Author: Peggy Schael | Salesforce Trainer | WeLearnSalesforce
It’s been an interesting year so far with a lot of changes for many of us. This includes your Salesforce career decisions and learning strategies. It’s all about keeping up with the new features and enhancements.
Earlier this year, Salesforce announced that certifications now only require one maintenance module per year. This means, you no longer have to stress about three deadlines, only one. For the curious amongst you, Salesforce will offer two optional badges three times per year so you can still keep your skills sharp during the entire year. Make sure to check the Certification Maintenance Schedule.
The Winter ’21 release cycle is in full swing. And we wouldn’t be WeLearnSalesforce if we wouldn’t encourage you to keep up-to-date on your Admin skills. And so, we want to share our favorite Winter ’21 Release Highlights with you:
#1 Email Template Builder
Designing Emails in Lightning got an exciting upgrade: the Email Template Builder. Just like the Lightning App Builder, you can drag and drop components to the Email Template layout. This makes creating Email Templates so much easier and fun too.
Tip: Create a Permission Set with the “Access Drag-and-Drop Content Builder” permission and assign to relevant Users.
#2 Flow Auto-Layout
Creating Flows feel scary? Well, they can seem difficult to achieve, however Salesforce is making your flow life easier with each release. One of a number of exciting flow updates is the Auto-Layout feature. Instead of using the free form layout you can switch to the new Auto-Layout and have the Flow structure itself. So you don’t have to worry about chaotic flow alignments anymore.
No Tip, just use it. 😉
#3 Dynamic Forms and Actions
These awesome new features are now generally available to everyone in most editions. With Dynamic Forms you can pretty much integrate the Lightning App Builder with your Page Layout Editor, allowing you to choose which page layout sections and fields should appear where and under what circumstances. You can add filter criteria to display relevant information when needed. And this includes Action buttons like Edit, Delete, New Task etc. that you can add to your pages dynamically as required.
Tip: You will need to migrate existing Lightning Record Pages to a Dynamic Form first, or you can create one from scratch without the need to migrate. But don’t worry, you can get help from the in-app tips window.
#4 Analyze Lightning Page Performance
Loading Lightning Record Pages can feel like watching grass grow. However, there is good news. You will now find a new button in your Lighting App Builder “Analyze”. This will populate a window with an assessment of the current page and offer recommendations with improvements.
No Tip, just use it. 😉
#5 Deleted Fields
No more switching to Classic in order to access deleted fields that you want to undelete or erase or just check out. One more feature that is now fully integrated with Lightning. Woohoo!
No tip, just use it. 😉
#6 Subscribe to Reports as Email Attachment
Finally! Users can now choose to have the report attached to the email as a file. Until now, Users were only able to view the Report as a table in the email body. This was a long awaited update.
Tip: You need to enable this feature in the Report and Dashboard Settings.
#7 Auto Add Fields to Custom Report Types
Maintaining Custom Report Types can be cumbersome if not frustrating. This includes adding new custom fields, which had to be done manually. This is over! You can now have new custom fields automatically added to your Custom Report Types. If you want to.
Tip: You need to enable this feature in the Report and Dashboard Settings.
#8 Find Changed Deals
Monitoring changes to deals has only been available through Historical Trending Reports. Now, you can easily view changes to Close Dates or Amounts right from your Opportunity List or Kanban Views.
Tip: This will be available for customers with the Unlimited Edition and needs to be enabled in the Opportunity Settings.
#9 Einstein Opportunity Scoring
Many Einstein features are paid, this one is no longer. Opportunity Scoring are now available to everyone. For those of you that don’t know what it is: The Opportunity Score indicates how likely a deal is to close and shows (on hover) which factors contribute to this score.
Tip: You need to turn it on in the Einstein Sales Assisted Setup.
#10 Salesforce Anywhere App
A whole new Salesforce App? Yes indeed. And it’s looking amazing. With this entirely new app, your Salesforce Users will be able to receive update notifications for changes on records. Users will also be able to access a chat window to share updates, even use video or voice messaging. And Users will be able to share links to records and take immediate actions. All from within the same window.
Tip: To integrate with your Production org and if you don’t have access yet, you can sign up with Salesforce through this form.
Getting up-to-speed on all these exciting release features is only half as exciting if you cannot earn any points to add to your shiny Trailblazer Profile. Therefore, check out more Winter ’21 Release Highlights with this Trailhead Module: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/winter-21-release-highlights
There’s so much more to explore, we can’t possibly put it all in one article. What are your favorite new features? Let us know in the comments.
WHAT ELSE…
Are you a Salesforce Beginner or want to freshen up on your Admin skills? Then check out our complete Salesforce Administrator Certification Course. It covers all the basics you need to know as a successful Salesforce professional with lots of hands-on exercises.
And if you are not sure what you know or don’t know, how about you test your knowledge with our realistic Practice Exams. You get lots of business scenarios and the results include detailed explanations and plenty of learning resources.
