Top 5 Salesforce Summer’17 Release Picks

The time is upon us again… 550 pages of release notes to review, exams to book, changes to enable, new functionality to learn… yes, it’s Summer ‘17 release time!

Besides wondering what the release logo would be, many of us were anxious to find out what was in store for us within those 550 pages. From old bug fixes to new functionality, new pilots and generally available features, this release is jam packed with goodies!

You’ve probably seen blogs where the obvious big ticket items are covered (such as the Libraries and Content overhaul) but this post will focus on smaller features that are guaranteed to save you time. Here are a few of my favourites:

Top picks for Summer ‘17

#5

Remember all those times you had to use Process Builder to move the related records to a new object when you converted a Lead? A fun task to be sure but no longer necessary. Yes, related records will now move to target objects upon conversion! This includes both related records and files. The change applies across the board from the Lightning Experience (LEX), Salesforce Classic, and all versions of Salesforce1.

Here is where your records go:

#4

Having worked in numerous industries, I always found myself coming back to one particular task. People wanted reports emailed to them but wouldn’t spend the time learning how to subscribe to a report. I would login as that user, subscribe them to the report and everyone was happy. Except for the Admin.

Now, you can subscribe other people to reports. This also means you can subscribe people to reports if you believe they should have a subscription. (wink, wink)

#3

A cool new feature in LEX allows you to detect duplicates across multiple objects. Setting up duplicate detection may be a thing of the past. In the Lightning App Builder you will find a component called Potential Duplicates. When used, this component will display a message on the homepage of the record. Clicking the message will display the potential duplicates. (Please note if a user has the ability to merge, the dupes can be merged from this view.)

#2

I think one of greatest things about being an Admin is the ability to build in Sandbox and move to Production and one of the greatest tools to enable that is a Change Set. Change sets have a couple of additions this time around:a. You can now move Communities between Orgs with a Change Set when the Orgs have a deployment connection. This allows you to build in Sandbox and move ‘em over when the build is complete. (See page 330 of the release notes for more detail.)b. A new component has been added called ‘Network’ which you will need to use to move communities.

#1

Finally, this is the best part of any release… “You asked for it!” This release contains quite a few Ideas carefully selected from the IdeaExchange. Below is a grid outlining each idea and the deliverable in the release. (Pay special attention to the enhancements for Gmail and the ability to see field history in related lists in LEX!)

Click here to view the release notes, take some time to review and let me know what your favourites are!

https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/208/latest/en-us/sfdc/pdf/salesforce_summer17_release_notes.pdf