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).

Best of 2018: Top 4 posts from cirrus.red

The #1 Post of 2018: Secrets of Spring ’18

Spring ’18 brought out a few hidden formulas, which turns out were extremely useful and had been asked for from the community for a number of years.

Now the documentation for Spring ’18 release has been updated, so these are not-so-much-hidden now, but it was the #1 post of 2018 on the site.

The #2 Post of 2018: GDPR in Spring ’18

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.

The #3 Post of 2018: Passing the Platform App & Platform Developer I

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.

The #4 Post of 2018: What’s the difference between Process Builder and Workflows

And finally, the 4th most viewed post from 2018 was a quick guide looking at the differences between Workflow and Process Builder.

Wrap up

So no doubt 2019 will be even bigger than this year, and I will try to do a 2019 predictions article shortly!

And finally, I hope you have had a great holidays so far, and have a happy new year!

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.

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!

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

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.

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).

Additionally Salesforce has a new section in the Help for Data Protection & Privacy.

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.
• Salesforce has now also published a Data Protection & Privacy guide in the Help section, and
• check the Spring ’18 release notes, as there are a number of features changing (or added to the platform) due to GDPR

Additionally, I found a number of site relating to GDPR when preparing this post:

• Data Protection People has a post called, ‘The perfect CRM system for GDPR compliance’
• Next port of call, the ICO has published a 12 step e-book relating to GDPR.
• SalesforceBen also has an e-book detailing GDPR.
• And finally (and if you are really interested) here is an 88 page document from the EU relating to GDPR

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…

It is the holiday season, and it is a time for being with family and friends. It is also a time to celebrate the year that was, along with planning for the year that is to come. Can you believe it, it is now 2018…. And with a new year, comes new expectations. In the Salesforce world, this means new features and new use cases. In this post we are going to look ahead to a number of Salesforce predictions for 2018.

Salesforce Prediction #1: Salesforce revenue tops $12.5bn

This one shouldn’t be a a massive surprise, as it has been forecast in every quarterly update. But unless things go horribly wrong over the first three months, Salesforce will confirm it has sailed past the target of $10B revenue for its FY17/18 and pass $12.5bn for FY18/19!!!

Marc Benioff has been quoted in the media saying: “We did this faster than any other enterprise software company in history. Our continued momentum as the leader in CRM, the fastest-growing segment of our industry, combined with more than $15 billion in billed and unbilled deferred revenue, puts us well on the path to $20 billion and beyond.”

Why is this interesting? Firstly we could see Salesforce start acquiring more companies over the coming 12mths. Last year was all about bedding in the huge number of acquisitions from 2016. We are likely to continue to see new products and features from the purchases, but are there new ones on Benioff’s radar?

This will make the battle between the Enterprise SAAS titans all the more interesting over the coming year, as Salesforce’s competitors gear up to take on the CRM behemoth. 2018 will see this competition among CRM platforms heat up… Which can only be a good thing for us as they all push each other to further innovate.

Salesforce Prediction #2: Artificial Intelligence

Buzzword and passing fad? Or a trend to look out for? However you feel about it, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will still be all around us in 2018. Einstein has celebrated its first birthday in 2017. After a slow start, new AI-enabled features being rolled out more frequently now.

But it isn’t just about Einstein. Recently I attended the “Week of Innovation” here in the lovely Salesforce Tower (aka Heron Tower) in London. One of the sessions that caught my eye was a Salesforce Ventures presentation. In it they highlighted the venture capitalist strategy, but also their portfolio of recent investments. And a number of these are also looking to leverage AI to solve specific business problems.

For example, Digital Genius for AI in a Customer Service environment, TalkIQ for AI powered insight on call coaching your reps and Squirro for event-driven insights. All of these companies have been invested in by Salesforce Ventures, which shows that Salesforce is taking AI very seriously and looking to grow the AI & CRM ecosystem.

Salesforce Prediction #3: Dreamforce customisation features (my, my, my)

Another solid prediction… New features! My, oh my! But just bear with me…

If you have been to a Salesforce presentation… Everything starts off with the ‘Forward Looking Statement’ (used to be called the Safe Harbor Statement). And this section will be no different! 🙂

2018 will continue to see the standard 3x releases bring in a number of new features. So we will continue to be kept busy keeping up to date with all the planned features.

To start with, the big ‘my’ announcements at Dreamforce should all become available throughout 2018:

• myLightning and all the custom theme goodness, is due for release in Spring ’18 (it is in the preview notes)
• myTrailhead is expected to be generally available after a beta period. This is likely to be GA in H2 2018 (which is most likely to be the Winter ’19 release).
• mySalesforce, myIoT, myEinstein will also likely become available too either in Summer ’18 or Winter ’19.

Salesforce Prediction #4: New features keep on coming, to Lightning though…

Another prediction for 2018: Salesforce will continue the trend of “Lightning Experience only” with new features. But what features can we expect to see in 2018? I have dug through a number of online videos, presentations and roadmaps to find out what is coming our way and here are some of the best features I found:

Reports and Dashboards

Reports and Dashboards in Lightning will get a lot of attention over the coming releases:

• Dashboard tables will get reworked. Instead of being tied to the source report, the upcoming feature will allow you to have access to all the fields on your report type. (Likely Spring ’18 & Summer ’18)

• Dashboard & Chart colour configuration allowing you to essentially create a custom look for your dashboard. (This should be available in Spring ’18)
• Winter ’18 brought us Dashboard & Report folders within Lightning. But next year we will likely see the ability to create subfolders. (Likely in Summer ’18)
• 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. (Likely Summer ’18)
• Joined Reports in Lightning (Likely Summer ’18 via beta/pilot)
• Ability to sort columns based on aggregate (Likely Summer ’18)
• General usability updates, including ability to resize columns on reports and rename field labels in the report (Likely Winter ’19).

Dynamic Lightning Components

We saw the first iteration of this in Winter ’18 release, but there will be more ways to control dynamic components in upcoming releases. Potentially including the ability to filter the component by who the user is or by device being used.

The presentation I saw on this actually went as far to say that Salesforce are working towards being able to release dependent page layouts… Which would be fascinating in the possibilities it would unlock for Admins and Developers on the platform!

Lightning & Lists

Inline edits when in list view have been in Lightning now for a number of releases. But the ability to mass action/update records has been limited.

Moving forward, we will see a number of improvements to how you can work with lists when in Lightning. Things like the ability to mass change owner of records. Or updating multiple records from a list view with a Lightning Action…

When will we see these? Well it is on the future roadmap for post-Spring ’18 releases.

Wrap up

So that is it for now. That was a glimpse at the crystal ball for 2018.

As we all know, Salesforce is an ever-evolving beast of a platform. It will no doubt continue to drive industry-specific focus via packaged CRM features for industries (like Health Cloud or Financial Services Cloud). Are we likely to see a Retail Cloud some time soon?

The year ahead also introduces a number of challenges for Admins, Developers and Specialists in the form of new privacy regulations. The largest change coming our way is GDPR, for companies dealing with individuals within the European Union.

But as with every year, there is always a lot to look forward to. So happy new year and let the good times roll!

Share your predictions

Do you have any Salesforce predictions of your own? Feel free to share in the comments section below.

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.