The Summer 16 release has now been deployed for over a month and we at Arkus have been implementing many of the new features. Here’s a partial list of enhancements that we have implemented with our clients that received favorable feedback.
Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic
- Contacts: Associate a Contact with Multiple Accounts - This long overdue feature has been widely embraced as users are pleased with being given the ability to associate a single contact with multiple accounts. Administrators have been hard at work to deploy this feature and clean up existing Contact records. Shoutout to Salesforce for the superb help content “Set Up Contacts to Multiple Accounts” which includes an extremely helpful video.
- Processes Can Execute Actions on More Than One Criteria - This is a significant improvement to Process Builder that allows you to manage what happens after your process executes a specific action group. Now you can have the process stop or continue on to evaluate the next criteria in the process, effectively managing multiple process for a single object. Process Builder continues to evolve into a more robust tool with every release and we hope it continues to receive needed attention to resolve outstanding concerns.
Console for Service
- Set up Service Cloud Features in a Flash with Launch Pad Templates - The addition of templates has significantly streamlined console configuration. Administrators just enter “Launch Pad” in the Setup Quick Search box, then choose to deploy a Standard or Branded Console, or Service Reports & Dashboards. The new math: Templates = Win
- See What’s What with Responsive List Hovers - This is a rather nifty feature that allows console users to peek into list-view rows. It appears to be a seemingly small enhancement but it is one that can greatly increase productivity and is certainly better than those pesky non-stop movie trailers.
Lightning Experience
- Customize Home for Different User Profiles - create custom Home pages that appear for different profiles in your org. Display and organize useful components, and assign different pages to different types of users. You can even create and edit pages for leads, contacts, and other types of records.
- Team Up to Work Accounts in Lightning Experience - Account teams are now available in Lightning Experience, allowing for increased access to the account and its related records.
- Create New Accounts Lightning Fast with Account Autofill - This is slick, have you tried it yet? This usability enhancement saves users from having to type the full company name as it offers suggestions as you type. As a bonus, the account website, phone, and billing address will populate in the record if they are available without having to type them.
- Visualize Your Business Like Never Before with Account Logos (Beta) - This feature shows company logos on account records, yet another visual usability enhancement. I’ve had limited success in getting logos for smaller to medium companies to appear but it seems reasonable to expect that this will improve over time.
- Create a Calendar from Anything in Salesforce - This is another long overdue feature that allows anyone to create a calendar from a standard or custom object by choosing a date field representing what they want to track. It’s simple to create a calendar and you can display a single or multiple calendars, they are color-coded so you can easily distinguish between them. Users are empowered to manage their own calendars - they can apply a list view to filter, as well as edit and delete calendars they’ve created.
This monumental Summer 16 Salesforce release has quickly proven to be a success. Do you have some favorites that we didn’t mention? Please feel free to comment below, on the Salesforce Success Community, on our Facebook page, or directly at me on Twitter @sfdcclicks.
