Last Updated on June 1, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta
Salesforce Summer’17 release notes preview is out. The Summer’17 release of Salesforce is now in available under the pre-release program. On 05th and 06th May Sandboxes will be upgraded so that your organization gets the look and feel of Summer’17 release. In this release, you can find a lot of new features as well as new enhancements related to Lightning Experience, and Search functionalities.
For example, Make the Lightning Experience the only experience, Navigate to a Record Directly from an Action Success Message, Lightning Console Split View, Access Field History related lists in Lightning Experience, and See Results from External Search Engines with Federated Search are now available in Lightning Experience.
Also, check out these beta and pilot features:
- Connect Your Content Management System to Your Community (Beta): – CMS Connect lets you bring your Adobe Experience Manager content, such as headers, footers, and banners, into your community. CMS Connect is available in communities that are based on Customer Service (Napili), Partner Central, and any Lightning Bolt solutions.
- Encrypt Sensitive Lead Fields (Beta): -You can now encrypt 10 standard fields containing personally identifying information (PII) in Lead records.
- Dynamically Update Flow Screen Fields (Pilot): -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. 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.
- Lightning Console JavaScript API (Pilot): – The Lightning Console JavaScript API provides JavaScript methods so that developers can programmatically control tabs, subtabs, and the utility bar in Lightning console apps.
- Lightning Data Service (Beta): – Use Lightning Data Service to load, create, edit, or delete a record in your component, without using Apex code. Lightning Data Service handles sharing rules and field-level security for you. Lightning Data Service also improves performance and user-interface consistency.
- Use Advanced PDF to Render Visualforce Pages as PDF Files (Pilot): – Advanced PDF renders Visualforce pages as PDF files with broader support for modern HTML standards, such as CSS3, JavaScript, and HTML5.
You can now convert an existing object level picklist to a Global value Set. To promote a single picklist field into a global value set, edit your picklist field by clicking Promote to Global Value Set button.
Lightning Experience is supported by Apple® Safari® version 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(EOL December 31, 2020). You can’t access Lightning Experience in a mobile browser.
Salesforce Classic is supported with Microsoft® Internet Explorer® version 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 Chrome™ are also supported. Below is the quick summary of Summer’17 release from user’s /customer’s
Customers/Users Point of view
1. Use Your Classic Email Templates in Lightning Experience: – Now it is possible to use Salesforce Classic email templates in Lightning Experience. You can use your Text, Custom HTML, and Letterhead email templates in Lightning Experience. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
2. Filter Your Case Feed in Lightning Experience: – Support agents can find what they are looking for in a case faster by using filters in feed-based case page layouts. This change applies to Lightning Experience only. For support agents, Lightning Experience feed filters work just like Salesforce Classic filters. Lightning Experience users see any custom feed filters created in your instance of Salesforce.
3. Filter Groups to Show Unread Posts: – Chatter groups now have a new feed filter, Unread Posts, to get you to unread content quickly. To see this filter, you must be a member of the group. This feature is available in Lightning Experience and Lightning communities.
4. Manage Members with Ease: – Now it is easy to manage Chatter Group because you no longer need to go to multiple places to take care of member business. Add or remove members right from Manage Members, or change them from member to manager (and back)—kind of like one-stop shopping but easier. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
5. Add Members to Campaigns from Reports in Lightning Experience: – You can now quickly add specific groups of leads, contacts, or person accounts to campaigns directly from standard and custom reports. This change applies to both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
- First, create a custom report on Lead or Contact object
- Then click on Edit | Add to Campaign button
- The next step is to select Campaign and Member Status, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Once you are done click on Submit button.
–> You can add up to 50,000 returned records to Campaign.
6. Keep Related Files and Records When Reps Convert Leads: – When sales users convert a lead, files and related records attached to the lead are attached to the resulting contact, account, person account, and opportunity records. This change applies to Lightning Experience, Salesforce Classic, and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
7. Path for Orders and Contracts: – Now you can help your users move faster through your business process by adding Path to your Orders and Contracts. 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. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
8. The opportunity Stage History related list is now available in Lightning Experience: – You can now review changes to an opportunity’s amount, probability, stage, and close date on the Stage History related list in Lightning Experience.
9. Add Dashboard Filters in Lightning Experience: – Now you can add, edit, or remove filters from your Lightning Experience dashboard directly from the lightning dashboard builder. Filters let people choose different views of a dashboard, so one dashboard does the job of many. Without dashboard filters, you would have to create multiple dashboards, each with its own set of filtered reports. For example, add a filter on the Billing City field to track Contacts by billing city. This feature is new in Lightning Experience.
- To add a dashboard filter, click + Filter.
- Then add filters, as shown in the following screenshot
10. Subscribe Other People to Report: – You subscribed to the Lead group by source report, and receive the report by email each morning. Now you can subscribe your whole team to the report, so everyone is up-to-date for the morning sync-up meeting. Either run the report as yourself, or as someone else. Recipients see emailed report data as the person running the report. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
To start or edit a report subscription, from the reports tab or from the report run page, click | Subscribe.
11. Create Report and Dashboard Folders in Lightning Experience: – Folders are key to sharing and organizing reports and dashboards. Now you can create them in Lightning Experience. Switch to Salesforce Classic to grant other people access to folders. This feature is new in Lightning Experience.
To create a folder, from the reports or dashboards tab, click New Folder.
–> (Another enhancement) If you haven not refreshed a dashboard in more than 24 hours, the dashboard now notify you with a helpful warning message.
12. Convert Attachments to Files: – You want to use the Files related list in Lightning Experience, but you still got have legacy attachments on your records. What to do? Convert them to files with the new Attachments to Files app from Salesforce Labs!
You can use the Attachments to Files tool to run bulk jobs that convert large numbers of attachments. Attachments are organized by the object they are associated to. After the conversion, you can delete the attachments from the org to free up space.
Users who have private attachments can also convert them to files. Because Lightning Experience does not support private files on records, users can make a converted file public and keep it attached to the record. They can also choose to keep it as a private file, but it is no longer attached to the record. Private files are located in Files home.
13. Reassign Approval Requests: – If you receive an approval request that someone else should approve, you can now reassign it to the person from any Salesforce experience. Previously, you could reassign approval requests only in Salesforce Classic. This change applies to Lightning Experience and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
14. Recall Submitted Approval Requests: – If you want to pull back an approval request that you submitted, you can now recall it from any Salesforce experience. Previously, you could recall approval requests only in Salesforce Classic. This change applies to Lightning Experience and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
15. Separate Data in Your Import File: – You can now import files with fields separated by either a comma or tab in the Data Import Wizard. Make sure that the CSV file contains only one delimiter character. Otherwise, your data can be split up incorrectly. To set a delimiter in the Data Import Wizard, select Comma or Tab from the Values Separated By dropdown.
16. Add and Edit Multiple Order Products: – In Lightning Experience, you can now add multiple products to orders and edit multiple order products at the same time. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
17. Supported Languages Changed and Added: – Dutch (Belgium) and German (Belgium) are now platform-only languages. When you specify Dutch (Belgium) or German (Belgium) as a language, labels for standard objects and fields fall back to Dutch or German, respectively.
Additional enhancements worth noting!
1. In Lightning Experience, besides sharing a Chatter post with your followers, you can also share it with a group. This feature is available in Lightning Experience and Lightning communities.
2. Now you can manage group email notifications on the Group Page. The type of email notifications you are currently receiving for a group display on a button next to the group image. Not getting enough notifications? Getting too many? Click it and change the setting. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
3. It is now possible to add members to Campaigns directly from the Contacts related list on accounts. This change applies to Lightning Experience and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
Administrators/Developers Point of view
1. Find Object Manager More Quickly: – Object Manager in Lightning Experience has a new look and helps you shorten load times. With a dedicated tab at the top of the Setup window, you can access quick actions, recent list views, and recent items. Details about your objects are easier to see on the screen, too. This change applies to Lightning Experience only.
2. Open More Tabs from Setup with Right-Click: – Setup now lets you open new tabs from List and Details views with right-click. Keep track of a multi-step process, like setting up new users, or keep a page open when taking multiple actions from that page. This change applies to Lightning Experience only. For example, to update several page layouts, you can open each one in its own tab.
3. Define Default Values at the Field Level: -Up until now, the same default field value applied for all users, and to change it, you had to update the default from Setup. Now you can also define a default value at the field level. The new field-level default has precedence over the values-level default. The field-level default value can be a constant or a formula. Let us say you want a custom picklist field on an Opportunity object to track the type of opportunity. In addition, you want to have a default type for the opportunities that are being created.
But what if you want to set up a different default type for another group of users? Imagine that you have EMEA Sales Reps in your org. You want all opportunities created by them to be treated with as New Customer. It’s now possible with new formula-based default field values. To add a default value formula:
4. Session-Based Permission Sets Are Generally Available: – Session-based permission sets apply to a specific session. Use a session-based permission set to allow functional access during a predefined session type. For example, let’s say your org has a custom object called Conference Room. A mobile app called Conference Room Sync has read and update access to the object. You can create a permission set to allow updates to the object only when the Conference Room Sync connected mobile app generates the user’s session.
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) Access Encrypted Data in Process Builder (Beta): – Process Builder now supports encrypted fields, except in filters, like in the Update Records action. For example, if you have encrypted Account Name, you can update that field’s value, but you can’t filter based on that field.
B) Stop Automated Field Updates from Suppressing Email Notifications (Critical Update): – For various operations, such as assigning a task to someone, you can choose to notify the affected user by email. This update stops processes, workflow rules, and Apex triggers from suppressing these email notifications. For example, you change owner of a case and, choose to notify the new owner by email.
Prior to Summer’17, those emails didn not always go through. If the change triggered a process, workflow rule, or Apex trigger that updated the same record, Salesforce suppressed the email. When you activate this critical update, Salesforce no longer suppresses the notification emails.
6. Visual Flow Enhancement: – There are several enhancements in Visual workflow, as follows:
A) Launch Flows in Lightning Runtime from Buttons, Links, and Custom Tabs: – Lightning flow runtime now plays nicer with custom buttons, custom links, and web tabs. Say goodbye to blank screens and tabs where you were expecting a flow to render.
B) Embed Your Flows in Lightning Pages (Generally Available): – 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 is operating on, Record pages send the ID to your flow automatically if you have the correct Text input variable configured.
C) Redirect Flows That Render in Lightning Runtime: – The URL parameter retURL lets you control what happens when a flow interview finishes. Lightning runtime now respects the URL parameter retURL. Previously, only the Classic runtime respected the parameter. This change applies to both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic. For example, create a custom button called Survey Customers with this URL.
/flow/Survey_Customers?retURL=home/home.jsp
–> In Lightning Experience, you can redirect a flow in a web tab only to a Visualforce page.
D) 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.
E) Access Encrypted Data in Flow (Beta): – Flow now supports encrypted fields, except in filters and sorting. For example, if you have encrypted Account Name, you can update that field’s value, but you can not filter based on that field.
7. Embedded Login Enables Users to Log In to Your Website: – Salesforce introduces the Embedded Login feature to authenticate your website’s visitors. Your web developers can add login capabilities to the website with just a few lines of HTML. Embedded Login connects your website with Salesforce. This feature works for communities created with either our Communities or Salesforce Identity products. This feature is new in both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
Embedded Login is another option for customers who want to authenticate their users through Salesforce, but their website doesn not support user authentication through SAML or OpenID Connect. To add Embedded Login to your websites, create your community with your desired branding. Then configure identity providers, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, Amazon, or PayPal. When the community is set up, web developers can add a login form to any web page on your site. Visitors log in using their credentials from any identity provider that you configured for your community.
8. New Change Set Component: – New components are available for deployment. The components available for a change set vary by edition. The Network (represents a community) components are now available for change sets.
9. New Lightning LockerService Critical Update Activation: – 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. LockerService, which has been a critical update since Summer ’16, is enforced for all orgs in Summer ’17. However, to reduce the impact on existing components, Salesforce adjusted the activation process.
LockerService is enforced for all Lightning components created after Summer ’17 (API version 40.0). LockerService is not enforced for components with API version 39.0 and lower, which covers any component created before Summer ’17.
10. Override Standard Actions with Lightning Components: – You can override four of the standard actions on objects—View, New, Edit, and Tab—using Lightning components. You can override these actions on standard and custom objects. Overriding standard actions allows you to customize your org using Lightning components, including completely customizing the way you view, create, and edit records.
–> Add the lightning:actionOverride interface to a Lightning component to allow it to be used as an action override in Lightning Experience or Salesforce1. Only components that implement this interface appear in the Lightning Component Bundle menu of an object action Override Properties panel.
11. Use the aura:valueRender Event Instead of a Custom Renderer: – When a component is rendered or rerendered, the aura:valueRender event is fired. Handle this event to react to component rendering or rerendering. The event is easier to use than the alternative of creating a custom renderer. Handling the aura:valueRender event is similar to handling the init hook. Add a handler to your component’s markup.
<aura:handler name="render" value="{!this}" action="{!c.onRender)"/>
In this example, the onRender action in your client-side controller handles initial rendering and rerendering of the component. You can choose any name for the action attribute.
12. Removed LockerService Restriction on instanceof in JavaScript : – Previously, Salesforce advised against using the instanceof operator in JavaScript code when LockerService is activated.
This restriction has been removed, except when checking arrays. Except when checking arrays, feel free to use instanceof in your components or upload static resources for third-party libraries that use instanceof in their internals. To check if a given object is an array, use Array.isArray(objToTest) instead of instanceof. LockerService uses the standard JavaScript Proxy object. Proxy doesn’t support using instanceof with a native array.
13. Access Visualforce Page Metrics Using the SOAP API: – To query metrics on the Visualforce pages in your org, use the VisualforceAccessMetrics object in the Salesforce SOAP API. Make a SOQL query in Workbench or Developer Console to get information from the VisualforceAccessMetrics object.
SELECT ApexPageId,DailyPageViewCount,Id,MetricsDate FROM VisualforceAccessMetrics
Each VisualforceAccessMetrics object tracks the daily page view count in the DailyPageViewCount field. The date the metrics were collected is specified in MetricsDate, and the ID of the tracked Visualforce page is specified in ApexPageId. Page views are tallied the day after the page is viewed, and each VisualforceAccessMetrics object is removed after 90 days.
Using VisualforceAccessMetrics, you can track the number of views each Visualforce page in your org receives in a 24-hour time period. To find out how many views a page received over the course of multiple days, you can query multiple VisualforceAccessMetrics objects for the same ApexPageId.
14. Retrieve and Deploy Metadata: – Salesforce uses metadata types and components to represent org configuration and customization. Metadata is used for org settings that admins control, or configuration information applied by installed apps and packages. Previously, accessing metadata required using the Metadata API, but you can now use classes in the Metadata namespace to access metadata components from Apex code.
Access metadata from your Apex code to handle tasks such as:
- Customizing app installs or upgrades—During or after an install (or upgrade), your app can create or update metadata to let users configure your app.
- Customizing apps after installation—After your app is installed, you can use metadata in Apex to let admins configure your app using the UI that your app provides rather than having admins manually use the standard Salesforce setup UI.
- Securely accessing protected metadata—Update metadata that your app uses internally without exposing these types and components to your users.
- Creating custom configuration tools—Use metadata in Apex to provide custom tools for admins to customize apps and packages.
Metadata access in Apex is currently limited to custom metadata records and page layouts. You can retrieve, create, or update custom metadata, but you cannot delete metadata through Apex.
15. New Option for Parallel Testing on the isTest() Annotation: – Use the @isTest(isParallel=true) annotation to indicate test classes that can be run in parallel and aren’t restricted by the default limits on the number of concurrent tests. This makes the execution of test classes more efficient, because more tests can be run in parallel. This annotation overrides settings that disable parallel testing by default. A test class that doesn not have this annotation is restricted by the default limits on the number of concurrent tests.
16. Add Validation Rules for Custom Metadata Type Field: – You can now create the validation rule for custom metadata fields. Use validation rules within custom metadata type fields just as you do for non-custom metadata type fields. You can also create validation rules for relationship fields. For example, let us say you create a custom metadata type named Employee Records. The type contains the relationship field Feedback__c, which has an entity relationship. You can create a rule that traverses the relationship to check if the related object is a custom object or field.
EQUALS(RIGHT(Feedback__r.QualifiedApiName, 3), '__c')
The syntax is like any other validation rule, but instead of choosing a field, you select the entity relationship field that you created.
17. Custom Metadata Types Support Long Text Area (Generally Available): – The Long Text Area custom field type is now generally available for custom metadata types. If you’ve been using workarounds to store longer strings, such as API keys, specialized markup, or SOQL queries, no more! Use Long Text Area fields instead.
18. Exclude Subscriber Orgs from a Push Upgrade:– If you push upgrades to your Salesforce managed package, you can now specify a list of subscriber orgs to exclude from any push upgrades. If you also publish the upgrade for subscribers, the excluded orgs can continue to pull the upgrade.
Salesforce1 Enhancements
Users have several options for accessing Salesforce1 on mobile devices.
- Install the Salesforce1 downloadable app on Apple® (iOS 10.0 later) and Android ™ (Andriod 4.4 or later) 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 selected Windows mobile (Microsoft Edge browser on Windows 10)
phones. This option doesn’t require anything to be installed.
1. See the Assignment Checkbox in Salesforce1: – Salesforce1 mobile app users can now see the Assignment checkbox on cases and leads. When you enable this feature, users can trigger assignment rules manually when cases and leads are created or edited. This change applies to all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
2. Get More Information About Records Before You Tap: – A secondary field appears below the primary record name in instant results for lookups. The field provides more contextual information to help users select the right record. For example, the location Mumbai appears under the company Apple Inc. to help users distinguish similar record names. Or a phone number appears under account and contact records. This feature is new in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
You can determine which secondary field appears to users by customizing the search layout. The second usable field in the Search Results layout appears as the secondary field in instant results.
3. Create Contacts Quicker from Account Records: – When sales reps create contacts from either the Contacts or Related Contacts related list on account records, the mailing address, phone number, and fax number from the account record are auto-populated on the new contact. This change applies to all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
4. View, Create, Edit, and Delete Case Comments: – View complete case comments in the case feed for Lightning Experience. You can also see complete case comments in the Case Comments related list, where you can edit or delete them. And you can create a Lightning Experience quick action for creating case comments that you can add to a page layout. This change applies to Lightning Experience and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
5. Get Answers on the Go With Knowledge Articles in Salesforce1: – Lightning Knowledge is available in Salesforce1! Search for and view Knowledge articles from anywhere, anytime using the Salesforce1 mobile browser app, the Salesforce1 for Android downloadable app, the Salesforce1 for iOS downloadable app and all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app. You can also access your Article Chatter feed to collaborate with others in your org on article quality and content.
6. Poll a Community from Your Mobile Device: – When users access communities through the Salesforce1 mobile browser app, they have one more publishing option in the feed: polls. Users can create polls in groups, profiles, and record feeds. This feature is available in the Lightning communities that users access through the Salesforce1 mobile browser app.
Note: – You can download release notes in HTML format! , for PDF file.
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.