Salesforce.com Service Enhancements in Winter 15

Enhanced searching and navigation on cases are the main themes that run through the Service release notes for Winter 15. The ease of the search functionality can make a huge impact on the efficiencies of users in Salesforce by decreasing the amount of time it takes them to find information. It is so great to see this much energy put into upgrading the search functionality. Also, they’ve made it even easier to navigate the case feed and console,allowing as much information to be accessible in one place. I will walk you through the enhancements that are definitely worth mentioning.

Case Feeds

As noted above, Case Feeds have become easier to search and navigate than in earlier releases and it just continues improve with this release. Here are highlights of some great enhancements coming our way.

• Show Agents More Case Information in Less Space with Compact feed

• Add and Work with Addresses More Easily in Case Feed Email Messages

• Case Feed Files Component Supports Drag-and-Drop

Compact feed allows agents to see more information about the case in the Console without having to scroll as much. You can see the case history more easily. Having this information directly in front of you will help you resolve these cases that much faster. Now within email actions, when you search by name you will see a hover list with associated email addresses. You can literally start typing the 1st few letters of the name and the options will begin to pop up. You will also be able to drag and drop attachments right into the Case Feed File Component. These enhancements will help you really provide better case support in less time.

Knowledge

Knowledge has really been making some strides in ensuring information is more accessible and this Winter 15 release is no different.

• Monitor Salesforce Knowledge Search Activity

• Nex-Gen Knowledge Search Gives Users More Relevant Article Search Results

A new article-related object, called Knowledge Search Activity, has been created that will allow anyone managing Knowledge to build custom report types. These report types will allow managers to generate reports that will provides information about how the articles are performing. The managers can use this data to make informed decisions about needed improvements that will benefit end users. And now…..drum roll please…...Nex-Gen Knowledge Search, which was only a pilot for the summer release, is now officially happening this Winter 15. This enhancement has literally made the search feature smarter. You cannot underestimate how critical it is to have searching be as easy as possible. The upgrades are a bit technical but are so worth mentioning here. It provides “faster indexing” (records searchable quicker upon save), “improved alphanumeric search” (able to now search for URLs, phone number, emails), and “improved tokenization” (texts broken down into small chunks to make searches faster, great for searching in different languages). These searching capabilities will make finding information a much better experience and you can focus more on resolving issues rather than trying to find information.

Salesforce Console for Service

Summer 14 provided great enhancements to help you have as much information at your fingertips to provide the best support and with Winter 15, it’s only getting better. 

• Articles Suggested for Cases are More Relevant (Beta)

• Users Get the Latest Search Capabilities

• Add the Files and Case Expert Tools to the Salesforce Console

• New Look and Feel for Salesforce Console

Although only in beta, the upgrade to searching for more relevant articles is worth mentioning as a part of the theme of search enhancements. The search engine will have better functionality to help find the articles that most closely match your search words. SmartSearch is now included in Salesforce Console. There is no longer a need to use the dialog box to select the object type to search and you can customize how the search results will appear. What were previously only tools on the feed based case layout in the sidebar component in Summer 14 release, the ability to attach files to cases and find other agents knowledgeable in particular areas can now actually be added as console components. You can see any files associated with cases and add them to email messages. I won’t go into too much detail on the new look and feel for the Salesforce consoles but wanted to highlight a few. Lookup Component can now display multiple columns. Users can get details about items in related list component by simply hovering over the related list item. Inline editing can now be used in the lookup component (how cool is that?).

I can literally go on and on with talking about the many great service enhancement but will stop here. I hope I have given you a taste of what’s to come and have excited you as agents everywhere to start, if you have not already, checking out these great enhancements in the Winter 15 Release notes to learn more. The easier it is for you to navigate to the information you need and search and find relevant items, the faster you can work to resolve cases, making your job a whole lot easier. Isn’t that exciting?

If there are additional features in this release that are standing out to you, please feel free to comment below, in the Success Community, on our Facebook page, or directly at me on Twitter @sylviacabral44.