Salesforce
Spring ’21 (SP21) Release Date. Here is Salesforce Spring
’21 (SP21) Release Notes
It might still be Winter, but the Salesforce
Spring release is right around the corner. As I’m sure Salesforce veterans
know, the three Salesforce releases per year are when us Admins, Developers and
Consultants get a bunch more features and tools to play around with and to
delight our customers and users. If you’re new to Salesforce, you’re in for a
treat!
There are many agenda items
you need to prepare for with each release, but at this stage, there are only a
couple of things you need to know: how to
prepare your sandbox, and when your instance gets upgraded.
Salesforce Spring ’21 Release Date
The first thing you should be aware of is when your
production instance will be upgraded to the Spring ’21 release. It’s important
that you test all your main use cases in Salesforce before this date to ensure
that everything continues to work. Although there is rarely any chance of this,
it’s important that these checks are carried out anyway.
The Release Date for Spring ’21 will depend on your
instance of Salesforce, but the main dates are on Jan 16th, Feb 6th, 12th
& 13th. If you already know the instance your production Org is
located on, you can head over to Salesforce Trust and
click on your instance name and hit “Maintenances”, this will show you the date
of the Salesforce Spring ’21 release hitting your Org.
If you don’t know your instance, the quickest way is to
head to company information within Setup in your Salesforce Org (Or look at the
URL link of Salesforce in your browser if you are not using Lightning or
MyDomains). If you’re new to Salesforce Trust and would like to learn more, I
recommend checking out Ines Garcia’s
post regarding signing up for notifications on
Trust.Salesforce.com.
Spring ’21 Sandbox Preview Information
The second thing you should be aware of is how and
when your Sandbox is going to be upgraded. This is extremely important
as this is the first opportunity you will get to test your system on the new
release. You can sign up for a pre-release Org here, but these, of course, will not have any
of your configurations.
Salesforce has two release
windows for Sandboxes, which depends on whether your sandbox is a “Preview”
instance or “Non-Preview Instance”. Stay tuned for more information on Sandbox
Preview, but the first upgrade will happen on Jan 8th 2021.
Spring ’21 Pre-Release Org
As mentioned above, Pre-Release Org’s are a great
way to get familiar with the new release before it hits your Sandbox’s. These
officially came out on the 10th December, and you can get access to one right
away from this link.
Since the release notes haven’t
been announced yet, you can perform what is usually referred to as a “Treasure
Hunt”, to try and find out what has changed since Winter 21.
Spring ’21 Release Notes
Although the dates mentioned are some of the most
important of the Salesforce release cycle, the most anticipated date is for the
Salesforce Release Notes. This is the first glimpse of the features and
upgrades that are being applied across the Salesforce suite of products.
Release Notes are scheduled to be released on the 21st December, and
have a new home over at Salesforce Help.
The Salesforce Ben team will be
bringing you the latest updates and features of Spring ’21 so sign up to stay
in the loop!
Get early access to the
release by signing up for a pre-release org
Sign up for the Spring ’21 pre-release org for
a sneak peek into the Developer edition features weeks in advance of the
release. This is a standalone environment that will allow you to test away
without worrying about breaking anything.
Preview the release notes
Come December 21, we’ll have the
release notes available here. For any newcomers here are a few tips you can follow when going
through the notes. Also, be sure to check out the updates from You Asked For It! where we deliver
changes based on thoughts you shared on IdeaExchange.
Last but not least, tap into the Release Readiness Trailblazer Community Group where
you can continue to get updates, share your favorite features, and ask
questions about the upcoming release.
January 8-9: Remember to refresh your
sandbox
January 8-9 is the refresh
deadline to get early access to all the Spring ‘21 features in your sandboxes,
but you need to take action before
January 7, 2021 (the day prior to Sandbox Preview) for your sandbox to
take part in the Spring ’21 Preview. This is a chance for you to have more fun
with customized features beyond the Free developer environment. Read the Sandbox Preview article for everything you need
to know.
January 8: Gear up for our latest
release module
Are you ahead on your badge game
already? Gear-up for our latest module, jam-packed with what you need to know
about the Spring ’21 release. This includes what will be featured and how you
can best navigate the tools available to power-up your business solutions.
January 12: Release overview deck and
feature matrix
Get hands-on with an interactive
experience and take a look at the Release
Overview Deck (ROD). This is where you can create internal training
for your users, review setup screens, and learn how to use new features. Once
updated for the Spring ’21 release, you can review the release
matrix with an overview of which features immediately affect
your users.
January 29 – February 5: Release
Readiness Live
Product Managers and Developer
Relations are back to share the latest features and functionality to help you
develop faster: enhancements to the Headless Commerce Toolkit, Lightning Web
Components, APIs, Sandbox Source Tracking, CLI Scanner – plus, how you can
write better queries, faster with all the news on SOQL.
Register for Release Readiness Live here.
February 12: All Orgs are now on Spring
’21!
Keep
the following in mind to stay up-to-date on all release updates:
Join us on the Release Readiness Trailblazer Community Group where
you can continue to get updates, share your favorite features, and ask
questions about the upcoming release.
Follow us around the world as we demo key new features and
share valuable resources to help you learn about Spring ’21.
10 of My
Favourite Salesforce Spring ’21 Features
We’re
nearing the end of one of the strangest years of all time, but there is hope
around the corner in the form of 2021. Until then, we have the Salesforce
Spring ’21 release to distract us. It’s that time of the year where Admins,
Developers & Consultants get a bunch of new features and functionality to
play around with, as well as users getting new productivity features and
improved UI.
Having just announced the release
date, sandbox
preview, and pre-release org information
for Salesforce Spring ’21, the release
notes are also now available! So in true Salesforce Ben
fashion, let’s dive into our top 10 features of this release…
1. Flow
Updates
Flow is truly becoming the rising star of the
Salesforce platform, with huge updates being made with each release, and Spring
’21 is no different.
Tim Combridge has already given
us a sneak preview in his Spring ’21 Treasure Hunt post,
but here are a few standout updates…
·
Lightning Flow has now been renamed to
Salesforce Flow. This incorporates a set of features that includes Process
Builder & Flow.
·
Flow now has the ability for time-based
flow actions to be set
·
Screen elements now allow for
Multi-Column support
·
Prior Values are now accessible in
Record-Triggered Flows
Stay tuned and sign up to our email newsletter
for more Flow updates.
2. Lightning
Page Performance
Since Winter ’21, Salesforce has provided us with
an overdue feature. The ability to analyze Lightning page performance. The
previous update provided some high level information about page loads time, but
in Spring ’21 the Page Analysis feature will show us predicted load time, as well
as performance breakdown by component.
In addition, you will also be able to analyze
page performance on mobile.
3. Einstein
Opportunity
Salesforce Einstein & AI is fast becoming an
imperative, not a nice to have. This was highlighted a few weeks ago when
Salesforce announced that Einstein now delivered 80+ Billion predictions a
day!
This is further being
democratized by Salesforce offering a number of features for free, including Salesforce Opportunity scoring.
However, previously this has required 200 Opportunities to be closed in order
to have the necessary data available to make predictions.
With Spring ’21, Salesforce has developed
global scoring models. This means for smaller, or new Salesforce customers,
they can get up and running with Opportunity scoring a lot quicker.
4. Manual
Sharing
Admins will be able to rejoice everywhere, the
“Sharing” button is now available in Salesforce Lightning! Your users will now
be able to share a record to a user, or group of users, just like back in the
day with Salesforce Classic.
5. Create
Relationships to Opportunity Product Object
It’s been 12 years since an idea was created on the IdeaExchange for this functionality, but finally, you will be able to create relationships to the Opportunity Product object.
6. Salesforce
Meetings
With the vast majority of the world’s meetings
taking place virtually at the moment, there is no better time than to take a
look at Salesforce Meetings.
Announced at the virtual TrailheaDX back in September, Meetings is set to
supercharge the way sales reps prepare and conduct their engagements with
customers. There are a couple of main features that have been highlighted in
Spring ’21
·
The Meeting Digest screen gives you a
summary of any meeting you are attending. Including attendees, any
opportunities you are discussing, tasks, activities, and meeting insights, powered
by Einstein.
· In addition, you have Meeting Studio. This provides a platform to help keep customers and prospects engaged virtually. Allowing smooth transitions between sharing content, as well as a place to take notes, document next steps, and collaborate with their team.
7. Monitor
Login Metrics
Back in 2018, Salesforce released the Lightning
Usage App, that provides insightful adoption metrics about your Salesforce Org.
Salesforce has extended the functionality of this Dashboard to now provide
login metrics.
This provides out of the box insights, diving into how users are logging into your Org. E.g. Password free using SSO, using 2-factor or any other multi-factor authentication. If you are tightening up how users login to your Org, then this is a great way to report on your success.
8. Quip
Rebranded to Salesforce Anywhere
Collaboration has been at the forefront of
Salesforce’s mission for a number of years. We have seen two huge moves this
year in the form of Salesforce Anywhere,
a new suite for collaboration directly on Salesforce records, as well as Salesforce’s biggest
acquisition ever, snapping up Slack for $27.7B.
Within the release notes for Spring ’21,
Salesforce Anywhere has expanded to include all the features from Quip. Is this
the start of a new offering that includes Salesforce Anywhere, Quip &
Slack?!
9. Article
Answers
One amazing statistic from Salesforce last month,
was the fact that Einstein Bots are now being used more than ever. With a 300%
increase in bot sessions since February, which is 680% increase year over year,
we are truly living in the future.
One feature that is currently in
pilot is the ability for Knowledge articles to be automatically suggest to
customers based on their interaction with the bot. Just one feature that is
building up Einstein Bots to
be a necessary channel in your Service organisation.
10. In-App Learning
If you’ve signed up for a Pre-release Org, you
might have noticed a new icon at the top right of your screen, this is the
“Guidance Centre” that provides an In-App Learning experience.
The idea behind it is to enhance your internal
training programs, by making learning easily assessable to users within
Salesforce. The Guidance Centre provides recommended Trailhead modules based on
your role, or the page you are currently visiting.
In addition, Admins can create Learning Paths
using public Trailhead modules, or myTrailhead modules if you use this product.
Bonus – Release Notes Home
You may have noticed that Release Notes now has a
new home, over at help.salesforce.com.
Spring ’21 is the first release to be shown
here, and includes an improved user experience, updated UI, as well as search
and filters. You will also find all of the previous releases on here as well.
Summary
I hope you enjoyed this summary of our favorite
Salesforce Spring ’21 features. Did we miss any out? What are you most looking
forward to?
Let us know in the comments below…
