So far, the summer has brought us a fantastic World Cup and largely great weather in the UK. Salesforce has also delivered some exciting additions to their Lightning Experience for improving productivity and adoption on a large and small scale. We’re excited to share with you the highlights of this latest release here!
Lightning Guided Engagement
Lightning Guided Engagement empowers agents to select the right processes for every customer / beneficiary interaction. It can guide agents step-by-step through service processes to resolve issues with consistency and accuracy. Dynamic user interfaces can be configured so that only relevant fields are displayed. Colleagues have a script for complex interactions particularly where compliance requires specific language. Available right inside the console, a list of ordered flows keep processes moving even where work is handed on.
Case Email Enhancements
All-new case email enhancements have streamlined email communication and increase productivity. Email can dynamically pre-populate based on certain case criteria to save time and ensure consistency. With the improved email publisher, attachments can be dragged and dropped, there is quick access to functions like reply, and there is now auto-save! It is now possible to enter internal comments onto the record instead of the related list when closing a case! Previously, a comment needed to be added to the case related list before a case could be closed. Case email notifications now also work in Lightning Experience – not just Salesforce Classic. Colleagues can receive an email when case owner changes or when case comments are added. Case contacts can also receive email notifications when the case is created, updated, or comments are added. Previously, these only worked in Salesforce Classic.
Service Cloud Mobile
Service Cloud Mobile (part of the Service Cloud App) now has a new native mobile app. It is far easier to empower colleagues to triage, manage, and resolve cases on the go. Push notifications (another new announcement) keep agents up to date on their cases status. Consequently, customers and beneficiaries benefit from the faster, more responsive service. With Service Cloud Mobile you can:
- Update, edit, and collaborate on cases
- Manage case lists and view cases in your queues
- Communicate via email, Facebook, and Twitter, and Chatter
- Execute bulk actions
- Search contact and account details
- Manage notification settings
Records on topic?
Lightning Experience now provides topics as a way to organize records by theme. Simply add the Topics component to record pages. Topics are automatically enabled for all available standard objects. If you use topics on records in Salesforce Classic, after the Topics component is added, users see them on the same records in Lightning Experience.
Use Social Studio? Now publish to Instagram
Instagram business accounts can now be directly from Social Studio without any need for additional mobile steps. Target multiple accounts and publish content at scale to key Instagram accounts. Publish images, captions, and hashtags to the feed from Social Studio desktop or mobile. For non-business Instagram accounts, you will need to continue to use the mobile options.
Streamline Lightning List views with detailed filters:
Lightning Lists can now be filtered and data changes carried out very quickly. Now there is no need to switch back to Salesforce Classic to use detailed list view filter criteria. An already created list can be drilled down further. To use the new filters:
- Choose an object – find a list
- Click to open the Filters side panel.
- Choose the filters you want to add to your original list filters.
Lightning allows for Inline editing with this filter logic (providing the records are filtered to one record type). Salesforce Classic doesn’t allow inline editing with filter logic: create the list view with one record type and then you can edit.
Swift Navigation Bar edits!
Users can now easily personalise their navigation in Lightning apps. It is so easy to drag items around the navigation bar to a new place. Users can take steps to enhance their own productivity! They can click the pencil icon on the navigation bar to add items (available to them). Conversely, if User personalisation is not for your organisation, simply disable “end user personalisation of nav items in this app” in the App Options page in App Manager.
My favourite addition: Colour those Themes!
Lightning Experience now permits customising your orgs themes with Image cropping and colour overrides. Without using editing software, it is possible to upload a picture and use the cropping and resizing tool to select part of the image you want to use. Custom themes now allows you to override the accessible brand colour and replace it with your exact brand colour. You can also use a theme’s brand image on the Lightning Experience loading page.
Enhancements to Community 360
In addition to article and discussion activity, colleagues can now view community activity on assets, contracts, custom objects, orders, products, and tasks. Colleagues can see if a customer / beneficiary has looked at any before calling in. This knowledge helps colleagues give more relevant information, save everyone’s time, and close those cases faster.
Other Community enhancements: Pilot/beta features become generally available!
A selection of what is now generally available:
- Close a Conversation in Communities: When a question is answered, the topic discussed, the poll decided the conversation can be ended. Community admins, moderators, and permitted members can now close a question, poll, or post. If needed they can reopen it.
- Pin Posts to Feeds: Pin important posts to the top of group and topics feeds. You can pin up to three posts in a feed.
- Check Community Streams Without Leaving Salesforce: Simply open a community stream from your org to see the latest in your community (rather than switching back and forth between the two). It is possible to post and comment, ask questions and add polls, and take many other actions typically available in a stream.
- Hide an Article’s Topics: Show topics in the Community Builder Article Content component’s properties makes it possible to show or hide article topics. Before it wasn’t possible to hide them.
- Get Email Notifications for Upvotes: It is now possible to track feed activity and receive notifications whenever posts or comments are upvoted.
Not moving to Lightning because of Javascript buttons?
It is now possible to convert JavaScript Buttons to Lightning-Friendly Alternatives with the Lightning Experience Configuration Converter (GA). Recommended to trial in a Sandbox first (with My Domain turned on), with just a few clicks, GA scans your org for simple JavaScript buttons. It then converts them into point-and-click alternatives (Lightning Components, Quick Actions, etc). Afterwards it deploys everything right into your org. Before committing to any changes, you can preview the new component code or the declarative steps and verify they work as needed.
Duplicate Jobs on Custom Objects
Duplicate jobs can now be run on custom objects and not just accounts, contacts, and leads. However, field-by-field comparison and merging of records aren’t yet supported.
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You can download the full release notes here >>
