Last Updated on June 1, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta
Yesterday(19/12) Salesforce published Spring’17 release(Preview) notes. The Spring’17 release of Salesforce is now in available under the pre-release program. On 06th and 07th January Sandboxes will be upgraded so that your organization gets the look and feel of Spring’17 release. In this release, you can find lot’s of new features as well as new enhancements related to Lightning Experience, and Search functionalities. For example, Favorite your favorite records, Lightning for Gmail (Beta), All Setup now opens up in a new tab, Kanban view for most of the objects, Orders, Opportunity Products and Collaborative Forecasts are now available in Lightning Experience.
Also, check out these beat and pilot features
- Add Skype to Lightning Record Pages (Beta): – You can now add a new Skype for Business component to the Lightning App Builder. Add it to your record pages to get Skype controls that let you see who’s online, initiate audio and video calls, and chat.
- External Services: Connect to Salesforce Using a Wizard, Schema, and Flow (Beta): – Now you can use External Services to connect your Salesforce org to a service of your choice.
- Long Text Areas in Custom Metadata Types (Pilot): – Some configuration data often require longer than the 255-character text field limit. Until this release, storing longer strings, such as API keys, specialized markup, or SOQL queries, required workarounds using text fields. Now, you can create, package, and deploy long text areas as a custom field type.
- Encrypt Your Data in Chatter (Pilot): – Shield Platform Encryption now offers another layer of protection for sensitive information shared in your Chatter feed. You can encrypt feed posts, questions and answers, link names, comments, and poll questions all with one click.
Salesforce has added another shortcut option to the instant search results dropdown. When you know which object you want to search, start typing the name of the object in the search box. You have the option to limit your search to that object. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
Lightning Experience is supported by Apple® Safari® version 8.x, 9.x, and 10.x on Mac OS X and Microsoft® Edge for Windows® 10. The most recent stable versions of Mozilla® Firefox® and Google Chrome™ are also supported. Microsoft® Internet Explorer® version 11 is retiring starting in Summer ’16. If you’re using Microsoft® Internet Explorer® versions 9–10, you’re redirected to Salesforce Classic. You can’t access Lightning Experience in a mobile browser.
Salesforce Classic is supported with Microsoft® Internet Explorer® version 8, 9, 10, and 11, Apple® Safari® version 8.x, 9.x, and 10.x on Mac OS X, and Microsoft® Edge for Windows® 10. The most recent stable versions of Mozilla® Firefox® and Google ChromeTM are also supported. Below is the quick summary of Spring’17release from user’s /customer’s
Customer/User’s Point of view: –
1.Filter Questions in Groups in More Ways: – You have more ways to look at questions in your communities and Lightning Experience group feeds. You can already sort questions, now you can filter them, too.
This feature is available in Lightning Experience and in communities based on the Customer Service (Napili) template.
2. Create Custom Feeds with Chatter Streams: – Now you can put together the information that’s most useful to you in your own custom feeds with Chatter streams. You can create up to five Chatter streams that combine posts from different feeds and different feed types. Combine feeds from people, groups, and records, like your accounts, opportunities, and cases. This feature is new in Lightning Experience.
You don’t have to follow a person, group, or record before you add it to a stream. You can add 25 unique feeds, records, groups, and people to a stream.
3. Live Comments Are Better Than Ever: – Salesforce enhanced live comments for better usability. For example, an animation now shows you when people are commenting. Right by that animation is a list of up to three people who are actively typing comments. This feature is new in Lightning Experience.
4. Create Shortcuts to Your Top Salesforce Pages with Favorites: – Favorites let you quickly access important records, lists, groups, dashboards, and other frequently used pages in Salesforce. They’re similar to bookmarks in a web browser but better because your favorites are available no matter which device or browser you use to log into Lightning Experience.
5. Web-to-Lead: reCAPTCHA Web Form Validation: – You can now improve the quality of your sales teams’ leads with the reCAPTCHA widget. The reCAPTCHA widget requires interested customers to select a checkbox before they can submit an inquiry about your product. Enabling spam filtering lets sales reps focus on actual prospects, and not on spam leads.
If you want to enable reCAPTCHA for Web-to-lead form then navigate to Setup | PLATFORM TOOLS | Feature Settings | Marketing | Web-to-Lead, and select Enable spam filtering (recommended) checkbox as shown in the following screenshot
If you want to use Google reCAPTCHA then refer this article.
6. Order object is now available in Lightning Experience: – Manage the lifecycle of Orders associated to an opportunity with more bells and whistles in Lightning Experience.
7. Path for Quotes and Custom Objects: – Now you can help your users move faster through your business process by adding Path to your quotes and custom objects. Visually display the steps in a process, highlight key fields, and provide guidance such as handy links, policy information, and tips to users at each step. When setting up a path, choose which of the object’s picklists steps in the path are based on. For example, if you’re creating a path for a custom object called Build Out with picklist fields Percent Complete and Build Stage, choose which field to base your path on. After activating the path, add it to page layout. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
8. Lead Assignment Rules Visible in Lightning Experience: – You can now see the Lead Assignment checkbox on new leads in Lightning Experience. This change applies to Lightning Experience only. Previously, the Lead Assignment Checkbox wasn’t visible in Lightning Experience.
9. Get More Context with Snippets in Article Top Results: – Excerpts from Knowledge Articles on the Top Results page help you to find what you’re looking for faster. Top Results shows the best matches for your most frequently used objects. It’s also the first page users land on when performing a Salesforce search. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
10. View Dashboards as Other People in Lightning Experience: – You can now create the dynamic dashboard in Lightning Experience or set view dashboard as specified user in Lightning Experience.
11. Move Dashboards Between Folders in the Lightning Experience Dashboard Builder: – If your org is using Enhanced Analytics Folder Sharing for Reports and Dashboards, folders govern who has access to the reports and dashboards saved inside. To move a dashboard from one folder to another, open the Properties menu in the Lightning Experience Dashboard Builder.
Funnel and scatter charts are now available in the dashboard component editor. Use a funnel chart to show relative measured amounts by stage.
12. Subscribe to Reports in Lightning Experience: – You can now subscribe to reports in Lightning Experience. Subscribe to up to five reports and receive refreshed report results by email on a schedule you set: daily, weekly, or monthly.
13. You can now allow your marketing users set up and manage the campaign member status values for each campaign when you add the Campaign Member Statuses related list to Campaign page layouts. This change applies to Lightning Experience and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
14. Salesforce bringing more power to Chatter in Lightning Experience, including the ability to invite external users to your groups. Simply add external users to groups with their email addresses.
15. List Views in Lightning Experience Default to the Last One Viewed: – No longer do you see that pesky Recently Viewed list every time you navigate to a list view in Lightning Experience. Instead, the list view you worked with last on that page is the one you see when you return to the page.
16. Add Salesforce Files to a Record from the Related List in Lightning Experience: – You can now attach Files to a record, right from the files card. No Chatter? No problem! You can attach Files Connect files and library files too. This change applies to Lightning Experience only. Previously, to attach a file from Salesforce to your record, you had to post it in the record’s Chatter feed. Now, in Lightning Experience and communities, you can attach Salesforce files to a record as easily as a local file.
Developer Point of view: –
1. Assign Record Pages by App, Record Type, and Profile: – Now you can customize your users’ experience even more granularly by creating custom record pages and assigning them by app, record type, and user profile. Give your sales managers a different view of opportunities than your sales reps.
When you activate a custom record page in the Lightning App Builder, you now have few options activate a page as the org default, app default, or for the most granularity, assign it to a combination of apps, record types, and profiles all in one place.
2. Customize Your Lightning Pages Even More with New Templates: – You now have more templates to choose from, increasing your page design options. There are three app page templates and five record page templates. The app page templates adjust dynamically between Lightning Experience and Salesforce1. The record page templates are supported in Lightning Experience only.
The new app page templates are:-
- Header and Left Sidebar—Full-width header above a left sidebar and main column. On a tablet in portrait orientation, the columns below the header are equal width.
- Header and Three Columns—Full-width header above three equal-width columns. On a tablet in portrait orientation, the first column becomes the main column with the other two regions stacked in a right sidebar.
- Header and Two Columns—Full-width header above two equal-width columns.
3. Add the Related Record Component to Your Lightning Pages: – Now you can give your users the record details they need most. Use the Related Record component to customize your Lightning pages and display the details of a related record, including the parent record, on any record page. This feature is new in Lightning Experience. For example, display associated contact on a case or show the details of a case’s parent case.
4. Display Pending Approval Requests on Home Pages: – Now onwards you can use the new Items to Approve component to display approval requests that your users haven’t responded to yet. This component is supported only on Home pages. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
5. Processes Can Execute Actions on More Than One Criteria: – Streamlined the icons in Process Builder to match the rest of Lightning Experience and are piloting support for encrypted data. This feature is available in both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
A)Process Builder Has Updated Icons: – The next time you open Process Builder, check out our new icons. To match it with Salesforce Lightning Design System Salesforce swapped out the old ones.
B) Access Encrypted Data in Process Builder (Pilot): – Process Builder now supports encrypted fields, except in filters, like in the Update Records action.
6. Visual Flow Enhancement: – There are several enhancements in Visual workflow, those are followings
A)Run Flows with a Lightning Skin (Generally Available): – Have you ever wanted your flows to look better, similar to Salesforce Lightning Experience? If yes then navigate to Setup | Build | Create | Workflow & Approvals | Process Automation Settings and select Enable Lightning Runtime for Flows (Beta) checkbox. After this when you launched from a URL or Setup use the Lightning runtime experience instead of the classic runtime experience.
B) Embed Your Flows in Lightning Pages (Beta): – You can now add flows to any Lightning Page – App pages, Record pages, and Home pages alike. All Lightning Pages are available in Lightning Experience (and App pages are available in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app). Your flow might need the ID of the record that it’s operating on, Record pages send the ID to your flow automatically if you have the correct Text input variable configured.
C) Display Flow Screens in Two Columns (Generally Available): – When you build flows that collect lots of information, their screens can render as a never-ending skinny column of fields. Break up the layout of those screens by rendering specific flows in two columns. This feature is available in Lightning Experience, Salesforce Classic, and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
D) Customize the Look and Feel of Flow Interviews (Pilot): – You can now use the REST API to customize the flow run-time experience to your heart’s desire. For example apply your company’s branding, Create two-column layouts, Create choice buttons, etc.
E) Dynamically Update Flow Screen Fields (Pilot): – You can now use field rules to control when to show or hide particular screen fields. Turn your flows into guided UIs that respond to users’ inputs and selections. Save your users time by showing only what they need when they need it. This feature is available in Lightning Experience, Salesforce Classic, and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app. However, it takes effect only for flows that use Lightning runtime.
F) More Context for Flow Error: – Some of the messages you see when a flow fails are error codes that are generated by the API, Apex, or another service. To help you make sense of these error codes, Salesforce cleaned up some common messages and added links to relevant documentation. For example, Let’s say your flow tries to create an opportunity without a value for Close Date, which is a required field. Compare the error messages.
Winter ’17
INSERT — INSERT FAILED — ERRORS : (REQUIRED_FIELD_MISSING) Required fields are missing: [CloseDate]
Spring’17
This error occurred when the flow tried to create records: REQUIRED_FIELD_MISSING: Required fields are missing: [CloseDate]. For details, see API Exceptions.
G) Enforce Field-Level Security for All Flow Operations: – Now it is possible to enforce field-level security for all flow operations. For example, if the running user doesn’t have edit access to one of the fields, the flow fails, and you receive an email with details about why it failed. For Fast Create and Fast Update elements, you choose whether to enforce field-level security or ignore inaccessible fields. This change applies to both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
To control the behavior, toggle the Filter Inaccessible Fields from Flow Requests preference on the Process Automation Settings page in Setup. If your org was created in Winter ’17 or earlier, the preference is enabled by default; otherwise, the preference is disabled by default. Refer the following table to see how change impacts your flows.
|
When Filter Inaccessible Fields from Flow Requests is |
||
|
Selected |
Not Selected (Recommended) |
|
|
Result when the running user doesn’t have edit access to all fields |
The operation partially succeeds. The flow filters read-only fields out of the operation. The fields that the user can edit are updated. The fields that the user can’t edit aren’t updated. The flow doesn’t execute the fault path. |
The operation fails. No fields in operation are updated. The flow executes the fault path if there is one. |
|
Notification when one or more fields aren’t updated |
No notification is sent to the user or admin to indicate that some fields weren’t updated. |
The admin receives a flow error email with full details. |
|
Compared to Record Create and Record Update elements |
Inconsistent |
Consistent |
7. Reference Lightning Design System Assets with the $Asset Global Variable: – Use the $Asset global variable to access images, sprites, and other assets that are part of the Lightning Design System. Use it in Visualforce pages that also use the <apex:slds> component. For example, this markup references a JPG avatar in the Lightning Design System.
<apex:page> <apex:slds />
<span class=”slds-icon_container slds-icon–small slds-icon-standard-account” title=”Contact Avatar”>
<img src=”{!URLFOR($Asset.SLDS, ‘assets/images/avatar1.jpg’)}” alt=”Contact Avatar” />
</span> </apex:page>
8. Use the Lightning Design System in Visualforce Pages: – Now you can use the <apex:slds> element to incorporate the Lightning Design System in your Visualforce pages and align them with the styling of Lightning Experience. This component is a streamlined alternative to uploading the Lightning Design System as a static resource and using it in your Visualforce pages.
9. New Lightning LockerService Informational Setup Page: – LockerService enhances security by isolating individual Lightning components in their own containers. LockerService also promotes best practices that improve the supportability of your code by only allowing access to supported APIs and eliminating access to non-published framework internals. The new Setup page describes the LockerService critical update and provides links to more information. The page increases visibility for this important critical update. The page is purely informational and doesn’t include any settings.
- From Setup, enter LockerService in the Quick Find box.
- Select Lightning LockerService.
LockerService remains a critical update for Spring’17. LockerService will be automatically activated for all orgs in the Summer’17 release. Before the Summer’17 release, you can manually activate and deactivate the update as often as you need to evaluate the impact on your org.
10. Share Lightning Apps with Non-Authenticated Users: – Add the ltng:allowGuestAccess interface to your Lightning Out dependency app to make it available to users without requiring them to authenticate with Salesforce. This interface lets you build your app with Lightning components, and deploy it anywhere and to anyone. To begin with, add the ltng:allowGuestAccess interface to your Lightning Out dependency app. For example:
<aura:application access=”GLOBAL” extends=”ltng:outApp” implements=”ltng:allowGuestAccess”>
<aura:dependency resource=”c:storeLocatorMain”/>
</aura:application>
11. Apex Stub API Is Now Generally Available: – Apex provides a stub API for implementing a mocking framework. A mocking framework has many benefits. It can streamline and improve testing and help you create faster, more reliable tests. You can use it to test classes in isolation, which is important for unit testing. Building your mocking framework with the stub API can also be beneficial because stub objects are generated at runtime. Because these objects are generated dynamically, you don’t have to package and deploy test classes. You can use the stub API to build your own mocking framework, or you can use one built by someone else.
12. Only One Test Setup Method per Class is Allowed: – You can now have only one test setup method per Apex test class. A test setup method is a method annotated with @testSetup. In previous versions, multiple test setup methods were allowed due to a bug, which has now been fixed. If you run Apex test classes that have more than one test setup method, you get a compile-time exception. Update your code and rerun the tests.
13. Monitor the Status of Apex Batch Jobs: – After Spring’17 release you will get more information about the status of Apex batch jobs. For a particular batch class, you can get information about parent jobs, such as submitted and completion dates and the number of batches processed or failed
- From Setup, enter Apex in the Quick Find box, and select Apex Jobs to view all Apex jobs for your org.
- Click the link at the top of the page to go to the new batch jobs page and see all Apex batch classes.
14. Get More Information with Streamlined AppExchange Listings: – Salesforce has simplified AppExchange listings so that you can view key product details with fewer clicks. On listings that include a package, you see more about what the package contains, such as the number of components that can be used in Lightning App Builder. This change applies to both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
15. Customize the Highlights Panel with More Action Buttons: – Make your record highlights more useful by including up to 10 action buttons on the highlights panel. Previously, the limit was three. Salesforce has updated the label to reflect this change and renamed the option for displaying the highlights panel in a compact view. These highlights panel customizations are available in Lightning Experience only.
16. When LockerService is activated in sandboxes or Developer Edition orgs, you can’t edit rich-text fields, and the fields are grayed out. Rest assured that the limitation is only temporary for Spring’17. As per release notes, Salesforce is going to remove this limitation before LockerService is activated for all orgs in Summer’17.
17. See More Code Coverage Results in the Developer Console: – You can now view all your code coverage results in the Developer Console, even when you have more than 2,000 Apex classes and triggers. Previously, the Developer Console displayed only up to 2,000 rows of code coverage results.
Salesforce1 Enhancements: –
Users have several options for accessing Salesforce1 on mobile devices.
- Install the Salesforce1 downloadable app on Apple® and Android ™ mobile devices. Users can download the app from the App Store or Google Play™.
- Access the Salesforce1 mobile browser app from a supported mobile browser on Apple and Android devices, or select Windows mobile phones. This option doesn’t require anything to be installed.
- In Spring ’17, the minimum mobile operating system requirement for iOS devices is iOS 10 or later.
1. See Lead Scores in Salesforce1: – If your org turns on Einstein Lead Insights, sales reps can use Salesforce1 to keep track of which leads are most likely to convert. Lead scores are available from any lead list view that includes the Score field. This feature is new in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app. Lead insights on lead detail pages are available in Lightning Experience only.
2. Get Better Access to Quotes in Salesforce1: – The Quotes item is now available from the Salesforce1 navigation menu. From the Quotes home page, mobile sales reps can easily view all their quotes. And reps can quickly find specific quotes with global search.
3. Create Follow-Up Tasks in Salesforce1: – Complete and up-to-date task lists are a critical productivity tool for your on-the-go sales reps. Now when reps want to follow up on completed tasks or need a new task that’s related to a current one, they can create follow-up tasks in Salesforce1 instead of waiting to get back to the office. This feature is new in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app. Salesforce1 users can create follow-up tasks in two ways.
- From a task list—Swipe left on a task, tap the action menu icon, and then select Create Follow-Up Task.
- From a task—Tap the Create Follow-Up Task icon in the action bar. Depending on your org’s configuration, users may need to open the action menu to see the icon.
4. See up to 200 Groupings on Enhanced Charts in Salesforce1: – In Salesforce1, Enhanced Charts display twice as many groupings as before. Users can now see up to 200 groupings by scrolling through charts in reports and dashboards. Previously, a maximum of 100 groupings per chart was available.
5. View Bar + Line Combination Charts in Salesforce1: – Dashboards in Salesforce1 now display bar charts that include line charts. Bar charts with line charts drawn over the bars are great for tracking two measures in a single set of data. Use this chart type to track the sum of closed opportunity amounts (as a bar) by the average probability to close opportunities (as a line) over time.
6. Make Calls or Send Email from Profiles in Salesforce1: – It is now easy to reach out to your colleagues while on the go using your Salesforce1 for Android downloadable app and Salesforce1 mobile browser app users. Phone and email fields on profiles—in the highlights area and on the record detail page—are now links that users can tap to instantly start a call or send an email message.
Note: – You can download release notes in HTML format! Moreover, for PDF file.
Good News: – SOO happy to announce that I was featured on Salesforce corporate website. Check it out here: https://www.salesforce.com/products/salesforce-advantage/
Formative Assessment:
I want to hear from you!
What is one thing you learned from this post? How do you envision applying this new knowledge in the real world? Feel free to share in the comments below.
You and Your Notes are always Mind blowing !!!
You are really a Really a CHAMP of Salesforce community !!! Keep Rocking.
Thanks for your kind words!