Greetings all the Salesforce enthusiasts!! Salesforce has come up with another set of updates and enhancements which takes user experience to a new level. With every release salesforce provides us with many user friendly features which helps user not only to use salesforce with ease but also to identify the best feature as per their requirement which gives a great boost in their sales process. As the release notes cover updates from each section in salesforce, it will be too much information to put in a single blog. We will cover the complete release notes in two blogs.

Contents covered in this blog:

• New Tools to Transition to Lightning Experience and Empower Productivity
• Lightning Scheduler
• Salesforce Surveys
• Search: Search Results That Reflect How You Navigate and More Details About Your Search Results
• Gmail Integration
• Sharing and Security
• Files
• Lightning Flow
• Objects and Fields
• Globalization

New Tools to Transition to Lightning Experience and Empower Productivity

1. Turn On Lightning Experience (Previously Released Critical Update)

Salesforce will turn on Lightning Experience on a rolling basis starting in Winter ‘20 to
empower users to move faster, do more, and be more productive. Users can continue working in Salesforce Classic after Lightning Experience is turned on. This update was introduced under Critical Updates on January 28, 2019.The future of the Salesforce user experience and platform is Salesforce Lightning. Moving forward, all innovations will be in Lightning Experience.

From Setup, enter Critical Updates in the Quick Find box, and then select Critical Updates. For Turn on Lightning Experience, click Review. When you’re ready to turn on Lightning Experience, you can activate the update either in Critical Updates or Lightning Experience in setup.

2. Turn On Lightning Experience and Don’t Look Back

As of October 12, 2019, you can’t turn off Lightning Experience after it’s been turned on. The Turn on Lightning Experience toggle is grayed out in the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant. We and our users can still switch between Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience.

3. Lightning Experience Configuration Converter: Scanning and Preparing Visualforce Pages

Converting visualforce page into lightning has become even more easier. Visit the
Visualforce Pages tab in the Lightning Experience Configuration Converter to search our org to get a report on our org’s Visualforce pages. Scan our production org to find out which pages our users view the most—and which they don’t use at all.

The Lightning Experience Configuration Converter is a standalone tool that lives outside of Salesforce. It is recommended to run it in a sandbox or Developer org first, and then migrate our changes to our production org. To get started, visit
https://lightning-configuration.salesforce.com/ and log in with your org credentials.

4. Access Lightning Experience from Safari on iPad Devices (Beta)

This feature helps us to use desktop version of Lightning Experience on their iPad device when we’re away from their desktop or laptop. In Setup, enter Lightning Experience in the Quick Find box, and then select Lightning Experience on iPad Browsers(Beta).

5. Keep Record Context When Switching from Salesforce Classic to Lightning Experience

When we switch from Salesforce Classic to Lightning Experience, we land on the same page in Lightning Experience, if it exists. If the same page doesn’t exist in Lightning Experience, we are redirected to our default landing page, which is determined by the org default or our customizations.

6. Power Up Your Related Lists with Enhanced Related Lists

With Enhanced Related Lists, we can show up to 10 columns, resize and sort our columns, perform mass actions, and wrap text. From the related lists component in the Lightning App Builder, select Enhanced List from the Related List Type dropdown (1).
We can customize how many records to display at once, and choose whether to show the list view action bar.

Choosing Enhanced List affects all related lists in the component (2). To customize which columns appear in a particular related list, edit the related list in the page layout editor and add more fields.

7. Zoom Through Related Lists with Quick Filters

We can use quick filters in our related lists to find the data that we’re looking for. Related list quick filters are different from regular list view filters in that they aren’t saved, persist only throughout our current session, and can’t be shared.

Open a related list, and select funnel symbol to add quick filters. Quick filters aren’t available for the Assets, File, Other Related People, and Attachments related lists.

8. Assign Custom Colors to Hyperlinks

We can complete the look and feel of our company’s theming and branding in Lightning Experience by defining a hyperlink color. In Setup, enter Themes and Branding in the Quick Find box, and then select Themes and Branding. Update an existing custom theme or create a new one. For Link Color, select Use brand color.

9. Choose from Two Record View Options

Now we have two record page view default options. Choose between the current view—now called Grouped view—and the new Fullview. Full view displays all details and related lists on the same page. If we’re transitioning to Lightning Experience, this view is similar to Salesforce Classic. In addition to the view that currently exists, salesforce has added Full view, an alternative view. Full view (1) displays all details and related lists
on the same page. Grouped view (2), the original Lightning Experience record view, focuses on specifics by grouping information across tabs and columns.

Lightning Scheduler

1. Streamline Customer Appointment Scheduling with Lightning Scheduler

Now customers and prospects can quickly schedule appointments with Lightning Scheduler’s self-service interface. It’s easy to search and select the right person, topic, location, and date and time. Customers can schedule and modify appointments through Embedded Services in their company’s website or via Communities. To get started, we can clone and modify out-of-the-box standard flows, or create our own flows in Flow Builder.

2. Manage Calendar Availability with Event Management

The Event Management preference lets us see appointments created in Lightning Scheduler on our Salesforce calendar. That way, we can view our schedule in one place. And if we’re using Microsoft or Google calendars, we can add those events to our Salesforce calendar too, with calendar sync tools.

Salesforce Surveys

1. Send Surveys for Free

We no longer need a license to create and send surveys. Anyone who has been assigned one of the provided four profiles can create and send unlimited surveys for free. Enable surveys, and assign one of the profiles to users who create and send surveys.

• Contract manager
• Marketing user
• Standard user
• System Administrator

2. Send Customized Email Invitations for Improved Response Rates

Send customized emails that contain a link to a survey question or to launch a survey. We can send email invitations to leads, contacts, and users in our org.                                To email a survey invitation, in the active version of the survey, click Open. On the Send tab, click Send Email.

3. Generate Survey Invitations for Leads

We can now generate a unique survey invitation for a lead directly from the record by clicking Get Survey Invitation.

Search: Search Results That Reflect How You Navigate and More Details About Your Search Results

1. Find What You Need Fast with Search Results That Reflect How You Navigate

The items in an app’s navigation bar now help determine our top search results in
Lightning Experience. And because our users can personalize an app’s navigation bar, they have more say in how they search in Lightning Experience. An app’s navigation bar affects search results only for the app currently in use.

2. See Which Objects Were Searched at a Glance

On the search results page, it’s easier for users to see which objects were searched and how many results were found. No more wasted time guessing. The Top Results page shows the best results for the objects we use most. In the sidebar, objects are listed in order of relevance, so the best matches are at the top, just like they are in the search results pane. Previously, objects in the sidebar were listed in the same order as our Lightning Experience navigation tabs.

Gmail Integration: Faster Email Logging and Email Tracking Improvements

1. Log Emails from Gmail to Salesforce with Fewer Clicks

Sales reps work fast, and they need to log emails from Gmail to Salesforce fast, too. Reps can now see email logging options as they move through their email, reducing the clicks required to log an email. Reps turn on Log Emails Faster available in Read mode. Reps no longer have to open the email or event and click Log Email or Edit Logged Email to access the logging options.

2. View Location in Email Tracking from Gmail

Know when and where our prospects are engaging with our email communications. Geolocation in email tracking is already in the Salesforce Inbox apps on iOS and Android devices and now we can use it with the desktop integration for Gmail. Users with access to email tracking can see where the recipient opened the email.

 

Sharing and Security

1. Start with More Restrictive Profiles for Standard External Community Profiles

Communities created with newly provisioned licenses can start with a blank slate when assigning object permissions to external users. Standard External profiles now have only minimal object permission, which restricts certain profile permissions to be used by only the profiles who need them. It also makes the profiles easier to customize to fit your specific needs. Communities created with licenses provisioned before Spring ‘19 stay the same. This change applies to communities created with licenses provisioned after Summer ‘19. Communities created with licenses provisioned before that are not affected.

2. Communities Support Right-to-Left Languages for Password Resets (Beta)

We can now use right-to-left (RTL) languages, such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Urdu, to reset our password.

3. Customize Passwordless Login and Verify Pages

When users log in to our community with an email address or phone number (passwordless login), Salesforce sends them a verification code. At the same time, Salesforce generates the Verify page where users enter the verification code to confirm their identity. We’ve been able to brand the Verify page with our logo, colors, and background, but the form comes from Salesforce. Now we can replace the default Verify page with our own. Customize your Verify page’s layout and text with Visualforce and a couple of Apex methods.

4. Customer Community Plus and Customer Community Plus Login Licenses Are No Longer API Enabled by Default

Starting Summer ’19, new Customer Community Plus and Customer Community Plus Login licenses don’t have the API enabled user permission on by default. Add the permission by cloning the standard profile and saving a community-specific custom profile. Licenses purchased and used before Summer ’19 still have the API enabled user permission on.

5. $Site.AdminEmailAddress Is Deprecated

For added security for our sites, salesforce has deprecated the $Site.AdminEmailAddress merge field. This field now returns an empty string instead of the Site Contact value for the current site. We can still access the admin’s email address using SOQL queries. To access the admin’s email address, we can use these SOQL queries within an Apex controller.

SELECT Admin.Email
FROM Site
WHERE Id=\” + Site.getSiteId() + ‘\’

SELECT Email
FROM User
WHERE Id=\” + Site.getAdminId() + ‘\’

 

Files

1. Create Asset Files Right from Your Asset Library

Create an asset file with the click of a button, right from the Asset Library in Files home. While you’re there, identify your asset files at a glance with the new Asset File label. Previously, we could create asset files only from Community Builder, Data Loader, or the API. Click Upload Asset File, and the file selector pops up to let you upload a new file or select an existing file to make into an asset.

2. File Sharing Limits Increased

Previously, files could be shared a maximum of 100 times, which includes shares with records, people, and groups. The file sharing limit has increased to 2000, so we can share our files with abandon.

Lightning Flow

1. Analyze Your Automated Business Processes in Automation Home (Beta)

New Automation Home helps us get started with automated business processes. Explore flow templates on AppExchange, or navigate to an automation tool. Get a quick view of the most commonly used automation types. See our org’s flow activity in charts, such as total errors and total started automations. Learn how much time it’s taking users to complete screen flows, so we can optimize as needed. From Setup, enter Automation in the Quick Find box, and then select Automation Home (Beta).

2. Process Builder

a. Prevent Invalid Processes from Being Saved

Previously, processes with warnings were saved, leading to potential issues upon activation. Now, processes are not saved if they contain warnings. Instead, we’ll see a corresponding error, so we know what to fix.

 b. Reference Custom Metadata Type Records in Process Builder

Reference custom metadata type records from a Process Builder formula to automate your business processes reusing functionality that you define. To change a value, you can update it in the custom metadata type instead of in your process and any hard-coded formulas that your process uses.

3. Process and Flow Designs

a. Manipulate Complex Internet Data in Flows Without Code Using Apex-Defined Data Types

Flows now have the ability to manipulate the kinds of complex data objects that are typically returned from calls to web services. Create Apex-defined variables in flows and directly process JSON returned from web calls. Previously, Apex Actions and External Service Registrations were used to manipulate web data, but that data had to be in the form of primitive data types like strings and numbers. Enterprise data from the web retrieved via integration solutions like Mulesoft is rarely composed solely or primarily of primitive data types.

With the new Apex-defined resources in flows, a flow no longer needs to use Apex code to process complex JSON returned from web calls. A developer defines an Apex class to serve as a pattern for automatic conversion from web to a flow, and then full manipulation of the resulting objects can be carried out in a flow using declarative approaches and no additional code. This solution is particularly useful for connecting flows to rich external web objects accessed via Mulesoft and REST calls. If a data type  is not supported, flows can pass the value to an Aura component and we can use Apex to operate on it.

For example, a car dealership has a screen flow that lets customers search the dealership’s inventory data, which is stored in another database. The dealership creates an Apex class in their org to define the Car data type. Then, the dealership creates a screen flow that includes two Apex-defined variables. The flow passes the variables between the flow, an Apex action, and an Aura component.

 public class Car {
@AuraEnabled
public Contact contact {
get;
set;
}
@AuraEnabled
public String registration {
get;
set;
}
@AuraEnabled
public String model {
get;
set;
}
}

 

The entire Car object, including its nested contact, is stored in an Apex defined variable {!Car_Inventory}.

A flow screen collects an input value for the car model and stores it in the {!Car_Model} text variable. The text variable is assigned to the {!Car_Inventory.model} Apex-defined variable.

An invocable method defines the Find Cars Apex action that performs logic to return car results.

 global class FindCars {
@InvocableMethod(label = 'Find Cars')
//Perform logic to return car results based on the model.
Return results;
}

The Find Cars Apex action results are stored in the flow as the {!Car_Result} Apex-defined variable.

An Aura component defines the DisplayCar screen component with the CarResult attribute. The attribute’s type is the Car Apex class that defines the Apex-defined data type. The screen component displays the attribute’s value.

 < aura: component implements = "lightning:availableForFlowScreens"
access = "global" >
<
aura: attribute name = "CarResult"
type = "Car"
access = "global" / >
<
!--Add some styling to the component and display the attribute’ s value-- >
<
div style = ”box” >
<
p > {
!v.CarResult.model
}: {
!v.CarResult.buildDate
} < /p> </div >

<
/aura:component>

When using Apex-defined data types, keep these considerations in mind:

• Supported data types in an Apex class are Boolean, Integer, Long, Decimal, Double, Date, DateTime, and String. Single values as well as lists are supported for each data type. Multiple Apex classes can be combined to represent complex web objects.
• The first time you open an element or resource window in an org with over 200 Apex classes that have the @AuraEnabled annotation, the window may take a while to load.

b. Access the Flow Interview Start Time with a New System Variable

With the new $Flow.InterviewStartTime system variable, you can use the start time of the flow interview in Decision elements, formula resources, and elsewhere in the flow. For flows that are launched by Subflow elements, $Flow.InterviewStartTime specifies when the initial master flow starts.

4. Create and Debug Flows More Efficiently with New Errors, Warnings, and Debug Details

Flow Builder now provides better, more effective guidance to help you create and debug flows. Get back on track faster with error messages for Start, Pause, and Assignment elements. Stay consistent with the latest Flow Builder terminology in Metadata API. For example, wait and waitEvent are now pause and pauseConfiguration, respectively.

5. Evaluate Criteria Based on Original Record Values in Process Builder (Critical Update)

This critical update ensures that a process with multiple criteria and a record update evaluates the original value of the field that began the process with a value of null. From Setup, enter Critical Updates in the Quick Find box. Then select Critical Updates. For Evaluate Criteria Based on Original Record Values in Process Builder, click Acknowledge.

If you have a process with the Do you want to execute the actions only when specified changes are made to the record? option selected, or it uses the ISCHANGED() function in your criteria, this update could cause the process to behave differently.

Objects and Fields

1. Show Einstein Predictions in Formula Fields

Einstein Prediction Builder generates probabilities and predictions, like how much a customer is likely to pay for a service. When creating a custom formula field, we can now reference AI prediction fields. This feature is available to admins with the EinsteinBuilderFree license.

When you create a custom formula field, refer to a prediction-based number field in the formula. For example, create a number field to predict the payment for a service named LikelyCost__c. Select AI Prediction, then create a formula field called InitialOffer__c with a formula of LikelyCost__c * 1.5. In this case, LikelyCost__c is a numeric AI Prediction field, and InitialOffer__c is a custom formula field. The resulting value is powered by Einstein Prediction Builder.

2. Work with More Custom Objects in Your Org

Salesforce has raised the total hard limit for custom objects in an org to 2,500 so that we can install more custom objects from packages. Each Salesforce edition has a specific limit on the number of custom objects that we can create in your org. Beyond the edition limit, the hard limit governs how many custom objects we can install from managed packages, such as apps publicly posted on AppExchange. The new 2,500 limit includes the maximum number of custom objects created and installed in our org.

3. Monitor and Accelerate Removing Deleted Custom Fields from Your Org

When we delete a custom field from an object, the field is removed but is available in our org for recovery for 15 days. During that time, the field continues to count toward our custom field allocation. After 15 days, the field is hard deleted, and Salesforce removes it
from our custom field allocation. To free up our allocation sooner, we can now accelerate the hard-deletion process. Salesforce has also added more information on the Deleted Fields detail page to help make decisions regarding the hard-delete process.

To get information about custom fields waiting to be hard deleted, click Deleted Fields. When we click Erase, the field is immediately made ready for the hard-delete process and waits for Salesforce to move the field to the hard-delete process. The timing depends on system priorities to ensure that this process doesn’t impact overall performance. To bypass waiting for the hard-deletion queue and accelerate the hard-delete process, click Purge. Purge initiates the hard-delete process sooner than the automated process.

 

Globalization

1. Go Global with New International Date and Time Formats (Pilot)

To help us do business wherever we are and give our customers the best experience possible, salesforce is adopting the internationally standardized formats for dates and times provided by the International Components for Unicode (ICU). ICU sets the international standard for these formats in just about every locale we can think of. This is in pilot phase. With these new formats, we get a consistent experience across the
entire Salesforce platform and improved integration with ICU-compliant applications across the globe.

We can join the ICU pilot program today by contacting your Success Manager or by logging a case in https://help.salesforce.com/home.

2. Connect with More Customers with New Platform Languages

Salesforce has added support for these languages and locales: Burmese, English (New Zealand), and Maori (New Zealand). They’re all available as platform languages.

 

These are some of the important features of Summer’19 release notes. Do check the second part of the blog which will have the important pointers from remaining sections.

Source : Summer’19 release notes