Warm Up with the Salesforce.com Spring ’15 Release
Spring '15 release notes are now publicly available. It contains enhancements (from Winter '15 release) and new features in almost all domains of the platform.
Usually Winter '15 release is one of the bigger releases of Salesforce. Because Salesforce aligns it with their mega event Dreamforce. So, if you haven't got a chance to read Winter '15 release then recommendation would be to read Winter '15 release first before deep dive into Spring '15 release.
The Analytics Cloud (The Wave Platform)
The Salesforce Analytics Cloud is designed for everyone (a business user, analyst, or developer). Salesforce Analytics is native to the cloud and built on the Wave platform.
- Visualize Rich Data in Your Web Browser - Every widget in Analytics Cloud is a live, filtered database query.
- No need to take your LAPPY! every time with you - Now the entire collection of Analytics Cloud (apps, dashboards, lenses, datasets and everything) will be on your phone. No need for desktop or your laptop.
- New Query Language: Salesforce Analytics Query Language (SAQL) - SAQL is a real-time query language that enables ad hoc analysis of data that’s stored in datasets. SAQL is currently available through a pilot program.
Community Management
One place to Setup Community Management
With Spring '15 Salesforce makes Setup of Community Management easier for community administrators and managers to do their jobs from one location like a one-stop shop.
Person Accounts for Self-Registeration Users
As we all know by default, all self-registeration users are assigned as contacts to a single business account (B2B model). If a company deals with both (B2B & B2C models), so you can now assign each self-registeration user to a person account instead.
Note: Creating person accounts for self-registeration users is supported for the Customer Community and Customer Community Plus licenses only.
Community Builder with the Enhanced Wizard
Duplicate Management
Duplicate Alerts and Blocking came in Winter '15 release as a Beta feature. With Spring '15 release Salesforce has made it GA (Generally Available) feature.
Middle Name and Suffix Fields for Person Objects (Generally Available)
With this new release, Salesforce has enhanced this feature and made it available to everyone. So, now these fields will help user to avoid confusion when two records will have the same first and last names.
Sales Path
Sales Path - Sales Reps can now close deals faster by company’s sales process, so Sales Reps can get their opportunities to the next stage.
Add Rich Text Notes to Records (Beta feature)
With Spring '15 Salesforce has introduce Notes, an enhanced version of the Salesforce note-taking tool that would help users take better notes and faster.
Enterprise Territory Management
Salesforce has renamed Territory Management 2.0 to “Enterprise Territory Management” with full-featured enterprise CRM solutions.
Field History Tracking for Product Object
With Spring '15, Products will have Field History Tracking. User can select certain Product fields to track and the changes made in the field will be displayed in the History related list.
Sync Exchange-based Email Systems with Salesforce
Salesforce is introducing latest email integration feature, Exchange Sync (as a Beta feature), that syncs users’ contacts and events between Exchange-based email systems and Salesforce.
Milestone Countdown Timer Redesigned in Entitlement Management
The Milestone countdown timer on the Case Feed has been redesigned to be more intuitive, so it’s easier for support agents to see how much time remains before the milestone must be met.
The timer now shows the remaining hours, minutes, and seconds.
Assets Object Redesigned as a Standard Object
In Spring ‘15, the Assets object has been redesigned as a standard object. Now we can have:
- Tabs for Asset object.
- Record Types for Asset object.
- Sharing Rules for Asset object.
- Asset Owner Field for Asset object.
- Feld History Tracking for Asset object.
Business Continuity with Organization Sync (Generally Available)
Do your Sales Representatives in a 24/7 call center need to access to Salesforce during maintenance and planned upgrades of your Salesforce.com Org?
With Spring '15, Salesforce has made this feature as GA feature with the name "Business Continuity with Organization Sync". In order to enable Organization Sync in your organization, contact Salesforce.
New Node for Files and Content
Files and Content have a new home in Setup! Now, you can manage all your Files and Content settings under a single Salesforce Files node.
- Files Support Record Types and Page Layouts - Salesforce Files now support Record Types and Page Layouts. Previously, most customizable objects supported Record Types and Page Layouts, but Files did not.
Publisher Actions are now Quick Actions
With Spring '15, throughout the Salesforce and Salesforce1 user interface and documentation, Salesforce has renamed the term Publisher Action to Quick Action.
Record Actions are now Productivity Actions
With Spring '15, throughout the Salesforce and Salesforce1 user interface and documentation, Salesforce has renamed the term Record Action to Productivity Action.
Create or Edit Records Owned by Inactive Users
Previously, only administrators were able to EDIT accounts, opportunities, and custom object records that are owned by inactive users. With Spring ’15, administrators and all users with the CREATE or EDIT permission can CREATE or EDIT accounts, opportunities, and custom object records that are owned by inactive users.
Standard Address Fields Show Google Maps
Now records with standard address fields will display a Google Maps image of the address. On a record, go to the detail page to see the Google Maps image on the address field. To generate a map image, an address must include the street and city fields and either the state, postal code, or the country.
Indexed Column Added to Lists of Fields in Setup
Now listings of fields in Setup will include a new Indexed column that will indicate whether a field is indexed in the database or not?
Index fields helps in filter conditions in reports, list views, and optimise SOQL queries for better response time.
Submit More Batch Jobs with Apex Flex Queue (Generally Available)
Submit up to 100 batch jobs simultaneously and actively manage the order of the queued jobs to control which batch jobs are processed first. This enhancement provides more flexibility in managing batch jobs.
This feature has already been posted on Salesforce Developer's Blog. You may find some useful points from here as well.
Make Long-Running Callouts from a Visualforce Page
Asynchronous callouts that are made from a Visualforce page don’t count toward the Apex limit of 10 synchronous requests that last longer than five seconds.
Set Up Test Data for an Entire Test Class (@testSetup)
Use test setup methods (methods that are annotated with @testSetup) to create test records once and then access them in every test method in the test class. Test setup methods can be time-saving when you need to create reference or prerequisite data for all test methods, or a common set of records that all test methods operate on.
Note: Test setup methods are supported only with the default data isolation mode for a test class. If the test class or a test method has access to organization data by using the @isTest(SeeAllData=true) annotation, test setup methods aren’t supported in this class. Because data isolation for tests is available for API versions 24.0 and later, test setup methods are also available for those versions only.
@testSetup static void methodName() {}
Definitely these are just a few of exciting new and enhanced features of Salesforce Spring '15 release notes. So, make sure you check out the complete list of new and enhanced features in Salesforce Spring '15 release notes.
Other Release Resources:
