Salesforce Winter ‘21 release highlights

The entire industry awaited the Salesforce Winter ‘21 release with great anticipation and excitement. We all know that every Salesforce update brings not only improvements that make the life of users, administrators and developers easier, but also always introduces new cutting-edge features that add significant business value and bring technological disruption to the market.

Today, we share with you the most interesting features from the latest release!

Lightning flow update

Great news for the administrators and developers – the Flows will now be more robust, due to a brand new feature which will automatically fire a flow on deletion of a record. Until now, this was only possible by manually creating a specially dedicated Apex trigger, requiring the engagement of a developer. Now it will be possible to complete this action effortlessly by an administrator.

The entire process is pretty straightforward. The user needs to create a new record Flow, select the layout, choose Record Trigger Flow type, select the object of the firing trigger, find the related case records and then simply delete them.

What is important to note, is that the flow will be able to perform any operation before the record deletion is fired and achieved. Introducing this new functionality makes it possible to seamlessly and quickly delete a large recordset, which will significantly simplify everyday operations, saving developers’ time and consequently customer’s resources.

Einstein Lead & Opportunity Scoring

All the users of Salesforce Einstein will be able to experience the incredible benefits of Lead & Opportunity scoring, as it now becomes generally available without any additional fees.

Contrary to the typical rule-based scoring, Einstein utilizes Artificial Intelligence and machine learning mechanisms to keep track and predict the best business opportunities for clients. This feature is very precise as it operates with large data assets analyzing all of the records and history of previously closed opportunities, as well as other related records. Furthermore, they are regularly recalculated to ensure excellent accuracy.

Scores are counted for every opportunity individually, assigning a number that signifies the likelihood of closing that particular deal. Conveniently, the user can get access to the top positive and top negative factors drawn from their CRM that contributed to said scores. Gathered in opportunity records and opportunity list views, they can be sorted by the highest lead score. In effect, customers can utilize this information to strategize and train their staff to focus on tackling the most prospective deals.

This feature is a quintessential example of how Salesforce empowers businesses as it’s capabilities directly influence a particular strategy and specific business decisions, which in the end, can tangibly make a positive impact on their global revenue.

Salesforce Anywhere

Being a digital leader, Salesforce has always been incomparable at reacting to the current market needs. With the challenges that 2020 brought and the way it affected the work environment, tools that promote the flexibility of remote work locations are a much-needed solution. A brand new release – Salesforce Anywhere is an app that supports connection and collaboration within the Salesforce environment to boost productivity despite the workspace situation.

Available for a variety of devices, it provides user-friendly team communications within the regular workflow through real-time alerts, chat or video calling despite employee dispersion. Most importantly, it offers contextual cooperation through messages on specific records, accounts or opportunity pages, eliminating the need for screen sharing. Importantly it can be continued within the context of a specific case despite the time span. This way everyone can effortlessly stay up to date with all the day-to-day operations, and all the needed information is stored in one place.

This new Salesforce innovation not only saves time and accelerates processes but also leverages team management, as it provides an easy way of exchanging feedback, drawing attention to particular cases and generating instant actions through direct notifications.

Interactive Email Builder

More good news for the Salesforce users! Now they can easily build engaging email templates using Lightning directly in Salesforce with the new Email Template Builder. This user-friendly visual tool simplifies email creation by eliminating the need for the HTML code, providing drag-and-drop template components that are designed to be as engaging as possible.

The process is effortless, you simply need to establish a Lightning email template and then click the Edit in Builder button. Then use the prebuilt block elements to assemble a template that will resonate with your customers. Now you are just a couple of clicks away from the professionally composed finished product, enabling you to preview your content to ensure it is compelling enough.

As professional communication with customers is a vital aspect of building and nurturing customer relationships, this improvement is yet another great addition that will make the life of administrators easier.

Salesforce Surveys

Another element that was significantly upgraded is Salesforce Surveys. Its brand new capabilities will make collecting data and essential feedback much more effective.

The new enhancements will now allow you to:

• display survey pages based on your data by determining variables and conditions based on your specific requirements
• customize survey questions within the email to give it a personal touch
• send an email survey invitation up to 300 participants
• exchange survey templates with your teammates
• easily change the order of survey questions
• save translations from the copied survey
• automatically adapt communications to the right-to-left language user
• adjustment to the recipients’ request to not receive invitation emails
• notification of your email limits
• experience a new single selection question design

Everyone will appreciate these improvements, as not only will they make gathering the information a more seamless process, it will also create a more positive interaction with customers.

These are just the highlights of Salesforce Winter ‘21 release

As always, Salesforce has a lot more in store for its users and these are the most important enhancements. If you would like to know more about any additional updates, do not hesitate to get in touch. We will be happy to guide you through the new additions and offer specific recommendations for your industry or business.

Mitesh Mistry
Head of Architecture
VRP Consulting UK

About the Author

Mitesh Mistry is Head of Architecture and Enterprise architecture lead for VRP Consulting. Part of the VRPConsulting UKI team, Mitesh started working with Salesforce back in 2009 climbing the ranks from developer to Certified Technical Architect.