Last Updated on April 15, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta

With each new release, Lightning Experience is getting faster, quicker and easier to maintain. Winter’20 release will give you a plethora of reasons to switch to Lightning Experience.

Migrate to avoid migraine!

Starting October 2019, Salesforce will turn on Lightning Experience for all orgs on a rolling basis. What does it mean? If you are still using Salesforce Classic user interface, you have only a few weeks (Approximately, 40 Days) before Salesforce turns on Lightning Experience in your Org. Users still have access to Salesforce Classic after Lightning Experience is turned on. But Lightning Experience is where you want to be for driving business growth and improving productivity.

You have limited time to plan and migrate to Lightning Experience. Now what? Well, you have two options:

Take advantage of the lead time – before Lightning Experience is turned on – to understand how your org’s features and customizations perform in the new interface and prepare your users via change management.
Or, hmm… ugh! adopt ‘head in the sand’ approach – i.e., don’t do anything until October 2019 – and invite migraine!

Since the choice seems like a no-brainer, what is your game plan?

What? Don’t have one? No worries! Check out this article by Salesforce. The article will give you enough knowledge to start, plan and execute your Lightning Migration. Since you are at it, also check out my article on Lightning migration.

Winter is here

Currently, Winter’20 release is available under the pre-release program. On the 6th and 7th of September, Sandboxes will be upgraded, as a result, your organization will get the look and feel of Winter’20 release.

In case you have not read the entire 540 pages of Salesforce Winter’20 release notes, check out Winter’20 release quick summary written by me.

I combed through the release notes and highlighted the most exciting, interesting, and useful Lightning Experience features. Since Lightning Experience is getting faster and better with every release, it was a challenge to stop at just ten! To kick things off, here is my take on the coolest Lightning features from Winter’20 release.

1. Count Unique Values in Report Results (Beta):- See how many distinct values your report returns with a unique count. For example, opportunity reports often list multiple opportunities with the same account. Add a unique count to the Account Name column to see how many individual account values appear in the report. Unique counts appear as grand totals at the bottom of the report and as subtotals for each group.

To enable it, navigate to Setup (Gear Icon) | Setup | Feature Settings | Analytics | Report and Dashboard User Interface Settings and select Enable Unique Row Count Aggregate in Reports (Lightning Experience Only).

2. Filter Reports Using Field Comparisons with Field-To-Field Filters (Beta):- Filter a report by comparing the values of two different report fields. For example, see which cases were modified after the closing date by filtering on cases with a last modified date after the closed date.

To enable it, navigate to Setup (Gear Icon) | Setup | Feature Settings | Analytics | Report and Dashboard User Interface Settings and select Enable Field-to-Field Filtering in Reports (Lightning Experience Only).

3. Access the Recycle Bin in Lightning Experience: – You no longer have to switch to Salesforce Classic to access the Recycle Bin. You can now view, restore, and permanently delete the items in your Recycle Bin and the org Recycle Bin.

Access the Recycle Bin by selecting it in the App Launcher under All Items or personalizing your navigation bar.

4. Set Record Page Component Visibility Rules Based on Device: – Give your mobile users exactly what they need on record pages by showing or hiding record page components based on the type of device they’re being viewed on.

For components on record pages, you can now show or hide a standard or custom component on a record page based on the device it’s viewed on.

5. Lightning Experience Configuration Converter: Scanning and Preparing Visualforce Pages, Hard-Coded URLs, AppExchange Packages, and More: – Streamline and automate common transition tasks using the Lightning Experience Configuration Converter. The Lightning Experience Configuration Converter scans your org for hard-coded URLs, JavaScript Buttons, Action and Buttons.

Salesforce has made the Actions and Buttons tab generally available. And the tool now helps with AppExchange packages and hard-coded URLs.

6. Find the Right Record Faster with Recommended Result (Beta): – Recommended Result gets you to the right record faster when Salesforce is confident that they know what you’re looking for.

At the top of your search results page, you see a preview of the record. That way you know instantly whether it’s the one you want. It’s not only highly visible, but it’s also actionable. The same actions that you have on the record page are here too, so you can get more done without leaving the search results page (1).

You can also take actions on the recommended result’s related records. Under Related List Quick Links (2), hover over a link to see up to 10 related records and their available actions.

To see the complete list of related records, click View All. The list opens on a new page.

7. Put the Pro in Profile with profile-specific Search Results Layouts (Beta): – Search results should show what matters most. If you’re in sales, knowing the account owner and the industry is critical. If you’re a service rep, the account’s support level is key information. With profile-specific layouts, you can fine-tune search results layouts for an object for each unique profile in your org. Profile-specific layouts are supported only by objects with customizable layouts. Users who don’t have a profile-specific layout assigned to them see the default search results layout.

8. Make Your Lightning Apps Accessible on Phone, Desktop, or Both: – When you create or edit a Lightning app, you can configure which form factors it supports and can be viewed on. Creating an app just for your mobile app users? Designate that Lightning app for a phone.

You can give this feature a try in Lightning App Builder right away, but your changes won’t be visible to users until the new Salesforce mobile app is released the week of October 14, 2019 (if you are not part of Beta/Pilot program).

9. Set Public and Private Visibility of Feed Items in Case Feed in Lightning Experience: – Agents can control whether a feed item is public or private in Lightning Experience and in Lightning Service Console. Agents can mark feed items public to make them visible to both internal and external users. Feed items marked private are visible only to internal users. Previously, this feature was available only in Salesforce Classic.

10) Add Tabs and Accordion Components to Your Home Pages::-You can now use the Tabs and Accordion components on Home pages in Lightning Experience. You can create, update, and delete tabs, then change their order. Or, use the Accordion component to organize your components into collapsible sections.