With the Salesforce Winter release dates behind us, it’s time to evaluate all of the new innovations added to your Salesforce ecosystem. Let’s just say that many users will be excited about the features added to this release cycle; plus, there were many anticipated updates that have finally come to fruition.
Let’s dive right in and get to the meat of the release that will appease the administrator community, automate internal processes and close many operation gaps, and promote more team collaborations for you and your clients.
Search Capabilities and Admin Processes
These updates make an admin’s day-to-day work more streamlined, automated and convenient when it comes to getting things done.
● Configure Searchable Objects: This update allows admins to determine searchable objects available by Profile. This will allow users to broaden their search capabilities of records and more quickly and easily find what they need. For example, you can search for a picklist value and see all the records with that chosen value. Users, especially those in larger organizations, have been wanting this as it will streamline their process for customers. *This is in beta.
● Refine Your Search Results With Sort: Another win in the Search department – now you can sort your searches by different attributes and column headers. A nice “sigh of relief” feature for users, allowing them to find what they need faster. *Created because of users’ input on IdeaExchange.
● Dynamic Forms on Standard Objects: Administrators will very much appreciate this update as it streamlines the admin process with enhanced page performance and optional visibility rules. This will be rolled out everywhere except in three areas: Campaigns, products and tasks (though we really look forward to when this will be available here.) *Created because of users’ input on IdeaExchange.
AI
Since Einstein was introduced to the Salesforce community, it has helped users work smarter and faster, which is why seeing some of these key updates come to light, as noted below, has been a game-changer for many.
● Ability to Report on Emails Captured by Einstein Activity Capture (EAC): When EAC was first introduced, it was a huge weight off of admins because there was no more logging and it helped synchronize all conversations in one place. Over time, you couldn’t access or report on the data because it lived outside of SF, so you couldn’t compare it to other data in Salesforce, i.e., how many conversations does it take to close a deal? However, with this new update, you can! This is an enormous feature gap that has been filled, and will ultimately save people time and money as many would outsource this work to third-party vendors. *Created because of users’ input on IdeaExchange.● Call Summaries Powered by Einstein: This is fully available, and just a generally cool feature where Einstein will record voice and video calls and transform them into summaries that are editable and include next steps and customer feedback.
● Conversation Sentiment Analysis: This feature goes hand in hand with the call summaries because now, customer success agents can listen and view sentiments of a conversation between agent and customer, distinguishing if they are happy, calm, disgruntled, etc. There’s a sentiment score and visuals provided for easy reporting as well. This is a great feature for agent performance grading and identifying coaching opportunities.
Flows
Flows continues to be a priority and focus for Salesforce, and they certainly delivered on giving users what they want with these improvements.
● Screen Flows With Reactive Components: Users and developers will very much appreciate this update as it reduces the number of screens they have to click through. With reactive components, the user interface can react to the user and what it puts on the screen. Previously, in order to use the choice a user selected, you’d have to click “next” for it to recognize and load the next screen. This could turn into three to four “next” clicks to get where you need. Now, the choice can be calculated on the fly and the dependent choice will appear below, without the need for extra click-throughs!
● Custom Error Messages in Record-Trigger Flows: What was once an automated feature, now puts the user in the driver seat. With a custom error message, you can now create targeted – and user-friendly – error messages for your customers and explain what went wrong and/or how to correct it. This is a big win in our opinion, which will not only save the end user headaches and blockers but will also save your admin or consultant time researching where and what happened. This is now generally available – during the Summer release, this was still in beta. *Created because of users’ input on IdeaExchange.
● Autolaunched Flows Based on Data Changes in Data Cloud: Based on a data model object or calculated insight object, you can start a data cloud-triggered flow. This allows you to apply flows to your data cloud, storing all of your business data, and of course Salesforce data too.
Callouts
It wouldn’t be fair to close out the review of this release update before highlighting a few noteworthy callouts that will surely resonate with certain users, which include:
● Automated Site Check-Ins and Check-Outs: For mobile workers, this new feature protects their privacy while also tracking the times they arrive and leave job sites. It provides automated timestamps for location-based actions and gives you a report based on those insights. This is being piloted so not fully available yet.
● Controlled Tabs and Sub-Tabs: This change is currently in beta, but will resonate with the day-to-day user as it makes it immensely easier to manage these tabs with the methods they provide.
There’s a lot to experience and discover within the Winter ‘24 release, from increased workflow to automated operations; any user will be happy. But Salesforce also delivered for its users. Many of the ideas posted on IdeaExchange are now reflected in these new features, which just goes to show that Salesforce is listening. Let’s continue using these innovations and work with Salesforce to continue bettering the overall experience for us and our customers. We can only imagine what Salesforce will conquer with the Spring ‘24 release!
