Our top 5 features in Salesforce Winter '21
Winter ’21 is right around the corner with some updates that will make some users really happy.
Read to learn about our top 5 features in the release, and refer to the links at the end for full-release resources from Salesforce.
Interactively Create Email Templates
This first feature is probably the most exciting for the most users. With Winter ’21, users with email permissions will have the coolest tool to create templates without using any HTML. This drag-and-drop feature allows you to compose email templates and add design elements exactly where you want them.
To try this feature, find the Edit in Builder button available after creating a Lightning email template; you can then Choose a component (1) and drag it to the canvas (2). Use the properties panel to change the details and style of the component, and to merge fields (3).
Auto Add Fields to Custom Report Types
If you ever built custom report types, you know how time consuming it is to add each of your custom fields to your custom reports every time. With Winter ’21 and a little bit of Setup work, you can now have these custom fields automatically added to your custom reports, saving you a whole lot of time and effort (beta).
All custom fields for the Salesforce object are automatically included in the Fields list, and you can drag any of them to the Columns list.
Optimize your org for your users
Optimizer is a tool for Admins that got a major makeover in Summer ’20. It helps you assess the overall health of your org and identify areas for improvement. It can give you insights regarding field usage (what your users are actually using or not), suggestions for page layouts and validation rules, and other fixes/enhancements specific to your org—all laid out in order of priority (pretty cool).
With Winter ’21, you can now have Optimizer run automatically on a monthly basis to make sure you catch any minor changes and correct any issues before they get out of hand.
Along with the scheduled Optimizer reports, you can now Analyze your Lightning Pages to ensure peak performance for your users. This tool will identify what may be causing longer load times and give you ideas on how to improve the user experience by creating a more efficient layout.
Dynamic Forms and Actions: Part 2
Dynamic Forms and Actions were introduced in their beta version in the Summer ’20 release; Winter ’21 makes them generally available with some changes.
To recap: Dynamic Forms are a tool to interactively customize your Lightning page layouts with features such as inter-field dependencies, which allows you to display sections of the page depending on the data in another field. For the time being, Dynamic Forms are available only for custom objects, but they will become available for standard objects in future releases, eventually replacing the page layouts we are used to.
Similarly, Dynamic Actions allow admins to hide or display actions when a record meets a specified criteria. For instance, you could choose to display a specific action when (say) an Opportunity record reaches a certain stage, or when a specific checkbox is checked for a contact.
With Winter ’21, Dynamic Actions are now available (in beta) for some standard objects in their desktop layout! You can try them out for Accounts, Cases, Contacts, Leads, and Opportunities. You can also now do custom objects for mobile. Click here to learn how.
Flow Updates
One last upgrade definitely worth mentioning is the Flow Updates. This isn’t a feature that every Salesforce user will benefit from (only flow-building Admins), but I guarantee everyone will love what’s coming!
With the Winter ’21 updates, Flows will be a lot more easy on the eyes 👀. They’ll also have the ability to be triggered upon deletion and give you a lot more control of Flow launch, decisions, queries, and filters, among other things.
You can also now debug a Flow as another user in Sandbox, which will simplify unit and user testing for anyone developing for users with different permission sets. Note that this feature is only available for screen flows in nonproduction orgs.
There’s a lot more in Winter ’21 that was not covered in this post, so I definitely recommend going through the Salesforce Winter '21 Release Notes for a thorough and exhaustive list and explanation of all the new features.
Winter '21 Release in a Box will give a downloadable quick view of all the new features. And, if you prefer demos, you can binge watch these short videos showcasing each of the new features, or pick and choose which ones you want to view.