The next Salesforce release is upon us, and with a new release comes a new API version… API Version 54 to be exact. So, we take a look at the Spring ’22 Release for Developers, what are the key features and changes we need to know to be ‘release ready’?

Let’s dive into the Spring ’22 Release, and see some of the key features heading our way which may be relevant for you and your development team(s).

Looking for an overview of the top features? Check out our breakdown for Sales/Service/Experience Clouds.

Spring ’22 Release: Key Dates

The dates you need to keep in mind for Spring ’22 Release are outlined here in detail.

Sandbox Previews have commenced, and the rollout globally should be completed within the next four weeks. With the Spring ’22 Release available for some orgs this weekend (14th Jan 22). Most orgs will receive it on the weekend of the 4th Feb or 11th Feb:

Spring ’22 Release: Enforced Release Updates

Starting off, let’s take a look at the Release Updates which will be enforced as part of the release.

General Salesforce Platform/Security Updates:

Enforce CORS Allowlist for Lightning Apps
The CORS allowlist in Setup isn’t currently enforced for Lightning apps on the server, although it’s enforced on the browser. This update enforces the allowlist on the server so that disallowed requests are blocked earlier and not processed on the server.

Login Credentials Using URL Query Strings Are Disabled
To improve security, users can no longer log in to Salesforce by using a username and password as URL query string parameters to the login URL. Any users who try to do so are redirected to the login page.

Require Multi-Factor Authentication for Logins to Subscriber Orgs
With this update, we secure access to subscriber orgs by requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) when logging into the License Management Org (LMO). MFA is required only for LMO users who require access to the Subscriber Support Console.

Enable Visualforce Expression Language Apex Method Access Modifier Enforcement
When accessing Apex methods defined by custom controllers, the Visualforce Expression Language doesn’t correctly validate the access modifiers of the method. Developers can sometimes access unauthorized data on managed and system classes. To improve security, this update validates the Apex method access modifier and throws an error if the Visualforce Expression Language can’t access it.

Product Specific (CPQ):

Get Ready for Browser Performance Improvements for Salesforce CPQ (Release Update)This update allows Salesforce CPQ to run faster in supported web browsers by employing new Web Components V1 technology.

Plan/Roadmap for Summer ’22:

And looking forward, remember to also review and start preparing for the enforced Release Updates in the Summer ’22 release, which is due for release around mid June 2022 for most orgs.

The key Release Update that is planned for Summer ’22 is the retirement of legacy APIs – this will only impact older orgs. But the headline: if your org is using API version 7 to 20 for SOAP, REST, or BULK APIs – you’re going to need to plan and make changes before the Summer ’22 release.

Spring ’22 Release for Developers: Key Features/Changes

Now let’s turn our attention to some of the new features being introduced.

This list is in no particular order and I am focussing more of general platform items that may apply more broadly. So product specific changes for Marketing Cloud/Wave/etc aren’t listed, as always please refer to the Release Notes for a complete list.

Workflow Rules & Process Builder Phased Retirement:

As per the announcement last year that Process Builder and Workflows will be retired. Salesforce has launched a beta of the new ‘Migrate to Flow’ Tool, aimed at helping Admins and Developers migrated existing Workflows to Flow.

Lightning Web Components (LWC):

Enable Third-Party Integrations with Light DOM

There is a new beta feature being introduced to give developers and integrations more control of the DOM. Salesforce is introducing the ability to render LWC via the Light DOM. By default Salesforce LWCs render in the Shadow DOM which presents developers some challenges re: global styling and third-party integrations.

With this beta, we can now set the renderMode static field in your component class.

Read the release notes for this beta feature here – as they outline how to use this new feature, and highlights a number of considerations about when you should/shouldn’t use it.

Secure Your Components Better, Stronger, Faster with Lightning Web Security

The Spring ’22 Release also sees Lightning Web Security (LWS) become ‘generally available’.

Lightning Web Security aims to replace Lightning Locker for Lightning web components. LWS works along with Lightning Locker, which is still used for Aura components.

LWC – New Module:

lightning/uiRelatedListApi (Beta)

This new module includes new wire adapters to get records, metadata, and record count for a related list.

• getRelatedListRecords—Returns record data for a related list.
• getRelatedListInfo—Returns metadata for a related list.
• getRelatedListsInfo—Returns metadata for multiple related lists.
• getRelatedListCount—Returns the record count for a related list.

LWC & Aura – Changed Components:

LWC: lightning-datatable 
Aura: lightning:datatable

This component introduces a new method openInlineEdit() allowing developers to programmatically change an editable focused field to edit mode from an external element such as a button. There are also some additional column properties introduced in this release.

To see this change in action, you can pop over here to read more.

Apex:

The Schema Namespace also includes a couple of method additions to the DescribeSObjectResult class:

• getAssociateEntityType() method returns an associated object of a specified parent but only if it’s a specific associated object type
• getAssociateParentEntity() method returns an associated object but only if it’s associated to a specific parent object

The example provided in the developer documentation highlightsAccount &Account History: Invoking the method on AccountHistory returns the parent object as Account and the type of associated object as History

Also another addition of note is relating to the System Namespace.

With a number of new Classes and Methods added in this release to help with hostnames and domains which are used within your org. This will reduce the need to create ‘workaround’ methods to calculate domain/hostnames when dealing with Lightning, sandbox names or Experience Cloud hostnames from within an org.

• System.Domain class:
  getDomainType() method returns the type of domain
  getSandboxName() method returns the name of the associated sandbox.

• System.DomainCreator class:
  getLightningHostname() method returns the hostname for your org’s Lightning pages
  getExperienceCloudSitesHostname() method returns the hostname for the system-managed domain for your org’s Experience Cloud sites

• System.DomainParser class:
  parse(hostname) method to parse a Salesforce owned hostname for your org, such as MyDomainName.my.site.com
parse(url) method to parse a Salesforce URL for your org, such as https://MyDomainName.my.site.com

• System.Test class:
  As mentiond below in Security, there is a new method introduced calculatePermissionSetGroup()
  

SOQL:

FIELDS() function

There is a change to improve the consistency of results and reduces errors when using this function in Apex.

Security Related:

• Test Permission Set Groups with the calculatePermissionSetGroup() Method
  Modify and recalculate permission set groups in Apex tests using the calculatePermissionSetGroup() method in the System.Test class. With this method you can force a calculation of aggregate permissions on a permission set group (PermissionSetGroup object) during a deployment.

• Enable Stronger Protection for Your Users’ Personal Information
  Enable Enhanced Personal Information Management to prevent external users, such as portal or community users from accessing other users’ personal information.
  
  This feature, which replaces the Hide Personal Information setting, secures more personal identifiable information (PII) user record fields. You can also decide which custom and standard user fields are considered PII.
  
  This update is available in Spring ’22 under Release Updates.

• Create HTTPS Hyperlinks by Default
  When you save content in Salesforce that contains a URL without a protocol, Salesforce converts it to a hyperlink by assigning the HTTPS protocol. For example, if you type example.com in a Chatter post, Salesforce converts it to https://example.com when you save the post. Previously, Salesforce assigned the HTTP protocol for hyperlinks. If a link requires the HTTP protocol, enter the http:// prefix as part of the URL.

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 is now live for most orgs, but there appears to be some changes included in the release which haven’t been documented :-O The great news for us Admins, the changes actually resolve a number of ‘simple’ problems we have when trying to calculate values in formulas.  So in this quick update we look at some of the new ‘hidden formulas’ included with Spring ’18 and some of the use cases where you might be able to apply them…

Update: 26/Feb  – Eagle-eyed Ekaterina has pointed out in the comments, there are even more additional formulas available!  Here is a link to her blog if you want to read more…

Update: 01/Mar – Salesforce have now scheduled an update to the Known Issue and scheduled an update via the Spring ’18 Patch 11.0.  To see what’s included, click here.

Hidden Formulas: ADDMONTHS

The first of the hidden formulas included in Spring ’18 is the new AddMonths function.

Imagine you need a formula to calculate a date, which based off another date entered on a record.  For example, you could see this in action in Contract End Date (contract start date + 2mth duration = contract end date).

The formula to add 2 months, while only using point and click Admin features, is quite little long winded (if you want to accurately account for Leap Years):

IF(
  MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12 ) = 2,
  IF(
    DAY( date ) > 28,
    DATE( YEAR( date ) + FLOOR( ( MONTH( date ) + 2 ) / 12 ), 3, 1 ),
    DATE( YEAR( date ) + FLOOR( ( MONTH( date ) + 2 ) / 12 ), 2, DAY( date ) )
  ),
  IF(
    OR(
      MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12 ) = 4,
      MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12 ) = 6,
      MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12 ) = 9,
      MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12 ) = 11
    ),
    IF(
      DAY( date ) > 30,
      DATE( YEAR( date ) + FLOOR( ( MONTH(  date  ) + 2 ) / 12 ),
       MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12 ) + 1, 1 ),
      DATE( YEAR( date ) + FLOOR( ( MONTH( date ) + 2 ) / 12 ),
       MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12), DAY( date ) )
    ),
    IF(
      MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12 ) = 0,
      DATE( YEAR( date ) + FLOOR( ( MONTH( date ) + 2 ) / 12 ) - 1, 12, DAY( date ) ),
      DATE( YEAR( date ) + FLOOR( ( MONTH( date ) + 2 ) / 12 ),
       MOD( MONTH( date ) + 2, 12), DAY( date ) )
    )
  )
)

GULP!!

But, now you will be able to use the AddMonths formula…

So you want to add 2 months, to a field containing the start date of the contract, it is now as simple as:

addMonths(date, 2)

To see more details, until the official documentation is available, visit Ekaterina’s post here.

Hidden Formulas: WEEKDAY

Also in Spring ’18, and a little more obscure, is the new WeekDay function.

It allows you to return a number (from 1-7) which indicates the day of the week, based on a date field within Salesforce.

Before, once again, you could retrieve this information – but it was again a bit cumbersome:

CASE(
  MOD( DATEVALUE(CreatedDate) - DATE(1900, 1, 7), 7), 
     0, "Sunday", 
     1, "Monday",  
     2, "Tuesday", 
     3, "Wednesday", 
     4, "Thursday", 
     5, "Friday", 
     6, "Saturday",
     "Error"
)

But now – simply use:

WeekDay(date)

And it will return for you, a number which represents the day of the week:

1 = Sunday
2 = Monday
3 = Tuesday
4 = Wednesday
5 = Thursday
6 = Friday
7 = Saturday

Hidden Formulas: CURRENCYRATE

The next hidden formula in Spring ’18, is CURRENCYRATE.

This formula will return the conversion rate used for a record’s currency code.

So for example, if you have the default currency as USD.  But the record’s currency is GBP – you can now retrieve what the conversion rate is between those currencies.  And then display it as a formula field or use it in reports.

CURRENCYRATE(IsoCode)

As a possibly obvious tip, Currency Management will need to be activate in your org before you can use this…

The returned value will be a number showing the currency conversion rate, eg 0.717412 (but you will be able to control how many decimals are shown).

Hidden Formulas: MFLOOR & MCEILING

These two final formula functions go hand in hand.  And now also available in Spring ’18!!

Previously, we did have access to ROUND function:

Round(decimalNumber, 2)

Where you could round a decimal number to the number of decimals you specified in the formula.  But you couldn’t force Salesforce to round up or down… Until now!

MCEILING will round a number up to the nearest positive whole number.  Whereas the MFLOOR will round down to the nearest positive whole number.

Both functions will return 0, if the input number is a negative.

So for example, if you have a number field which contains decimals but you want to round up or down, you can control this with these functions.

To round up, to nearest whole number:

MCEILING(number)

To round down, to nearest whole number:

MFLOOR(number)

Found any others?

No doubt Salesforce will be updating all relevant documentation and the Help site soon.  But if you have found any others, add them to the comments below!

For many businesses, now is the time to move to Salesforce Lightning.  But moving to Lightning can feel like a daunting task.  Where should you start?  How to you make sure you don’t disrupt the business?  So in this first post, we will take a look at how to plan your move to Lightning Experience.

In the next post, we look at how to implement your plan and go-live!  But in the meantime, if you have any tips of your own, feel free to add them in the comments section below.  And let’s start planning…

Planning your move

Before we start, let’s just clear the air.

As an #AwesomeAdmin you probably already know there is planning required to make the switch over.  The old adage – ‘failure to plan, is planning for failure’ – is never truer than when changing how a user works within a system.

But driving user adoption and making the transition as smooth as possible, doesn’t need to be overly complicated process though.  And by planning your transition you set yourself up for the best possible result.

So let’s get started.

WIIFM?!… What’s In It For Me?

One of the first steps to planning any change should to be understand the ‘what’s in it for me’.  It is the first question most users want to know about any change…

Sure Lightning Experience looks great.  You can now customise the colours to match your company identity…

But that doesn’t really engage end-users in using the platform.  After all we want them to use the system once we make the change, don’t we?…

Be honest with yourself.  Would a typical sales, customer service or partner really care about that?

Answering this question for each type of stakeholder is one of the best ways to ensure everyone buys-in to making the move.

A great example is dealing with a stakeholder from Sales.  Lightning offers many new features which benefit most sales users.  Here are a few…. Sales Path to guide on what to do in the system to move to the next stage.  Kanban board for managing your pipeline with drag-and-drop ease.  What about Sales Console?  Use of macros practically anywhere in Salesforce?

The point here is to you need to demonstrate you understand your end-users by understanding their problems.  If you understand the problem, you can effectively position a feature or benefit that solves it.  And this helps engage these stakeholders early on…

 Why should we invest in making this change?

The next step is to develop a business case.  It sounds horrible, but it can really help in convincing your senior stakeholders on why they should support the change.  And to drive adoption when launched, you need their support…

This may not be applicable for all business, but I always try to work out a rough cost/benefit to any changes my team make.  Even if it is just an estimate.  And this loops back to understanding the WIIFM within your business.

Every business problem – and in turn the potential solution – have a potential time/cost associated with them.

This is the gold dust in developing your business case to answer the question most senior stakeholders within business would ask,

As an example, a simple cost-to-benefit calculation could be based on decreasing sales admin time.  By improving the time taken to process and close a contract within the system, you can quantify the potential upside to the business.

So if an average salesperson closed an extra 2 deals a day/month/year due to improving the sales workflow in Lightning, how much is that worth to your business?  (average contract value * extra deals per day = potential upside).

Keep in mind, this is only an estimate.  But it can be a useful way to engage the business and to capture metrics relating to the success of the project once completed.

Mind the gap…?

Salesforce has spent the last couple of years attempting to make Lightning match the features of Classic.  But there are still some gaps between Classic and Lightning Experience.

The next item on our list is to check what these gaps actually mean your org.  By doing so you ensure your users can still use all key features they need.

If there is a feature gap or limitation, the next step should be to look at the publicly available roadmap.  This outlines the upcoming features planned for release and may cover the feature that is a priority for you.

Also each published version of the release notes now include a section on what is and what is not included in Lightning Experience.  For the Spring ’18 section, please have a look here.

Side note: The roadmap is scheduled to be updated after the Spring ’18 release, but a handy video to watch about the Force.com platform and upcoming features is the True to the Core video.  Or there is a breakdown of the expected features in the 2018 predictions post here.

Resources

Salesforce is clearly invested in supporting all orgs to move to Lightning Experience.  Releases now introduce most new features as Lightning Experience only.  But to help, there is a wealth of content available for free to sink your teeth into.

For starters there is a great Trailhead module specifically on getting hands-on with a Lightning Experience roll-out.  There is also a quick overview of the steps on the Admin blog.  But personally I highly recommend jumping to the Power of Us site, which has been setup to cover best practice for making the jump to Lightning.

Each and every org now also has the Lightning Readiness Check built-in.  And the check gets an update every release to give you more and more insight into your org’s compatibility into making the change.

If you want more information about how to take a business-first approach to rolling out Lightning, I found this article over on SalesforceBen.

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…