Salesforce Spring 19 - Speed Up The Gaps

Once again, Salesforce has packed a lot of features into a single release. It’s almost getting to the point where it’s impossible to keep up with all the features that continue to rollout. I was particularly pleased with the number of features in this release that focus on productivity, speed, and click reduction - all in Lightning Experience of course. The following are a few features that caught my eye as either gaps being filled or Lightning Experience superchargers.

Add Custom Resources to the Refreshed Lightning Experience Help Menu

This feature *was* technically a gap in Lightning Experience, as it’s existed for a while in Classic, though I literally know zero people who have ever really used it in Classic. I believe that fact is about to change. The new refreshed help menu in Lightning Experience is already pretty slick, but now it’s getting even better with customization. Go ahead and create your own help assets and resources, then guide users as they work in context of what they are trying to accomplish. Add links to your own website, upload PDFs, link out to custom Trailmixes, or even upload a video. All custom content will be displayed in its own section at the very top of the new help menu.

Level-Up Member Engagement with Missions

Well this is fun, isn’t it? Mission accepted; going to go earn some badges in the Lightning Community that I’m a part of. Or, at the very least, the administrator of the Lightning Community that I’m a part of has put together a series of actions that, when taken, automatically “Thank” me. Whether it be updating a profile photo, creating a certain number of posts, or receiving a “best answer” vote, Missions are a fun way to continue engagement and improve adoption within a Lightning Community.

Use Thanks Badges in Lightning Experience (Pilot)

Speaking of Thanks, thank you Salesforce for bringing Thanks Badges into Lightning Experience. It was only a matter of time before this occurred, as Thanks Badges have been in pilot/beta in Lightning Communities for a few releases now. Finally, no longer do we have to switch to Classic just to thank a colleague for doing a great job helping out. Once this feature is out of pilot, we can close the door on this gap on platform.

Clone, Deploy, Upload, and Validate Change Sets with Fewer Clicks

This update is something near and dear to my heart; saving me time when deploying things makes me a happy camper. Ultimately change sets are still not fun to deal with, as the screen to add elements to a change set really needs a complete overhaul, but at the very least there are now fewer clicks to validate and deploy a change set. No longer will I need to click into the change set to click the buttons, rather links will be provided for me right next to the link to the change set in the Inbound Change Sets page, and I can perform my action from right there. It’s a start; thanks for the save on the one click, now let’s get down to business and make creating these things much easier, eh?

Embrace the Future with the Lightning Knowledge Migration Tool (Generally Available)

For those stuck in Classic because of a Knowledge rollout, good news, there is a tool to convert your old legacy Classic Knowledge to new, fun, and shiny Lightning Knowledge. This tool has been in beta for a while. I believe it was even available on the AppExchange for a bit as the testing of it was going on, but now we are ready for primetime.

Another season (kinda), another release packed full of goodness. As previously mentioned, lots of gaps filled in this release plus lots and lots of fun features that expand the platform beyond our imagination years ago. Just go ahead and check out the entire section on Lightning Web Components or Enterprise Messaging or something I probably should have written about and may write about in the future called Permission Set Groups. Some of the marketing materials from a few years ago are starting to become relevant finally (insert troll emoji here)!   

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