Spring 16 for Financial Services

It doesn't feel much like Spring here in the Northeast recently (the dog didn't want to get walked when it was 15 degrees out), but no weather can stop the new Salesforce Spring 16 release. Once again, it is time to take a look at the new release with a Financial Services lens (ski mask?). It is also going to be tough to sift through new features and functions to pick out a few that are not specifically Lightning enhancements.

Get Mass Email Opt-Out and Bounce Indicators Before You Send

Email is certainly not dead and opting out is just a fact of life. Now in both Lightning and Classic when sending an email to someone, an indicator will pop up saying if they have opted out or have a bounced email; one less email to send and one less to opt out of.

Monitor Group Member Activity in Group Report

A lot of companies like to use Chatter, specifically Chatter Groups, to track competitor information; sharing the latest hints and tricks to help in the sales cycle. As Admins we like to know who is using what. Now with this Spring 16 feature we can run reports showing us how many members, posts, comments and likes. Adoption is a thing of beauty.

Encrypt Data in Communities

The compliance people can rejoice (or maybe just relax a little) because Spring 16 brings encrypted data into Communities. This means that community members (Partner, Customer, Employee) can now be given the ability to view encrypted data as plaintext. A great enhancement for collecting personal information in the finance world.

Files Without Chatter

A lot of financial services firms are a little wary of Chatter (don't they know about Compliance Locker?) so until now they also couldn't enjoy the power of Files. Salesforce is now freeing Files from its parental guidance of Chatter by making it something that can be turned on without Chatter. Add to that getting email notifications around Files without Chatter and you have a winner.

Speaking of Chatter, here is a surprise...

Chatter Messenger Unavailable in New Orgs Starting Spring '16

I had to read this one more than a few times to make sure I got it, but it sounds like Chatter Messenger is being put out to pasture. While the feature will still be supported in Classic for existing orgs, it sounds like Messenger is not going to make the jump to Lightning.

So just a handful of the many many new things coming in Spring 16. Do you have some favorites or some duds, drop them in the comments below, post them in the Success Community on our Facebook page or directly to me @JasonMAtwood.