4 Top Spring ’14 Salesforce Release Features
Are you ready to leave the Salesforce Winter ‘14 polar bear behind and replace him with the radiant cherry blossoms of Spring 2014? During this past year’s Dreamforce, Salesforce Account Executives have been sharing the tremendous excitement about the leaps and bounds this leading CRM tool is making. From desktop Users and executives to on-the-go sales reps, the Salesforce Spring ’14 release is aimed to enhance the experience of every end-User. In this article, I’m going to discuss the top 4 new Salesforce features I am most eager to implement for clients and that you can expect to see more growth from in the next year.
1) Salesforce1 Enhancements
Salesforce Success Managers have proclaimed that this new platform will be the primary focus of Salesforce in 2014. As we’ve entered an app-driven world that is run heavily on mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, Salesforce has responded to the demand for a transportable CRM tool. Salesforce1 will replace all existing mobile applications previously released by Salesforce and, additionally, grant Users more capabilities on the platform. Unlike previous mobile Salesforce applications, Salesforce1 allows you to create new records, view dashboards, manage activities, create quotes, send meeting invitations, manage your daily tasks, and best of all, Salesforce1 provides developers with a platform upon which to build custom applications for their companies. Customer portals (referred to as Communities) are also accessible from the Salesforce1 app. Are you a Salesforce Administrator? The Salesforce1 app will be a handy aid when on the go and if you’re in need of making a quick profile or system adjustment. The Salesforce1 app is free and is available for both Android and Apple devices.
2) Introducing…. Topics for Objects!
Similar to the Topics generated in Chatter with the use of hashtags, Salesforce has now extended this feature to Standard and Custom Objects in an effort to enhance the record organization and retrieval process. By enabling Users to classify their records with tags, this will allow organizations to create List Views of records that fall into specified categories that may not be easily reportable. An example would be assigning Topics to Cases to allow case managers to mention multiple key components of a case that can be referenced by another support team member when dealing with a similar issue in the future. By tagging records with these topics, you can use the global search bar to later search for records related to certain Topics. Objects that an organization wishes to implement Topics in can be specified by your System Administrator.
3) Mass Assign Permission Sets
The days of tedious single User record updates are behind us! Starting this Spring, Sys Admins will enjoy the luxury of being able to mass assign and mass revoke permission sets for more than one User at one time. This new feature can work with up to 1,000 Users at a time, providing a great solution for enterprise-level systems. Another useful Salesforce tool to use with permission sets that I just discovered is Chrome’s Check-All plugin. This plugin allows you to select or unselect all checkboxes on a page while using a Chrome browser. It’s not perfect, but it still saves tons of time when updating User pages and creating permission sets.
4) File Sync
One of my clients came to me the other day complaining that he has documents that require frequent updating. But, when he has to update the documents he has to update 3 separate documents for 3 separate departments. The File Sync feature I thought would be an excellent solution to this problem. File Sync allows me to update documents and share them with Users all in one place without having to update multiple templates online and offline. This application will allow Users to make updates to documents that live on their desktops and synchronize the changes made with the one that resides in Salesforce as soon as the save button is hit. All without having to upload new file versions! In addition, you can share these files on Chatter or on Object records and allow select Users to view or edit them. The files can be accessed on tablet and mobile devices for on-the-go use. Although this feature will be going through a pilot program in the Spring, I encourage you to either apply to become a beta tester of this feature, or look out for the formal release later this year.
That’s all for this release! These are the top features I am most eager to tell Salesforce Users about, but surely, these are not all of them. If you’d like a more extensive list of the Spring Release features, check out the Training module videos (featuring some lovely, worldly accents). And if you have time for some light reading, breeze through Salesforce’s 342 page Spring Release Notes. If any of the above or unmentioned Spring features catch your eye and you’d like some more information on implementation, don’t hesitate to contact OpFocus for some trademark rockstar guidance!
