The first release of 2019 is almost here… Yes, I typed that right, 2019!  I was sitting in a meeting today, and we were planning the roadmap out to 2021.  It’s crazy to think…  But as the seasons change, we hit the start of the three-releases-a-year cycle with the Winter ’19 Release from Salesforce.

Now I have to admit, I was caught a little off-guard by the release.  It wasn’t until I saw the new snowboarding Astro in a developer sandbox, that I realised I had completely missed the normal pre-release build up. :-O

At least there is plenty of time until Dreamforce 😀

Is it just me…?

I struggle to be “wowed” with this release.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are some nice usability tweaks for sure.  And some additional features which do really help make Lightning a more robust and complete user experience.

But I am left wondering, where is the “Salesforce magic”?

Maybe there is more to be announced shortly at Dreamforce?  But what about Dreamforce last year?  Where is “myTrailhead” (there is an answer buried in the FAQ)?

I assume the strategy for this year must be revolving around bedding-in the various acquisitions and general improvements to Lightning Experience.

Top Features of Winter ’19 Release

Stepping down from my little soap-box now…  And I will admit there are some really useful and cool usability features coming our way!

So let’s have a look at the top features focusing on improvements to Sales/Service Cloud.

Search List Views & Bulk Change Records

List views have received some attention this release, and now have a cool ‘Search this list’ feature.  Such a simple idea, but I am hooked to using it now in my sandbox environment.

You can now also do a number of bulk actions from the list view too, such as selecting multiple records and changing the owner.  This now brings yet another ‘small’ but useful feature from classic into Lightning Experience.

Enhanced Run Page in Reports (Beta)

Another cool feature – albeit a ‘beta feature’ – is the new Enhanced Run Page within Lightning Reports.  You can easily adjust what is displayed in the report, without having to edit the report and re-run…

Also drilling down into a group/column is now a whole lot easier, matching Classic.

Joined Reports in your Dashboards

Finally!!! Joined Reports can now be used as components on a Dashboard….

Forecasts

From memory it has been a little while since the last touch-up to Forecasts.

Winter 19 will bring a number of new features, including the ability to now forecast by territory.

Email tracking for your Sales and Service users

In Lightning you can now track email responses, seeing if the email has been opened.  And actually displaying this information back in the Activity Timeline within Lightning, presenting this back in a way that is easy to view.

Live Agent Setup in Lightning

You will now be able to setup Live Agent in Lightning Experience.  Another small thing, but one less reason to have to switch back to Classic!

Bonus: Flow Builder

So although not technically part of the Winter ’19 it was announced alongside the Winter ’19 release…  Early next year (likely Spring ’19 release), we will have a new Flow Builder.  Which will get a much-needed redesign.

Removing the dependency on Adobe Flash is a huge benefit and one of the things I am most excited about.  It feels like every second day, I have to update Flash before I can then use Flow Designer.

Wrap Up

So aside from me being a little jaded, there are some nice usability features being added in this release which add a bit more flesh onto Lighting Experience.  (And if you haven’t migrated to Lightning yet, what are you waiting for?!)

There are a lot of new features overall to the platform, and I am not sure if it is just the sandbox instance we are using or if it is the release… But Lightning Experience does feel a bit more responsive overall too.

What are your top features?  Have I missed something?  Feel free to tell me / yell at me in the comments 😀

Resources

Other resources to help get #releaseready with the upcoming Winter 19 release.

Salesforce Official resources:

• Salesforce – Official Release Notes
• Salesforce – Admin Countdown to Winter 19
• Youtube – Winter 19 Release Playlist

And the blogosphere:

• SalesforceBen – Winter ’19 First Look
• Chendys World – Quick release overview
• Oegen – Winter ’19 Overview
• SalesforceCast – Video overview of the release
• AutomationChampion – Top 10 Lightning Experience Gems

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.

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 🙂

For the console changes, click here.

Console specific features in the release include:

• Omni Channel Utility allowing users to set their presence status within the Console.
• Being able too copy and share your workspace and active subtabs, all by URL.
• 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:

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!!

For all Report & Dashboard features, click here.

Lightning Report Builder

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

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!

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

But GRRR no more! With the ability to now filter by these values!

Thank you Salesforce!

3) Lightning Experience improvements

Another area with a number of smaller feature improvements, Lightning Experience continues to get refined with each release.

Click here for all of them…  Otherwise, read on!

Speed up your search

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.

Summer ’18 Release: Additional Resources

Official Salesforce resources

• Official Release Notes
• Salesforce Release Youtube channel
• Release Readiness group on Trailblazer Community

Other blog resources

• Salesforce Weekly – Release in Action, with an 8min video of the release
• SalesforceBen – Complete Guide to Summer ’18
• NT Balanarayan’s recap of Summer ’18 features to watch out for
• Jenna Molby’s breakdown of highlights

UPDATE: Read the latest post covering the Top Features of Winter’19 release.

The Winter ’19 Logo Contest is now open…. Even though Summer ’18 release is not even released yet!!   Salesforce is already planning ahead to the Winter ’19 release.  (Yes I did type ’19 as in 2019!!!  **GULP**)

But do you know what that means?

For those who want to join in the Logo Contest for the next release, the vote is closing tomorrow! To get involved in the Winter ’19 Logo Contest is now open in the Trailblazer Community.

Winter ’19 Logo – The Finalists

Here are the finalists which you can vote on:

FYI – voting ends Wednesday 9th May at 12 pm PST, so get your vote in now…  #teamsnowboard

It only feels like a few months since Spring ’18 release… Oh wait, it was.  As time marches on, we are now due for the next release from Salesforce with Summer ’18 release.  Over the coming weeks we will start the normal release readiness prep, but what are the key dates of the release?  And when will Summer ’18 be released? Additionally what features might we expect to see from Salesforce Summer ’18 release?

Summer ’18 Release: Key Dates

As with every release, there are a number of key dates you have to be aware of.

Most of this is sourced from the Release Readiness Group and you can download a handy infographic here (source: Salesforce).

April 19th – Pre-release orgs are available to preview the new release.

April 23rd – The Preview Release Notes will be published.

May 4th – Sandbox cutoff date.  Remember to check here for instructions on which sandbox instance a refresh will land on.

May 18th, June 1st, June 8th – there are three release windows for Summer ’18 into production environments.  Which depends on your Salesforce instance.  You can check the dates relevant for your instance, here.

There will also be a number of Release Readiness webinars, and sessions which will be posted via the Release Readiness Group in the Trailblazer Community.

Summer ’18: Possible Features

Because I am not one to generally wait…  Impatient, I know…  So I started searching the product roadmaps to see what is likely to be released as part of the Summer ’18 release.  Combined with a number of webinars I have watched, this is a list of some of the features likely to show in this release.

But please note – this list isn’t definitive or guaranteed list.  And we will get official confirmation within the next week as the Pre-Release Orgs & Preview Release Notes become available. 

So let’s jump in and speculate as to what we might see…

Lightning Report Builder & Dashboards

We are likely to see a lot more features being rolled out to the new Report Builder feature.  These are likely to include:

• Joined Reports, finally in Lightning – albeit this is likely to be a beta/pilot release
• The ability to create field to field filters. This will allow you to compare two fields directly within the report builder, without needing to build report formulas or custom fields. For example you could run a filter where Created Date equals any custom date field on your object.
• The ability to create reporting sub folders.  So you could setup a ‘Sales’ folder, but then have sub folders for each sales team within it.
• Ability to sort columns based on a summarised/aggregated value.
• Setting dashboard schedules for multiple users

Files

Files is likely to see the introduction of a Library-type functionality.  This will be no doubt be a nudge for users still on Content/Libraries to move over to the newer Files functionality.

Platform Enhancements

The rollout of branding/themes started with the last couple of releases.  We will likely get the ability to now theme/brand each app individually (rather than one theme applying org wide).

List views will also see Mass Quick Actions rolled out to more objects too.  While Persons Accounts should get the ability to create custom Quick Actions on the object.

And Product Schedules should finally become available in Lightning Experience.  This should stop users having to switch back to Salesforce Classic to enable product schedules, or to establish/modify schedules for products.  Which is something one of my orgs uses alot, and has blocked Lightning roll-out for that team.

Wrap up

We will see if these possible features are actually included in Summer – and no doubt there will be a number of other additions which haven’t been included here… There are always 1,000s of features in each release – so I know we only touched the surface here!

Appendix

If you want to know more, one of the most helpful videos outlining some of the new features on the roadmap, is this one: True to the Core, which was originally included in my last post Dreamforce 2017 roundup.

Also the Lightning Roadmap is available here, but a little out of date now Spring ’18 is in preview, it is available here.

Hope that helps with exploring in more detail.

Spring ’18 release brings with it a swag of new features.  But it also brings with it a big makeover for reports and dashboards.  In this post we are going to take a deep dive into reports and dashboards in Spring ’18, and see what is coming our way.

Additionally (and most excitingly) this is the starting point for new reporting and dashboard features within the Lightning.  With another more features heading out way over the coming releases.  To see what this includes, check out feature predictions for 2018 here.  Otherwise let’s get started!

Dashboards in Spring ’18

Coming in Spring ’18 your users will now be able to subscribe to dashboards easily within Lightning.

By setting up a subscription schedule (either Daily, Weekly or Monthly), Salesforce will then schedule a refresh of the dashboard and send out an email update to the user.

And keeping with the myLightning ability to theme and customise your Lightning instance, dashboards now support more customisation and personalisation by selecting a colour theme.

Additionally you can then choose the theme by individual component to highlight sections.

Report Builder (Lightning)

Lightning Report Builder was first introduced in the Winter ’18 release.  But the new report builder is in beta, meaning there are a number of known limitations.  Reports and dashboards in Spring ’18 starts to bridge that gap.

Most features in Spring ’18 release are migrated Classic features.  But these features are reworked to operate in a very Lightning way.  After all what good is it having a new user interface, and not take advantage of reworking how users can use the system?

Most importantly it is easy to see how this is a stepping stone to the future for Reports & Dashboards in Lightning Experience.

Summary Formulas, Buckets & Cross-Filters

As mentioned above, these aren’t specifically new features.  But they are new for the new Report Builder and operate a little differently.

For example being able to create a summery bucket on a column, simply select the column dropdown and create:

Or creating a cross-filter, which is also easily done now within the new Report Builder:

How to activate the new Lightning Report Builder

To get access to all of the new features of reports and dashboards in Spring ’18, you will need to first activate the new Report Builder.

A note before we start, there is a key dependency to activating Lightning Report Builder… That prerequisite is  enhanced folder sharing needs to be enabled.

If your org was created after the Summer ’13 Salesforce release, you already have enhanced folder sharing. If your org isn’t already using enhanced folder sharing, see Turn On Enhanced Sharing for Reports and Dashboards in the Salesforce Help.

Go to Setup -> Reports and Dashboards Settings -> Enable Lightning Report Builder (beta):

Once enabled, remember to also update either a profile or permission set to include access to the Report Builder (Lightning Experience) too:

Remember, if you don’t see this option, you need to check your Folder Sharing rules within Salesforce.  And you will have to check via Classic Setup…  The irony isn’t lost – this dependant setting is only available via Classic Setup menu currently. 🙂

Before enabling though, ensure you are aware of the implications of doing so.  Especially how this will impact end-users within your org.  When you are ready, jump back into Classic UI and then go to: Setup -> Folder Sharing -> “Enable access levels for sharing report and dashboard folders”.

Wrap up

The changes to reports and dashboards in Spring ’18 gives us an insight into where Salesforce is taking the analytics features of the platform.  Along with the added flexibility the Lightning Experience grants.

Overall reports & dashboards within Salesforce are finally getting much deserved makeover…  And there is more to come over the next few releases!

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!

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).

Also Macros Utility Bar & Macro Builder both have an updated/easier to understand layout too.

myLightning

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.

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:

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.

• Salesforce Releases on Youtube
• Official Release Notes (keep in mind, the release notes are just a preview version currently)
• SalesforceBen’s Top 5 Features
• Jen Lee’s Breakdown of Spring ’18
• Automation Champion Lightning Component Gems

Got a favourite feature in Spring ’18?

Tell us about it below in the comments section!

Adios for now…

Were you fortunate enough to head to this year’s Dreamforce?  If not, have you caught up on all the new goodies that were announced?  If you are like me and couldn’t attend, we have to catch up on all the new announcements from this session via Youtube, Facebook,  Linkedin and other blogs.

So to help out, below is an overview of some of the resources I have found useful to catch-up on all things Dreamforce 2017, and feel free to add your comments & own resources in the comments section at the bottom of the post.

Fourth Industrial Revolution

The key theme this year was around the 4th industrial revolution.

And it contains a key message about the impacts on the impacts this next digital revolution will have on society, from AI and the workplace of the future, to how we treat each other…

Dreamforce 2017: over 3200 sessions of learnings!

If you have been fortunate enough to attend Dreamforce, the scale is massive.  It literally takes over San Francisco for a week and brings together people from so many different backgrounds to learn and network.

But where to start though?  Catching up on everything is a mammoth task and with over 3200+ sessions, there is so much for people to catchup on.  New use cases and successes shared with the Salesforce community… It is what Dreamforce is all about!  That is why no two wrap-ups will be the same, as everyone has there own personal journey through the week.

But key highlights for me include Salesforceben with two great posts stand out for me: Admin perspective or Nov roundup) and Jen Lee’s fantastic recap and her sessions about process automation and workflows.  Also David from SFDC99 has a great recap too.

Salesforce has the videos published from most of their keynotes and a number of the larger sessions from the week, and you can access them on the Salesforce Youtube playlist.

Key Youtube videos I have found useful include:

And personally, I love the T-Mobile story at this year’s keynote, where they demonstrated a number of the new ‘mySalesforce’ features (such as my Trailhead, my Lightning and my Einstein).  You can catch that session including a live demo here:

The future roadmap of Salesforce core platforms

One session I always try to catch up on is the core platform update/roadmap sessions.  This next session has a number of the Product Owners talking about some of the features that are coming up over the next few releases.

Want a crystal ball into Salesforce’s thinking and where they are focusing their efforts? Look no further.

They also go into the Ideas Exchange, why some ideas can’t/haven’t been delivered so far (even though they might seem really simple from the outside looking in), and how Lightning is actually allowing Salesforce to drive the pace of delivery of new ideas that Classic simply couldn’t do…

So without further ado, here is the True to the Core overview from Parker Harris and co…

The future roadmap of Salesforce’s core products definitely looks promising and personally I can’t wait for the discussed improvements to reports & dashboards (Sub folders… Field to field filters?!  OMG)

Comments always welcome

Got any key videos / blogs / resources you have used to catch up on Dreamforce this year?  Share in the comments below.

Salesforce’s next release is here, and Winter ’18 is jammed packed with Lightning features and still brings some improvements for those (well most of us) who are still on Classic.  In this post I will also show you how to check key days for your org and share some of the best resources I have found for the Winter ’18 release.

Let’s jump in and take a look at the top Sales & Service Cloud features in this release.

Top 6 Winter ’18 Features: Sales & Service Clouds

Enhanced Instant Search Results & Better Search in Salesforce

This is such a small thing overall, but will save so much time for users.

Spell correction is now available within instant results!  Users will now get suggestions if there is no direct match.

And the search has also been improved to allow users the ability to include an Account Name when searching for a contact, opportunity or an account.  This will then narrow the overall results!

To check out this feature, click here.

Lead conversion now improved in Lightning Experience

This has been a bug bear of so many people.  Put simply the Lead conversion process in Lightning left a lot to be desired!

Well Salesforce have heard us and worked on an improved conversion process, and now gives a clearer view to sales users on if they are creating a new record or linking the lead to an existing one.

Personally, the new screen looks a little clunky… But it is still an improvement from the previous way of converting a lead.

The new lead convert process is documented here.

Manage your duplicates using Duplicate Record Sets

If you saw one of my last posts, data is such a big focus for us.  The new Winter ’18 release now allows you to manage duplicates within Lightning.

In the Data Management section of the Setup menu, you can setup a feature to report on duplicates based on your matching rules.  Now in Lightning you can leverage any reported Duplicate Record Set, then compare and merge!

View this feature in the release notes.

Macros & Live Agent now in Lightning Experience

I have combined these two but Macros and Live Agent are now both support in the Lightning Service Console! #abouttime!

This will bring about productivity improvements for those using Lightning.  But most importantly also removes yet another hurdle to making the change to LEX for those orgs not using Lightning UI and Service Cloud…

Check out Marcos and Live Agent details.  Live Agent in particular does still have a few feature gaps between Classic and Lightning, but these gaps are slowly being removed and will no doubt be ironed out over the next few releases.

Time Field Type (beta)

There is a new feature in beta this release, which allows users to track time (independent of date). :-O

Imagine in a project management app, being able to simply allocate time to something rather than stating a date/time…

For more click here.

Lightning gets a tweaked UI

Lightning has been such a big focus for Salesforce and they continue to actively improve the User Interface.

In the upcoming Salesforce Winter ’18 release, they have given us a new look and feel.  To me this is very similar to the new-ish design concept that Google and others are following, with ‘cards’ of information broken out into pieces and clearer whitespace usage to illustrate what is important on the page.

And also in the Setup menu, there is future improvements hinted at.  Where in the future we might be able to update the background and theme Salesforce Lightning Interface to suit your business 🙂

More details here.

When does Salesforce Winter ’18 release?

You will need to check Trust site for your server instance, but most production orgs are currently schedule for the major release from 7th October 2017 (select NA instances) – 14th October 2017 (most AP / EU instances).

Can’t wait for the release?

Miss the cutoff for sandbox refreshes on the last week? You may still be able to sign up for a pre-release Winter ’18 org to have a look at the new features.

Best resources to help you get Winter ’18 release ready!

Salesforce directly should always be your first port of call.  They always publish and support users through the transition and this release is no different.  Here are your go-to Salesforce resources:

• Official release notes
• Success Community
• Youtube Channel
• Trailhead will also be updated shortly with a Winter ’18 specific trail

Other blogs and videos for Salesforce Winter ’18 Release Readiness

• One of the first port of calls you have to make is Jen Lee has done a fantastic breakdown again for Winter ’18 covering all facets of the release:
• • Release highlights
  • Classic & Lightning Experience highlights
  • Lightning Experience highlights
  • For Classic highlights

Check out her blog, as there is a wealth of information also on areas like Mobile & Einstein!

• Salesforce Weekly, has done a ‘Release in Action’ video for Salesforce Winter ’18
• Rakesh on Automation Champion has his top 10 features
• Praneel at Above and Beyond has a guide on the features of the release, with some additional focus on things developers (and some admins) would be interested in like DX.
• Jenna Molby has a breakdown of her 12 favourite features from the release.