Salesforce Announce the Upcoming Features in the Winter ’22 Release
While some may still be on their summer holidays, Salesforce has given us a preview of what’s to come this winter with the hottest new features and upgrades in the Winter ’22 release. From flow updates and default Einstein Search to a Mobile App refresh and numerous Cloud Updates, there’s plenty of exciting new features to explore and overall upgrades to enjoy.
So far, we’ve been able to join the Release Readiness Trailblazers Community and Sign up for the pre-release environment to gain access to a login for a new Winter ’22 trial account. Now with the announcement of the Winter ’22 release notes we have our first insight into the new features heading our way and the impact they will have on the various clouds.
Here’s a summary of the new features we’re most excited about from the Winter ’22 release notes.
Flow Updates
Flows are a fan favourite function of most Salesforce admin users, allowing you to build code-like logic and automate business processes to save your end users’ time. New editions and updates include new roll back records element, debugging enhancements for record-triggered flow and record-triggered flow start element changes to name just a few.
Smarter Searching with Einstein Search
While Einstein has been a popular feature in Salesforce for several years, now everyone can benefit from the AI powered, smart search by default and at no extra charge in Lightning experience.
Mobile App Refresh
Salesforce users can now get more on the go from the Salesforce mobile app. Providing a more personalised landing page, the mobile home can be customised with dynamic cards displaying the information most important to the user. Meanwhile Briefcase Builder helps make offline record data available in a more flexible, easy to use way that is responsive to the user’s needs.
Pardot
Getting started with Pardot has just got a lot easier with the help from the new setup assistant in Marketing Setup but the enhancements don’t stop there. The new drag and drop editor in the Pardot Lightning app allows landing pages to be created in just a few clicks while Engagement Studio now also supports drag and drop builder emails. Overall upgrading the Marketer experience with extensibility enhancements and mailability improvements.
Cloud Updates
Plenty of new features are being introduced across the various clouds further improving user experience and efficiency for users. These include setting custom filters for better visibility using Pipeline Inspection within Sales Cloud, new Incident Management in Service Cloud allowing teams to diagnose root causes and resolve incidents faster as well as Salesforce Billing updates to help smooth out the invoicing process within CPQ, among many others.
For more information and to read about all the news features due to launch, check out the full Winter ’22 release notes here.
What Next?
There is still plenty of updates to come before the final release weekend on October 8th and 9th, but in the meantime, here are a few dates to add to your diary!
August 26: Get early access to test the new features and configurations ahead of the upgrade with your sandbox. As long as you have an active sandbox on a preview instance before August 26th 2021 you’ll get the Winter ’22 preview.
August 27 and 28: If you’re taking advantage of the sandbox preview your chosen sandboxes will be upgraded to Winter ’22. Test out the new features using a configuration that matches your production environment without impacting your live environment.
August 27: Winter ’22 Release site goes live! Take a look at the demo videos, Trailhead modules, community forums, and more to learn about the new features.
September 10: First release weekend where Salesforce and a small number of customers get upgraded. For those primed for the upgrade with their key features earmarked, check out the Release Readiness Trailblazers group for the content you need to get your organisation’s users up to speed on the new features you plan to rollout.
September 10 to 17: The Salesforce admin and developer evangelists kick off the Winter ’22 Release with a live broadcast. Sharing their favourite features along with discussions and demos, it’s the perfect opportunity to see how the updates work in real time.
October 1: Second release weekend where the upgrade is deployed to another set of instances. The latest information on the timings of the upgrade will be available on the Salesforce Trust page. The impact should be minimal to operations and uptime as it only takes five minutes.
October 8 and 9: Final release weekend means all remaining Salesforce instances will be upgraded including all orgs in the sandbox preview.
With so many exciting updates on the horizon do get in contact with us if you would like further advice and support.
