educate
The first step is to be aware of the changes, we have taken some of the first steps here.
Salesforce is trying to support its users through the pending change. The responsibility though relies on end-users to ensure compliance. And to that end they have published a Trailhead module to support their users.
The Spring ’18 release also includes a number of changes to support users with GDPR.
Kick-off
If your company hasn’t started the process to confirm compliance, then it is worth having a discussion with your manager or with your companies designated Data Protection Officer.
GPDR is an enhancement from previous legislation so the changes required might be small, but it is important to understand how those changes could impact to your business.
For example, say your business relies on email marketing. Your contact lists may not contain details on how the individual’s consent has been attained. With GDPR, it may be worth investigating your requirements for that data and plan how to reconfirm or get consent.
Which leads us nicely onto the next step…
Map your data processes
A key to being able to understand any risks relating to GDPR and your Salesforce is to map out how data enters your Salesforce org.
Is it a web-to-lead form? Or perhaps a landing page describing your products that tracks user behaviour via Marketing Cloud? Or do your sales team import contacts via Data.com?
What happens to it once it is in Salesforce? Is it stored as leads, contacts, person accounts? Do you have custom fields on objects containing personal data?
This is a chance to get all these flows down on paper. And remember to include if there are any prompts for user opt-in and what the purpose of the data is.
Are there any other resources to help me?
So as we wrap up here, it is worth mentioning that we have only just started to scratch the GDPR surface.
The changes come into affect in May, so there is still time to prepare. And if you were compliant with previous legislation like the Data Protection Act here in the UK, then GDPR may be an extension of your existing processes. But don’t take this as legal advice!
There are a number of great resources available to help companies with this transition.
For Salesforce users:
as previously mentioned, I would start with Trailhead.
Wait, what?! Wasn’t it just Dreamforce last month? Oh no, that was two months ago now! And hold up, doesn’t it feel like winter has really only just started? (I’m looking at you, US of A & Canada, and your freezing temperatures this last week). Well as far as the good folks at Salesforce are concerned, that is the perfect time to start preparing for the Spring ’18 release.
After making a number of feature predictions for 2018 in the last post, I am eager to see what has been included in this release.
So let’s get release ready and warm up by the fireplace (or cool down by the aircon if you’re in the Southern hemisphere). And let’s look at the top 10 features for Sales and Service Cloud coming in the Spring ’18 release…
Top Sales & Service Cloud Features in Spring ’18
Macros, macros, everywhere!
Macros are now available almost everywhere in Lightning Experience
Spring ’18 release brings one killer feature that was only previously available in Console Apps.
Macros!!!! Technically Quick Text is now also available too in Spring ’18. But as you can probably see, it is Macros that really have me revved up!
You can now setup and use macros on pretty much every object now. That’s right, most custom and standard objects are now available to use with macros – providing they support Lightning Experience.
These are so useful for speeding up those really common processes that are so repetitive and tiresome for your users. Click here, send that, update this field, mark as complete… Can now all be done at a click of a button (obviously once setup).
myLightning was announced at Dreamforce this year, and will be released in Spring ’18. Truth be told, it seems that myLightning was just marketing ‘packaging’ for a number of new features which takes Lightning even further.
Custom Themes
First up, there is Custom Themes which allow you to brand and theme your Salesforce instance to make your company’s brand (like the T-Mobile example, pictured left).
Lightning Experience & Components
Another killer feature, and of course Lightning Experience only, is the new Dynamic Components feature. It allows you to control when to display certain Components within the Lightning App. There are some limitations to what filters can be used, but there is plans to expand this feature over the coming releases (refer the features section in my last post for more).
On top of this, Salesforce are now expanding the ability to set Component Visibility Rules across related objects and fields, instead of being limited to the record you are viewing. This expands the options to control what is displayed and when…
And when arranging your components on any Lightning Page into collapsible sections (accordion style). This allows your users to now de-clutter what they are seeing and find what they need a whole lot quicker.
Spring ’18 and Collapsible Sections!
Choose your own Path
There is a very easy to miss feature has been included in this release. Possibly due to the fact it is still only a preview feature. But you can now setup a Path based on any picklist, across all standard objects.
If you are not aware of what Path is, it provides your users with a quick guide on what are the next steps to progress a deal or a lead. But it was only limited to the status or stage field, and only on a handful of objects.
Personally I think it is an amazing feature that can really help drive adoption in a simple and easy to understand way. But now, Salesforce are opening the doors to help all admins drive system and process adoption by expanding what options you can use to set up a Path for your users…
Here is the example in the Release Notes. It shows how you might setup a Path, and help your users on-boarding a new client:
Path, now helps you go your own way… (click for full image)
Mass Quick Actions
Bulk editing records from a list view, has been frankly a little tiresome within Lightning. But fret now, you can now allow your users to use Mass Quick Actions to update up to 200 records within a list view. It is only available for Cases, Leads and custom objects at this stage. But I think it still deserves a little **BOOM**
Clean your data
Who doesn’t love a clean Salesforce?
I have been using Salesforce now for over nine years, and every single org has always had some form of record duplication.
Salesforce has been taking steps to help Admins over the years when introducing the built-in duplication management toolkit. But Spring ’18 has upped the ante.
Rather than waiting for a duplicate to be blocked or alerted, you can now run a Duplicate Job when using your existing Matching Rules. Right from the Setup menu. It works for Business Accounts, Person Accounts, Leads and Contacts at this stage.
And with Spring ’18, when the Duplicate Job has completed you can report on the results, share the results or take action directly within the Duplicate Job feature and merge those pesky records!!!
Data privacy
With GDPR and other privacy regulations coming into effect shortly, Salesforce has included a range of tools to support the Salesforce community through this change. There is even a new standard object for storing an Individual’s privacy preferences.
Now is the time to read up on all features relating to GDPR, and a quick search of the release notes will show you all specific updates regarding GDPR. Here are two points that may help you in preparing for these changes.
Data.com Connect will have all UK & Ireland contact details removed
Data Deletion processes (included common examples/use cases and what to do)
When does the Sandbox Preview for Spring ’18 start?
Any sandbox refreshed before the 5th/6th January 2018, will routed to a Preview Instance. This means that if you want to Preview the Spring ’18 release in a sandbox you have to refresh before this date. For more details, check out this Salesforce page.
All refreshes completed after the 9th/10th January, will be routed through to a sandbox with Winter ’18.
When does Spring ’18 get released?
Salesforce is planned to start rolling out the Spring ’18 release from February 3rd 2018.
Other Resources
As per every other release, there is a wealth of information available to get up to speed with the changes.
YouTube
General Data Protection Regulation, otherwise known as GDPR, is the new privacy regulation coming into force in 2018. It will replace the EU’s previous Data Protection Directive, and align privacy laws and regulations across all EU member states.
