Despite what we want to believe, the weather is getting colder and the seasons are changing. As we inch closer to the New Year, those of us at 501Partners are gearing up for Salesforce’s Winter ’15 update, and we want to get you in the spirit, too! In addition to addressing the additions and changes requested on the IdeaExchange, Salesforce will be improving just about every facet of the current system. No need to panic, though! Unlike the drastic and alarming changes that some tech companies implement, this will still be the Salesforce that you know and love, just with minor fixes and improvements So, what exactly will be new in the Winter ’15 update?
Deal with your duplicates. The Winter ’15 update will feature duplicate alerts and blocking which will allow you to keep clean and accurate data in Salesforce. You’ll be able to control whether and when you allow users to create duplicate records and to customize the way that Salesforce identifies these duplicates. It’s a beta feature, but should be out of testing soon.
Improve your mobile Chatter experience. If you’ve ever wished there were more ways to view Chatter from your Salesforce1 app, Winter ’15 is your answer. You’ll be able to see snapshots of Chatter activity and to click on the thumbnails in your dashboard to get a more complete view.
Lower data usage with new Outlook features. You will soon be able to allow your users to select only the attachments that are important to them into Salesforce via a new Outlook sidebar option. This will reduce your company’s data usage.
Have more control over your Activities. Winter ’15 will let you take control of your activities by adding custom lookup fields. If you’re tired of having to choose which type of record is most important to activities, you’ll find your solution in this update. Now, you can track events, meetings, and tasks related to partners, suppliers, trainers, and whatever additional record types make sense to your organization. You’ll have to contact Customer Support to get this part of the update, but the extra step will be worth it.
Advanced Setup Search is still expanding. With the new release, Advanced Setup Search will allow you to search for even more individual items – including workflow rules and email templates – by name. This feature will be in beta for a while, but when it is fully updated, you will be able to search for more than a dozen new items.
Automate time-based processes with Wait. Wait, a part of Winter ’15, will let your users automate processes that require a waiting period. For example, you can create a flow that activates a contract, waits until one day after the contact is activated, and then emails the constituent with a feedback form. After you add the Wait element to a flow, you will configure it by defining the elements that it needs to wait for. Each event can also have wait ‘conditions’ which determine whether the flow should wait for the associated event during run time.
Use login flows to customize and manage user authentication. This feature will allow administrators to build post-authentication processes to match their business practices, associate the flow with a user profile, and send the user through that flow as they log in. What’s the practical application? Use the login flow feature to collect registration information from users, provide terms of service and an acceptance form, prompt the user for a second form of authentication, among several other practical customizations.
As you can see, there are a lot of things to get excited about in the Winter ’15 update from Salesforce. They have listened to feedback and are creating a more user-friendly, better experience for customers. We’ll be on the lookout for other enhancements as we lead up to this new release, but for now, you can click here to see Salesforce’s full documentation of Winter ’15.