Spring 17 for Lightning
If you haven’t noticed by some of the recent posts on the Arkus Blog, Lightning is here to stay. And that is reinforced with every release by the massive amounts of additions and tweaks to the platform. Some big, and some small, let’s talk about some of the new features being brought to us by the ever-evolving Salesforce Lightning Experience in the Spring 17 release.
Search for Contacts Using the Account Name
Ever find yourself in a position trying to remember John what's-his-name from the company you spoke to last month? Yeah, me too… but breathe a sigh of relief, there is a new feature to help people like us. Now you can easily search for a specific Contact within your org by using the Account Name as help. For example, typing in ‘Ryan Arkus’ in your search bar would bring back yours truly. I think this is a great new feature.
Subscribe to Reports in Lightning Experience
Sometimes you read the release notes and you come across something that makes you think, “Wait… how was that not already a feature?” This is one of those situations. You can now stop having to remember to log into Salesforce and check those reports every Monday morning. Subscribe to up to five reports and have the report emailed to you on a set schedule: daily, weekly, or monthly. In the email you’ll receive a link, click on it and be directed right to the report. This is a nice little jump in convenience for LEX.
Embed Your Flows in Lightning Pages (Beta)
Customization is king, am I right? Flow has yielded a sometimes frustrating, but ultimately rewarding experience every time, and I have learned to really like it. For those who are unfamiliar with Flow, it’s an application that can execute logic, interact with the Salesforce database, call Apex classes, and collect data from users. You can now build and add a Flow component to your Lightning Pages just like you would any other component. Imagine the possibilities! This new feature provides a new level of customization and flexibility to Lightning Pages.
Add the Related Record Component to Your Lightning Pages
One of my favorite things about working with Salesforce is that creating efficiency is at the core of everything I do. With this update, you can quickly show details associated to the record that you are viewing. This means that you could show details of a Contact associated to a Case or show information about a Parent Account right from the Account record. If by chance, there is nothing to show here because there is no record to show, you can create a new record or choose to link one yourself right from the page. This Lightning enhancement only serves to increase efficiency and you have to love that.
Follow Dashboards in Lightning Experience
If you are an LEX user and are tired of having to regularly check in on dashboards for updates, this enhancement should excite you. You’ll now have the ability to go to a dashboard, click ‘Follow’, and receive updates via Chatter. It’s little things like these that Lightning is missing and I am glad to know that they are taking another step in this release.
Spring 17 continues to improve upon Lightning functionality. Future releases promise more and more added functionality and I, for one, cannot wait! If you have any ideas on potential additions or tweaks that you think should be made to Salesforce Lightning, please post them on the IdeaExchange and don’t forget to go vote on already existing ideas.
How do you feel about the new Spring 17 LEX additions? Want to share your experiences or thoughts? Share them with me on the Arkus Facebook page, in the comments below, in the Success Community, or to me directly via Twitter at @RyanOwensRPO.
