Winter 17 - The Good Stuff

While we love to blog about the new Salesforce release, sometimes we just focus on the clouds (Sales, Marketing, etc.) or give a rapid reaction. For Winter 17, I am going to try something new and just highlight things that made me smile or cheer. I call these things "The Good Stuff."

Stay-In-Touch Requests & Cloud Scheduler are Retiring

Ok, so these are not really all Winter 17 features, or actually features at all but one can never start planning for retirement too early. The Stay-in-Touch feature has long been the bane of the Administrator's life so I am jumping for joy at its long overdue retirement. The Cloud Scheduler, while once a cool idea, was never given more love, updates, or a training hand to get full adoption. Also notable retirements coming to a release near you are the LinkedIn Pilot and Chatter Answers. Salesforce must be buying those gold watches in bulk.

Lightning Login

While I am not so keen on everything getting a "Lightning" marketing makeover, this feature could be the most time saving for the next 10 years. This new "no password" feature takes two factor authentication to the next level, just click your username, tap to approve a mobile application notification and enter in a pin or fingerprint. Now that is pretty neat. It is also nice to see Salesforce catching up with the times using Touch ID and fingerprints for authentication.

Back Up and Restore Your Connected Accounts in Salesforce Authenticator

Speaking of logins and security, this new feature will allow the Authenticator application to back and restore your accounts from one device to another. This is great for when you lose (crazy party) or upgrade (fell in the toilet) your new phone and don't want to go through all the hassle of setting things up again.

Run Flows with a Lightning Skin (Beta)

Saving the best for last and getting to the heart of an ugly user interface. For years (and years) Flows have been a powerful, if dated looking, feature of Salesforce. They allow for a more wizard based, multi-step data collection with decisioning along the way. While the underlying feature was great, the look and feel left a lot to be desired so getting a new "Lightning Skin" is a nice new addition. Hopefully this is the start of the merge between Flows and Processes which seem like a natural direction.

Do you have a favorite Winter 17 feature? Comment below, on our Facebook page, in the Success Community or directly to me @JasonMAtwood