The Salesforce Summer '19 Release

The Salesforce Summer ’19 Release

It’s nearly that time of the year again.

Articles, videos and infographics are suddenly appearing everywhere across the internet as people prepare for the Salesforce Summer 2019 release – including ourselves. Read on to learn exactly what has changed across the Salesforce platform and how it compares to the Spring 19 release.

Support for the rollout of Lightning

Given the success of the Lightning rollout so far, it’s hardly surprising that lots of new features have been added to make the transition easier and encourage users away from Classic. A significant amount of features were also created solely to improve the Lightning experience. Besides, Lightning is being switched on permanently for all orgs in October this year – so preparation really is key!

Do all features now work on Lightning?

Compared to the Spring 19 release, the difference in compatibility updates is significant.

In the Summer release, the only section not fully compatible with Lightning is the Org Setup. The Purge button and the management of deleted custom fields is still only available in Salesforce Classic, but Salesforce has clearly worked hard to improve Lightning compatibility since the Spring release, which you can read about here.

Meet the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant

The Lightning Experience Transition Assistant will be replacing the Lightning Experience Migration Assistant.

Despite having confusingly similar names, the Transition Assistant will actually be more practical for Lightning newbies as it’s split into three different phases; a Discover phase, a Roll-out phase and an Optimise phase. Each phase is accompanied by step-by-step instructions, tools and a progress bar so you can see how many recommended activities are left to complete for each section.

You can even add your own prompts and (without needing to use code) create in-app guidance to help your team learn how Lightning works, accompanied by specifications like time, audience and more.

The new Health Cloud features

The Health Cloud is still a relatively new addition to Salesforce, however it has still received its fair share of updates. By embedding the Lightning Scheduler into a website or app, you can empower patients with the ability to self-book appointments and review schedules – which you also have a 360-degree view of. You can also now manage the relationships of all your providers from one directory, making it easier for users to find the right professional depending on insurance, credentials and areas of specialism. This was made possible by Salesforce including a new industry-specific data model which unifies all the necessary information.

Changes to the Marketing Cloud

Thanks to the Summer release, Salesforce Survey licenses are now a thing of the past. Instead, surveys are completely free to send out and will only incur a cost if you get more than 300 responses. When you open an email template in Sales Console, you will now be able to view the entire email full-screen. This improvement was urgently needed as previously, information was being cut off. Other features of Email Studio, Content Builder and Marketing Cloud Connect have all also undergone some enhancements, which you can read about in more depth on the Salesforce website.

Is anything being removed?

Not all features got an update – some were given an expiration date. By the Summer ‘20 update, Customisable Forecasting and the original Territory Management will be retired, which could become an issue for sales teams that have used them for years. Users are being encouraged to migrate over to Enterprise Territory Management and Collaborative Forecasts as soon as possible. See how this year’s summer release differs to the 2018 Salesforce Summer release – and see how far Salesforce has changed in just 12 months time.

Contact Sandyx for more information

If you have any questions whatsoever about your existing CRM system or Salesforce org, please do not hesitate to contact us today.