Key Winter ’21 Release Dates

For those of us in the Salesforce ecosystem of admins, users and developers, we know there are three major releases per year—and the Winter ‘21 release weekends have already begun!

Just for reference, here are the key dates surrounding the Winter ‘21 Release:

• ⬬ August 20: Pre-Release Org Sign Up
• ⬬ August 24: Release Notes
• ⬬ September 11: Sandbox Preview Starts
• ⬬ September 11: Release Site & Release Module
• ⬬ September 14: Release Overview Deck & Feature Matrix
• ⬬ September 18 – September 25: Release Readiness Live!:
• ⬬ September 18, October 9, October 16: Release Weekends
• ⬬ October 2020: Global Release Webinars
• ⬬ April 2021: Release Exam Deadline on Trailhead

As the final two release weekends arrive on October 9th and 16th, we want to present our top ten favorite features for Winter ‘21.

Flow Enhancements

Flow enhancements are the star of the show this year, starting with the new Autolayout mode. You’ll be able to find this option when creating a new Flow, in addition to the Freeform option, which is the Flow Builder you’re used to experiencing.

Upon selecting Autolayout mode, you’ll be able to add elements along the line by clicking the + button, instead of dragging them from the panel on the left. (This is how Pardot’s Engagement Program Builder works.)

In addition to the Autolayout mode, there are a pair of new Flow Triggers.

Trigger on Record Conditions

Triggered flows can now be set to run every time, or only when a record meets specific criteria.

Trigger on Deletion: You can now Trigger a Flow when a record is deleted as of a fourth option when creating a Record-Triggered Flow.

View Deal Changes in the Kanban View

Opportunity Deal Change highlights help your sales team prioritize work by showing recent changes to amounts and close dates. In the Opportunities List View and Kanban view, text colors and arrows indicate amounts and close dates that changed during the last 7 days. And users can hover over an arrow to get detail. This is especially helpful for sales managers, as this brings awareness to updates in the sales funnel.

Dynamic Forms Enables Improved Page Layouts

We’re especially excited over this feature. The main premise is to create intuitive page layouts that display the right information at the right time.

You can now place fields anywhere on the layout instead of only being able to add them to the Details tab. You can now remove multiple page layouts and use visibility rules to make components appear based on your criteria.

Salesforce Anywhere

Salesforce Anywhere is a new app that brings alerts, chats, comments, and video in a unified view as a way to improve collaboration within Salesforce, which is increasingly important amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the monolithic move to remote work.

Users can collaborate on records and get updates on their reports in real time without having to draw you into another tab or window. Additionally, this update came with an iOS app for better accessibility. Use this link to enable your org, but keep in mind that it’s still in beta stages.

In-App Guidance

With the Winter ‘21 release, it will now be possible to display In-App Guidance on the creation/modification/clone record screens; another new feature is the ability to customize the colors of the guides.

Analyze Your Page Performance

Identify ways to make your record page perform better based on analysis right inside the Lightning App Builder. Performance Analysis in App Builder evaluates the fields, instances of the Related Lists component and metadata of a record page. This feature will help you get the best practices and suggestions for improving page performance and the end-user experience.

Access and Manage Deleted Fields

You can now manage deleted fields in Lightning Experience. In previous releases, you could only manage a deleted field and its data by switching to Salesforce Classic.

Now there’s a new button that you can access from the Fields and Relationships option of an object called Deleted Fields. You’ll be able to see your deleted fields and find them by Label, API Name or Type.

Display Survey Pages Based on Your Data

Now you can use your data in Salesforce to determine which Survey Page participants view next. Now you can use variables to define conditions in your page branching logic, as well as associated record merge field variables and participant record merge field variables to define field-level conditions. Additionally, you’ll be able to use org variables to define conditions based on your organization’s information.

Schedule Salesforce Optimizer

Salesforce Optimizer helps admins to keep org customizations clean and simple. You now have the ease of setting this program to run automatically every month to ensure minor changes are not having a detrimental impact, so you can act on them before things accumulate and generate a larger mess in the future.

Debug Flow As a Specific User Within the Org

Now you’ll be able to debug a Flow as any specific user within your org, making the Flow testing process much faster and easier for every user. To activate this function, ‘User Impersonation’ must be enabled in Process Automation Settings.

Is Your Org Ready for the Next Release?

At Shift3 Technologies, we use a consultative approach to help you determine the best strategy to identify your challenges, implement appropriate solutions and enhance your systems. Need to rekindle your users’ love for Salesforce? Check out this 5-minute read. For a free consultation, click here. 
This post was written by Celeste A. Barron, Content Development Manager for Shift3 Technologies. You can find her nodding off twenty minutes into playing Animal Crossing New Horizons.