By now, you know that Salesforce is gearing up for its Summer ’19 release, which will arrive in North American orgs on June 15. As usual, the release notes for this update are very long, but they do include a number of exciting new features to explore. If you get a chance, we encourage you to go read them in full—but for those of you who simply don’t have time, we’re providing some especially notable highlights here.
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Critical Updates to Expect
- An upcoming critical update will disable API permissions on external users for all profiles (including cloned profiles). In short, if you are using Communities in your org, you will just need to re-check the permission for each user after the update is activated.
- The way that Apex class callouts are being handled via Processes and Flows is changing. Some processes may fail if they are not modified before this critical update goes live.
Reminders and Retirement:
- Remember that Salesforce will automatically turn on Lightning Experience for all standard profiles as of the Winter ’20 release, which arrives October 2019. You can temporarily avoid this forced Lightning switch by creating custom profiles, however, Lightning is being swiftly implemented as the only option for Salesforce with each new release. It’s time to start planning for your transition if you haven’t already.
- The Customizable Forecasting feature is being retired in favor of Collaborative Forecasting. Among other changes, Collaborative Forecasting is designed to work in better alignment with Salesforce Lightning. While much of the tool remains the same, some features have been removed or replaced. If you’re using Customizable Forecasting, it’s time to start familiarizing yourself with the new tool and preparing for a switch.
- Analytics Classic Designer (Wave 1.0) is being retired. You will need to convert your dashboards to the new dashboard interface (Wave 2.0) prior to the Winter ’19 release – or lose access to those dashboards permanently. Do you need help maintaining your Salesforce org? Contact Launch Team for assistance.
Interesting New Features
- It’s now possible to build custom notifications and trigger them via the Process builder. Previously, notifications (such as external emails to a user) could only be triggered via Workflows.
- Similarly, it’s also now possible to create custom prompts in Lightning experience. This allows you to provide users an extra layer of information and guidance while navigating Salesforce, and can be especially helpful for training purposes.
- Lightning experience is now available for the Apple iPad. The feature is still in beta and will need to be activated, but this is something many users have been looking forward to for some time.
- Filtering features are now available for Related Lists, eliminating the need to create a new view in order to see records associated with slightly different criteria. Although it seems small, this minimizes tedium and eliminates extra clicks—a worthy accomplishment.
- Einstein Analytics continues to expand: you can now use Einstein probability and prediction data in your formula fields. As AI grows more and more ubiquitous, features like these will become essential to your Marketing and CRM loadout.
Salesforce issues seasonal updates three times per year, and each one is packed with new, versatile features and functionality. As you outfit your CRM to power your business, staying informed on these latest developments is critical.
