Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Quick Highlights of the Spring ’18 Features

Lightning Platform | Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Data Protection and Privacy Regulations

As we all know Salesforce announces Seasonal Releases three (3) times a year. Spring ’18 release notes are now publicly available. Spring ’18 release is coming with enhancements and new exciting features!. As per Salesforce Spring ’18 release notes, most of the new features can be outdated or unavailable during release preview so make your purchase decisions only on the basis of generally available products and features.

Usually Winter 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 yet to read Winter ’18 release then recommendation would be to read Winter ’18 release first before deep dive into Spring ’18 release.

Currently you can’t access Lightning Experience in a mobile browser. The recommendation is to use the Salesforce1 app when you’re working on a mobile device.

Accessing Lightning Experience Using IE 11

With Spring '18, the support of Lightning Experience using Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 11 has extended through December 31, 2020.

Customize Themes and Branding in Lightning Experience

With Spring '18, you can now choose one of Salesforce’s built-in themes or create your own custom themes.

New URL Format for Lightning Experience and the Salesforce Mobile App

With Spring '18, Salesforce has changed the URL format used by Lightning Experience standard apps and the Salesforce mobile app.
  • Current format: https://<lightning.domain.com>/one/one.app/#/sObject/Account/home
  • New format: https://<lightning.domain.com>/lightning/o/Account/home

Guidance for Data Protection and Privacy Regulations

With Spring '18, Salesforce gives you guidance to help you evaluate the best way to meet your requirements regarding data protection and privacy regulations. Please also read how to store certain data privacy preferences (e.g. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) etc.).

UK and Ireland Contact Data Removed from Data.com Connect

With Spring '18, as Salesforce data protection and privacy regulations, such as the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), Salesforce has removed data for contacts in the UK and Ireland from the Data.com Connect contact database.

Removed PII from Web-to-Case and Web-to-Lead Emails

With Spring '18, as Salesforce data protection and privacy regulations, such as the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), Salesforce Emails will no longer include personal identifying information (PII) when Web-to-Case or Web-to-Lead fails.

External Community and Chatter Users

With Spring '18, External Community and Chatter users will now be able to deactivate their own accounts. Please read more here.

Salesforce Surveys (Generally Available)

With Spring '18, Salesforce Surveys are now Generally Available. You can embed surveys into Lightning pages and communities.
  1. For Lightning pages, use the Lightning App Builder to add the Survey standard Lightning component to your pages.
  2. For communities, use the Community Builder to add the Survey component.

WebEx Meetings in Salesforce Events

With Spring '18, you can now add WebEx meeting from the Event record page.

Override Standard Actions Separately for Different Experiences

With Spring '18, you can now override standard actions (e.g. View, New, Edit etc.) separately for different experiences (e.g. Salesforce Classic, Lightning Experience, Mobile).


Manage List Custom Settings Type

As Salesforce strongly recommends using custom metadata types instead over list type custom settings, with Spring '18 by default you will not be able to create List type Custom Settings. If you really want to use List type Custom Settings then you can enable List Custom Settings on the Schema Settings page in Setup.

Reference Custom Metadata Type Records in Validation Rules (Pilot)

With Spring '18, you can now add reference of Custom Metadata Type Records in Validation Rules. This feature is in Pilot release.



Force.com will Now be called Lightning Platform

With Spring '18, Salesforce has decided to change the name of "Force.com" to "Lightning Platform".

Deactivate Orgs

With Spring '18, you can now deactivate an org.
  • 30 days to change your mind and reactivate it.
  • After 30 days, the org is locked, and you must contact Salesforce Customer Support to reactivate it.
  • After 60 days, the org is permanently deleted from Salesforce servers.

Apex: Require Two-Factor Authentication Using Apex Triggers

With Spring '18, you can now add user identity verification in Apex trigger to help protect sensitive operations from outside integrations (e.g. API integrations etc.).

Visualforce: Removing Instance Names from URLs

With Spring '18, Salesforce is removing instance name from URL for Visualforce, Community Builder, Site.com Studio, and Content Files.
  • mydomain--c.visualforce.com replaces mydomain--c.na1.visual.force.com
  • mydomain--c.documentforce.com replaces mydomain--c.na1.content.force.com
  • All *.content.force.com URLs will be replaced with *.documentforce.com.

This change will be activated automatically on March 16, 2019.

Lightning: Lightning Component for Carousel!

With Spring '18, Salesforce has introduced a new Lightning component (lightning:carousel) for Carousel! Now you don't need to write custom code in JavaScript to build Carousel! Please read about other new and changed Lightning Components.

Lightning: Lightning Component for Record Edit!

With Spring '18, Salesforce has introduced a new Lightning component (lightning:recordEditForm) for editing record! Please read about other new and changed Lightning Components.


Spring '18 release has lots of other exciting and interesting features but these are just few of them. Please read the Spring '18 release notes for details.

Useful Resources
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