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.
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
Salesforce WEEKDAY formula
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:
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
Salesforce MCEILING formula
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 upto the nearest positive whole number. Whereas the MFLOOR will round downto 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!
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.
