Spring 16 for Developers
Spring ‘16 is jam-packed with Lightning features, and as you peel to cover back, there’s a set of enhancements that stand out as excellent for developers. We’ve seen a bunch of great additions over the past few releases, like Custom Metadata Types and their maturity, easier deployments with selective test execution, and Named Credentials. Here are some new features in Spring ‘16 that we’re excited about.
Create Apex Test Suites
Do you have a collection of tests for a specific business process? Do you have a lot of business processes? Apex Test Suites allow developers to create a collection of test classes and bundle these into a “test suite”. Test suites can be created from the Developer Console, and make it easy to streamline process testing when there are any modifications to existing business processes. It also saves a few clicks, which any developer can appreciate.
Run Script After Sandbox Creation
Do you have multiple environments for development, QA, and user acceptance testing? Or, do you not have a partial or full data sandbox, and need to push data after each refresh to create sample business scenarios? Developers now gain the power of running an Apex class after sandbox creation. An Apex class can be used to create test records that mimic business scenarios commonly seen in production; this saves time for developers, and also allows business users to rest assured that development is occurring with nearly “real” data.
Moarrr Sandboxes!
Do you have an org with only 1 developer sandbox? Developers rejoice, you now get at least 24 more sandboxes starting with Spring ‘16! A stripped down Enterprise Edition org will only provide 1 developer sandbox, which can make it difficult for developers to work on different workstreams, and do production releases. This is a huge addition for larger development teams and organizations that are striving for regular release schedules for different functionality.
Visualforce for Lightning Experience
Do you have someone that turned on Lightning Experience, but can’t use that cool Visualforce page that is mission critical? Probably not, but if you do, Visualforce is now supported for Lightning Experience as a beta. This helps bridge the gap between Classic and Lightning Experience, as we’re seeing tons of new features being added to Lightning Experience, and some Classic features were left on the platform as the train left the station. Even though Visualforce is supported (as a beta), it’s probably time to start familiarizing the dev team about Lighting Apps, Pages, and Components.
Do you have a favorite Spring ‘16 feature? Did we include it or miss it from our post? Let’s talk about it below in the comments, via Twitter @RogerMitchell, on our Facebook page, or in the Success Community!
