Salesforce Winter ’22 Release has made substantial improvements that will delight both customers and users. What do these mean for you? What benefits can these improvements bring to your organisation? At Smplicity Consulting we have collected some hottest key takeaways. Below are the 11 items to look out for from the Salesforce Winter ’22 release.
- Flow Updates
a) Call a Subflow from a Record-Triggered Flow
Record-Triggered Flows now have the ability to call Subflows. This was previously restricted to other Flow types. You can now break your automation into building blocks and reduce the complexity of a flow. From within a flow, call another reusable flow to perform a common task. Create input and output variables that are subjects of the same type where necessary.
b) Screen Flow: New Roll Back Records Element
Previously, when a transaction ended, its pending record changes were saved to the database even if a flow element failed in the transaction. Now, a new Roll Back element is available which can be added in a fault path to roll back a transaction and cancel all its pending record changes in a screen flow.
Rolling back your Data element changes would be useful in situations where:
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- A Flow encounters an error,
- A user gets to a certain point in a Flow and decides they need more information before committing their changes
- Or, some custom validation has been implemented to align with business rules and any breaches should be reverted.
c) Ability to Reconnect Flow Elements in Auto-Layout
One of the biggest issues many people have encountered with Auto-Layout Flows is that if a slight adjustment is required to a path, you sometimes need to switch Auto-Layout off, make the change, and then switch it back on.
This is coming to an end in Winter ‘22, with the use of the new Go-To connector to connect an element to any other element, except an End element. You can also change the destination of a Go-To connector by selecting Reroute connector and to delete a connector, select Delete connector.
d) Configure batch size for Scheduled Paths in Record-Triggered Flows
If you’re adding a Scheduled Path to a Record-Triggered Flow, and want to be able to control the number of interviews executed within a Batch, now you can! This way you can improve performance and avoid hitting Apex governor limits.
If you have some more complex actions lined up and need to restrict the number of records that are run at the same time simply reduce the Batch Size. The default and the maximum value are 200 and the minimum is 1.
You can also specify in minutes the time you want a scheduled path to run. Previously, you could specify only a number of hours or days before or after the time source for a scheduled path to run.
e) Record-Triggered Flow Start Element Changes
Setting up the Record-Triggered Flow Start Element used to be a multi-step process.
Now, those steps have been combined into one and enhanced further.
The ‘Object’ and ‘Trigger’ sections are now on one single page, which pops up when you create the Flow.
You can also optimise the Flow for a specific action set:
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- Fast Field Updates: a high-performance Flow designed to run before the record is saved, and will only update fields on the record that triggered the Flow
- Actions and Related Records: which will run after the record has been inserted, designed to make updates, or perform actions related to the record (but not make changes to the record itself). The Actions and Related Records optimisation can also be made to run asynchronously.
2. Show In-App Guidance for Specific Record Types
Previously, when you created in-app guidance and assigned it to a record page with multiple record types, the in-app guidance appeared for all of its record types. Now, you can choose if you want in-app guidance to appear for all or only a specific record type. And you can customise your message so that users get detailed help for the unique layout and picklists of different record types. When you add or edit in-app guidance that has more than one record type and you want the prompt to appear only for a specific record type, select the checkbox in the Record Type area.
3. Einstein Search
Einstein Search is one of the many free AI-driven features provided to us by Salesforce. Whilst this feature has been available for a while, there are updates in almost every release. Most importantly, Einstein Search will now be enabled by default in the Winter ’22 release.
Users can search just like they’re used to. Nothing’s going away with Einstein Search, but the search is getting smarter. Einstein Search offers the following features:
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- Personalisation: Users see personalised search results based on their user profiles and how they interact with records in Salesforce.
- Natural language search: With natural language search, users type common phrases like “my open opportunities” or “cases closed last week”. The search terms are turned into custom filtered lists from which users can get easy access to important data.
- Actionable instant results and recommended results: Start typing in the global search box and see results with record previews, action buttons, quick links, and suggested searches. Users can act upon these results to get to the right data quickly. When Einstein Search is confident it’s found the exact match, it shows a recommended result that includes a preview of the record.
4. Lightning Page Performance
Performance Analysis for App Builder gives you recommendations to improve your page performance. The winter ’22 release allows you to see your users’ performance metrics to help you decide which recommendations to take or defer. Data from the last 90 days of use is analysed and displayed in your Org-Specific Metrics results. The analysis includes a user’s network latency, browser speed, and a number of cores. The Org-Specific Metrics card shows data from the org that you are in. The metrics are different for sandbox and production. If the lightning page you are analysing is not activated, the metrics will reflect all users in the org. After the page is activated, the metrics are filtered to reflect only the users that the page is assigned.
The Analyse button on Lightning Pages lets Admins see the predicted load time of pages, and provide recommendations on how to improve it.
5. New Forecast Category
As you are aware there are four types of forecast categories: Pipeline, Best Case, Commit & Closed.
Salesforce is now adding a 5th category called “Most Likely”, which allows you to further split out sales users’ opportunity groups.
6. Flow Orchestrator
Flow Orchestrator is designed to help Admins create sophisticated multi-user, multi-step automated business processes, without writing any code. This means you can link different flows, and approval processes together, defining whether steps need to be completed sequentially, or together. Hence, it gives more flexibility to create approval processes, a better ability to assign work to any Salesforce user, and more control over record lifecycles.
Flow orchestrator also allows to identify inefficiencies over multiple execution cycles, drive continuous enhancements and improve overall business productivity.
7. Salesforce CPQ – Assign New Access Permission Sets
The Winter’22 release adds two more Access permission sets containing data security-related permissions,
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- Salesforce CPQ Admin User Access
- Salesforce CPQ Partner User Access
These sets ensure that your Salesforce CPQ admins and partner users have the correct access levels. If you are already using customised permission sets, you can still use the Admin User Access permission set to receive important data security updates. Access sets have been designed for assignment directly to your users, without cloning or editing. If you don’t clone or use custom permission sets, you can use the standard sets alone, without assigning Access sets.
Follow this link to view all permissions in each of the four Access permission sets introduced by Salesforce CPQ New and Changed Objects, Fields, and Permissions in Salesforce CPQ and Billing Winter ’22.
8. Pardot
The Winter ’22 release has brought the following enhancements in Pardot:
a) Send Slack Notifications to Pardot users with a completion action
Notify your team in Slack with a completion action when prospects interact with your marketing assets. Automatically send promising new leads to your Sales team and share important prospect activity data with your marketing team.
b) Build landing pages faster with the drag-and-drop editor
You can now build landing pages inside the Lightning Experience if you are using the Pardot Lightning App. After you enable the feature, users can create a landing page record in a couple of clicks. The landing page builder becomes available when you enable the new Pardot content experience and Salesforce CMS integration. After setup, users can create landing page records, design landing pages, and publish them right from the Pardot Lightning App. Salesforce Files aren’t supported in the builder, so we encourage you to follow the setup steps to integrate with Salesforce CMS.
c) Take your automation further with Pardot Extensibility Enhancements
You can now improve your Pardot automation with valuable external prospects data from your third-party apps. For each third-party app, you use to collect prospect data, set up a Marketing App Extension. Then, add each activity type you want to capture.
d) Reset Bounce counts on prospects records
Users with the Pardot Administrator or Marketing User roles now have the ability to reset the count for hard or soft bounces on prospect records whenever bounce issues are resolved. When bounce counts are reset, the prospect is eligible to receive emails. If the next email sent to the address returns either a hard or soft bounce, the prospect is marked Undeliverable again.
9. Salesforce Surveys
The Winter ’22 release helps increase engagement and response rates with distribution channels that are more effective than email. You can send survey invitations automatically after a chat over WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and other social media channels, as well as through SMS. You need to configure the settings in Messaging Settings from Setup.
You can also make better decisions while creating or updating Salesforce records based on contextual information in a data map. Add multiple types of merge fields to your conditions or target fields, such as associated records or participant records. To use merge fields and data maps, users need the Salesforce Surveys Advanced Features permission available with the Salesforce Feedback Management Growth and Salesforce Feedback Management Starter licenses.
10. Reports and Dashboards
In the Winter ’22 release, users can now update more data without leaving the report run page since more field types have become available for inline editing. This allows users to focus on their current tasks while saving time and clicks. Supported types now include the date, picklist, and lookup fields. Only text and numeric fields were previously available for inline editing.
Also, with dynamic gauge charts, you are no longer tied to static goals or performance levels. Dashboard gauge charts are awesome to track your performance and business goals. Build your gauge chart using report metrics and field values that respond dynamically to your business. You need to first enable gauge charts in Report and Dashboard Settings from Setup. Next, make sure that your source report is set up for the data that you want to chart. Now, pop over to the dashboard builder for your new or existing dashboard and add the gauge chart component. In Standard mode, you can create a gauge chart with fixed values as you usually do. In Dynamic mode, you have dynamic control over the chart measure, indicated by the pointer, and the chart target, or maximum value in the chart.
11. Slack-First Customer 360
As it has been announced on August 17, 2021, there are new innovations that combine the power of Slack and Salesforce so teams can stay connected, productive, and get work done anywhere. With the new pre-built integrations between Slack and Salesforce, every department such as sales, service, and marketing, can collaborate in channels that unite teams and streamline workflows built around CRM data, giving them a single source of truth for their business and a single, shared view of the customer. Business processes can be automated in Slack to make work simple, productive, flexible, and pleasant.
And with Slack Connect, companies can now work securely with external partners, vendors, and customers, driving stronger relationships and faster results:
a) Close more deals with Slack-First Sales
Salesforce and Slack are allowing sales reps to collaborate on deals in real-time and drive growth from anywhere. This provides deeper visibility into account details in Sales Cloud and connects the right people to close deals fast.
Digital deal rooms enable sales teams to collaborate around a customer or deal cycle in Slack securely.
Sales reps can access and update Salesforce records and meeting information right from Slack. They also have access to files, conversations, and data, all in one place. Teams can easily prepare for meetings, new reps can onboard easily, and external partners and customers can join in directly to close deals fast.
Automated daily briefs in Slack provide sales reps with a personalised daily list of tasks, meetings, and priority deals they can take action on. Hence, allowing them to focus on more important tasks.
b) Resolve cases faster with Slack-First Service
Teams can collaborate to provide real-time customer support and bring customers directly into the channel when required. Service agents have instant access to relevant Service Cloud case data, experts, and channels in Slack, thus improving the customer satisfaction score by 11%. This new feature will help service teams to automatically identify and bring the right experts into a case.
Swarming creates a Slack channel for service teams to collaborate on high and complex priority cases. Hence, solving problems faster by bringing in the right employee and external partners.
Expert Finder identifies the right experts to add a swarm channel based on availability, capacity, and skills. This is done automatically.
c) Manage campaigns effectively with Slack-First Marketing
Salesforce and Slack have given marketing teams and agency partners a shared digital workspace and with today’s innovations, marketers can collaborate on customer journeys and obtain insights fast.
Intelligent, AI-driven insights from Marketing Cloud and Datorama ensure teams can take actions fast to ensure campaigns stay on track.
Workflow notifications automatically update Slack channels whenever a marketing journey is updated. Hence, allowing teams to review, collaborate on, and approve changes instantly.
d) Put data at the center of every conversation with Slack-First Analytics
With Tableau and Slack, the visibility of analytics across an organisation has been expanded, allowing customers to stay on top of data from anywhere. With the new innovations, people can access data-driven Tableau insights in Slack so they can make smarter decisions fast.
Automated notifications in Slack allow users to stay connected to Tableau data they need to act on. For example, when a sales pipeline dips below a specified threshold.
Watchlist digests provide a daily update on selected metrics and trends, while Subscriptions automate dashboard updates in team channels, providing business users access to data and insights in the location where they are working already.
Key Dates
The main release dates are September 10th, October 1st, October 8th.
You can go to Salesforce Trust, select your instance name and click on the Maintenance tab to know when the Winter ’22 release will be deployed on your org.
Follow this link for more detailed release notes.